21\/3\/24. York, UK. As the clock strikes midnight, Ghostship band crack open a bottle of Tesco\u2019s finest three pound prosecco, ready to spray it about like formula one drivers in celebration of the release of their third single, Milly. The four-piece band have joined a crowded market, playing indie-rock and alternative covers as well as their own funkier tunes. The band reflect on how they got to be up and coming performers on the York music scene. Joe\u2019s answer is simple: \u201cJust being ruddy good mates.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Chemistry seems to be the band\u2019s proudest attribute. Musical chemistry both onstage and in the studio, was born from a solid, existing friendship at the start of their university courses. Joe, Dan, Wriggey and Joel live together in the suburbs of York and rarely spend a day not thinking about the band. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMe and Wriggey (guitarist) met on the bus. I saw he was listening to Jimmy Hendrix and I thought well this guy probably plays guitar.\u201d Joe explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI also met Dan on the bus but he never said he could play drums.\u201d Who knew the buses of York would be such a shop window for budding musicians? <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMe, Wriggey and Dan would put a song and he\u2019d say \u2018oh I can drum to this\u2019 and we\u2019d just be like what the fuck are you on about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne day we just sort of pulled him up on the idea, went to the studio and Dan played drums, I played bass and Wriggey played guitar.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n And so once Dan decided he could drum, the project got underway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Advancing through York University\u2019s battle of the bands, Ghostship won the opportunity to play after Scouting for Girls<\/em><\/strong> at an end of year University ball. Organising band practice is as simple as knocking on each other\u2019s rooms and plugging in, the only barrier being an unlikely complaint from equally noisy student neighbours. Enthusiasm from the members soon snowballed into a real hunger for success.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was this kind of total immersion in their music that turned the boys\u2019 attention to a full album, \u2018Freshly squeezed for every last drop\u2019. Of course with this approach to song-writing, they do sometimes argue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDay one was when we first tried to record our song Milly, probably about May last year. So we\u2019re coming on to almost a year of the entire process. That was just together us three trying our hand at mixing. We thought the recording was not doing the song justice and thought we could do better basically.\u201d Dan\u2019s retelling of the original album work sums up the perfectionist attitude the band have carried throughout the album making process. \u201cGetting 60% of an album to a finished album is way more work than you\u2019d think. When we felt we\u2019d done 60% of it it suddenly became clear we\u2019d actually only done about a quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ghostship booked out York University studios and continued the album, Joe explained \u201cWe started on a different song called overdue, maybe about a week later. That was the first thing we did that ended up on the final album\u2026 that\u2019s actually probably our least favourite song now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe then got drums for Milly again, decided to have another crack at that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n It turns out having a studio is quite an essential tool to making an album. Cutting costs and using the tools available to them meant Joe and the rest of the Ghostship had to exploit loopholes to make the most of studio time: \u201cWe would book it at times where nobody would have it after and just go long into the night and stay there for long after.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n By a long time after, Joe meant regularly finishing up in the early hours of the morning, really exhausting their musical reserves: \u201cDriving back at like 4am, just cracking the most unhinged bits because we were just sleep deprived and working for like ten hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was realistically just very good fun, working on into the night it felt like we were achieving a lot at times.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unsurprisingly, this pattern of working led to some wacky decisions and rising tensions as well as a great deal of success. Dan describes the fading in and fading at the end of their track, Milly, as one of these sleep deprived moments of madness: \u201cWe\u2019d just finished recording MIlly and had this mad idea to fade it out and fade it in again. And there was a goofy twenty minutes where we were just working on that and had a few beers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe idea of a song fading out, and then you think its finished and then it fades back up again. For some reason after like 4 beers at the height of summer that was the funniest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The boys resorted to what Dan described as a \u2018feast and famine\u2019 approach to making the album after some hairy patches in production. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe and Dan have seemingly cracked how to push Wriggey\u2019s buttons and revealed a time where a pesky section of rhythm guitar ate away at their friendship for a couple of hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWriggey was trying to do this part where every take was a bit rushed. On the 28th time he attempted it and Dan chimed in with \u2018that was a bit rushed\u2019 he just lost the plot. A moment where it all felt like it might reach breaking point.\u201d Joe explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe reiterated that they do largely get on regardless of the odd sweary outbreak. This just seems to be part and parcel of living with bandmates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe announced a change of strategy to combat such freak circumstances: \u201cThere were moments in the studio where we just weren\u2019t getting anything done. Slowly starting to hate each other and hate what we\u2019d created and just think the whole thing was a complete waste of time. We decided just to do it in bursts. We would do it for like 5 or 6 days in a row and then have a massive break where we didn\u2019t see each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou just write yourself off for that week, you\u2019re not going to see the world for that week.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The studios closed briefly for the summer in a situation which offered the boys a potentially crucial break from the album work – one which they obviously did not take. Joe recalls the period where they attempted to transform their home into a DIY studio: \u201cWe managed to borrow some equipment and lived in our house. We recorded guitars, vocals and bass parts all in our own house and another song called Helping Hand.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Cables ran through the house in an effort to avoid what Dan referred to as \u2018ugly acoustics\u2019. Total immersion in the music really peaked at this point with the lads climbing over amps and microphone stands to make a coffee in the morning. Joe explained: \u201cIt was just the loosest recording process ever, literally just have a few beers and do a vocal take.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was playing guitar and singing in a completely different room to where Dan and Wriggey were standing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDan just came out of the room and was like \u2018that was the one, that was the take, we\u2019re using that one.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The final pieces in \u2018Freshly squeezed for every last drop\u2019 came together at the height of summer 2023. The boys described a beautiful week of glorious rays of British summer, playing headers and volleys in studio breaks where Joe discovered: \u201cWriggey is very decent, he\u2019s got a very good strike on him\u201d and a sweet streak where everything musically just seemed to click together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During satisfying post-studio beers in the sun, the boys had the chance to reflect on their roles. Joe saw it as a balanced writing process: \u201cIt is kind of a split. Pure writing wise the original ideas for the songs is kind of Wriggey or me. Lyrics is a combination. Very much team effort, even creatively.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Playing gigs alongside this workload, Ghostship are steadily growing their name in the York music scene much to Joe\u2019s delight: \u201cOur best performing moment was at The Roses, which is the York and Lancaster university varsity event. We were asked to play the opening ceremony.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere were probably two or three thousand people and they had like eight to ten massive speakers lined up. We were just playing and echoing through those speakers. I remember being at the soundcheck to that and just singing and hearing my voice reverberate around what felt like this arena. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt felt insane to hear my voice projected that loud and that far.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you are playing to a lot of people the individuality of people sort of gets blurred and so it doesn\u2019t actually feel like you are playing to anybody. A crowd of 100 is almost worse, then you can see people\u2019s faces.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Graduation from York university is looming over the Ghostship. It seems studying has given them a lifestyle that enables chasing musical ambition, but the real world is about to come knocking. The lads plan to relocate to Leeds and break onto the musical scene in a brand new city, still living together, still making music together. Joe is thoroughly looking forward to the opportunity: \u201cLeeds is a no brainer, we couldn\u2019t not do this. We owe it to the work we\u2019ve put in so far to just really give it a go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow us on Instagram<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> and Tiktok<\/a> for more content!<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jusmedia.co.uk\/echoes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2024\/04\/Capture.png\")
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