Ghouls

UK Alt-Punk Rockers GHOULS are heading down under for their first Australian co-headline Tour, sharing the run will be Australia’s own FOXBLOOD. Both bands will travel the country for the No Better Place To Be Tour this April. The band drop their brand new single Internet Famous. It presents a highly relevant theme to todays era and delivers a strong message. Frontman Benedict Goold shares his view with Hi Fi Way: The Pop Chronicles about the single.

First Australian tour, how excited is the band to get down here?
Like you would not believe. I still can’t quite believe it’s really happening all because of playing in this band – It’s amazing. It won’t seem real until we’re getting on that plane.

What have you heard about Australian audiences?
Well from what I know of Australians in general, you guys can certainly throw a party. There’s no exception to whenever we’ve hung out with Aussie bands either. We’re all about having a good time at our shows, loosening up and using the body to its full potential – so hopefully Australia is feeling like getting a bit rowdy.

What can fans expect on this tour?
Expect to see 5 guys who can’t quite believe they have made it all the way to the other side of the earth, having the best time and many adventures. We’ll be riding nothing but good vibes so expect good vibes and good times.

The new single Internet Famous has some strong lyrical content. Has social media frustrated you no end?
I’m sure most people can relate when I say social media causes a lot of problems. For me personally, it’s caused issues in a time when I wasn’t very high of mind. There’s plenty of fake celebrities on social media that, when you compare yourself to, it seems you’re going nowhere but the brutal reality is that most of these people aren’t even real. Those that are, just post their life highlight reel but behind the scenes there’s a completely different story. There’s also a lot of misleading and false information online, for someone who isn’t rationalising information very well – its poison.

Did it take a while to fill the void with something more meaningful?
For me, not at all. I removed myself completely from the internet and found more time for doing all the things I enjoy doing in real life. I’m an avid runner, swimmer and all round health dude – I found more time for drawing, reading and also having ACTUAL REAL LIFE conversations. It’s also so refreshing to not be in the middle of something/somewhere really cool and not feel the need to pull my phone out to upload it to social media – just enjoy being there.

Do you think your message is getting through?
To be honest, we’re too far gone with social media and its definitely something that can be positive – and even necessary. I am myself back on social media but having the time away has definitely made me appreciate time away from it. I use it a lot less and I would encourage others to do the same.

How has the band’s sound evolved?
Like anything that you do over a period of time, its gone from strength to strength. We’ve definitely all progressed as musicians, changes in our personal lives have had affect and we’ve learnt how to write songs together – learning how each of us work. I think the best thing, as we’ve come on, is that we’ve gotten more and more honest with our sound. We never set out to have a certain sound when we started, only that we knew it would be something unique and original but that didn’t mean that we stuck to certain formulas that we felt worked – these days we’re much more experimental in what we include and do when it comes to writing and recording songs.

How is album number four shaping up?
Well, there’s plenty of songs in the works! I think our next body of work – be it an album or whatever – we’ll be thinking of a way of releasing it in a unique way. The concept of an album in the sense of releasing ten to fifteen songs all in one go seems to be less and less relevant with how quick it is to access music now. I guess it’ll depend on budget etc. but it would be great to do some cool things with videos etc. We’ll see…

What’s the next challenge for Ghouls?
To keep these adventures going – we’ve achieved a lot for a band who are still relatively unknown in terms of the mainstream circuit; we don’t get much radio play and we don’t work with any major label or bookings – it’s still very DIY. If we can keep riding the wave we seem to have caught then I think we’ll be on to even more exciting things. Musically and creatively, we’ll be releasing more this year – look out for it! See you soon Australia!

Interview by Rob Lyon

Catch Ghouls on the following dates…