Take a ride with The Ghastly Ones

Let's start with introductions, who are the Ghastly Ones?

- Garrett "Dr. Lehos" guitar, Kevin "Go-Go Ghostly bass,
Dave "Captain Clegg" keyboards and me, Norman "Baron Shivers" drums.
And last but certainly not least, is our lovely go-go ghoul, Necrobella.
We started the band to combine our two favorite things,
horror movies and surf music.
We wanted to sound as if the Munsters had a surf band.

Your debut album was released through Rob Zombie´s label,
share some details about this deal.

- Rob hired me originally to build props and monster suits for his stage
and videos back when he was doing White Zombie.
I told him I had a surf band that sounded like
a cross between The Ventures and The Munsters and he was very intrigued by the concept. After playing him our rehearsal tape he came to see a show and really dug it.
He started his label to help us put out our record.

So little about your music, I sense a scooby-do-ish vibe going on there,
am I close or off track?

- Yeah, the original Scooby Doo is great.
We're definitely inspired by that kind of stuff.
Pretty much anything from the sixties that's spooky is big with us.

Your music is mainly instrumental, have you thought about doing an album
with vocals?

- We always put at least a couple of vocals on our album
but there's already plenty of bands that do vocals.
We like the idea of creating a story using music not words.

You shot a video of Haulin Hearse, what was that like?

- That was a blast to shoot. We shot most of it near Griffith Park in L.A.
Shooting stuff in L.A. is cool because no one cares that
you're dressed in top hats and capes in the middle of summer
and a go-go girl is leaping out of the back of a hearse
and doing the watusi as cars drive by!

The Ghastly Ones have a new CD coming out, what can we expect?

- On the last album the theme was "Haunted House Party".
We don't like to repeat ourselves so the new one has a more sci-fi edge
but still very much a horror vibe to it.
Kind of like "Frankenstein meets the Space Monster".

1996 was the year when Ghastly Ones was formed, sum it up, best and worst
experiences?

- I could write a book about that!
But if I were to narrow it down, one of the coolest things was
opening for The Brian Setzer Orchestra at The Warfield in San Francisco.
And the worst thing was losing my grandma
who I was very close to the same month
the CD came out.

Horror movies have obviously inspired you guys, what else inspires you?

- Hot Rods, Surf Culture, Skateboarding, Russ Meyer movies,
Drive-ins, and exploitation and trash culture of the 50's and 60's to name just a few.
This list could be a dozen pages long if I put everything!

Ghastly Ones made music for Spongebob, that must have been fun, could you
tell us more about it?

- Steve Hillenburg, the creator of Spongebob really dug our band
and he just called us up. Pretty simple.
They gave us a copy of the Halloween special without music or sound FX
and we wrote stuff to the action on the screen. That was a great experience.
We also got to redo the Spongebob theme done Ghastly Ones style.
If you pick up the DVD that's available in stores you'll see they cut a
Spongebob music video to our version of the theme.

Following the previous question, favourite cartoons?

- When I was a kid I really liked Milton the Monster, Johnnie Quest,
Speed Racer, and all the Warner Bros.' Chuck Jones and
Tex Avery stuff just to name a few.
I still get a kick out of watching those even to this day.
Pure Genius.

My hearse is calling, thank you for the interview, any last words to our
readers?

- Stay Ghoul!

All text contained herein; © 2006-2007 Talesfromtheshadows. All Rights Reserved.