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Divergence, the debut album from GHOSTSEEKER was a very long time coming. They started writing the songs up to four years ago, and at this point, they just want them to be put out into the world. While the Australian metalcore band had high hopes but low expectations for this release, the response has exceeded beyond what they could have anticipated. We caught up with guitarist Tim Campey to check in on the whirlwind that has been the release week for Divergence.
“It’s definitely been very interesting. The response we’ve gotten so far has been absolutely crazy, like 100,000 streams in one week. It’s been mental. We love reading the feedback. It’s good to see your hard work getting noticed.”
While not your typical definition of a supergroup, in a lot of ways, GHOSTSEEKER could be put in that category. In 2018, members Celeste, Cory and Tim were in a band called LETTERS TO AMARA, and when that fizzled out, they were left at a crossroad. They could have easily called it a day and moved on, but after a small bit of consideration, it was clear they had more to give. Enlisting the help of drummer Dan Gay, from ANYONE ANYONE, and Daniel Breen on heavy vocals, GhostSeeker was born. Tim explains, “We asked ‘what do we want to do? Do we want to stop? We want to keep going.’”
All together, they wrote their debut EP with producer Ionei Heckenberg in two days, and the chemistry and talent was undeniable. Their next release has definitely taken longer to write and finalise, but the confidence and pride the band have in it makes the wait worth it. “It all kind of came together as we were writing. It’s 70% concept, 30% just us having fun. We didn’t really intend on the whole concept idea at first, but we realised that this is actually a really cool idea, like let’s just roll with it and build a fantasy world and tell a different story.” The album details a post-apocalyptic world where AI has taken over and destroyed everything. They wanted to explore the effects of AI on both sides of the coin, and for the band, it was too relevant of a topic to not delve into. While the album doesn’t take a completely solid stance either way on the effects of AI, it debates the benefits as well as the harm, and raises possibly more questions than answers.
The one thing GHOSTSEEKER knew from the beginning of writing this album was that they wanted a challenge. There was a balance between taking everything even further than they did on the EP, and maintaining the notion that this is a new band, with a new sound, and a new name. Tim acknowledges that while the kind of music might not be necessarily new to many people, for the members of the band, it was nothing they’d ever done before. Tim explains, “For the guitars, I wanted them to be a little bit harder, and I wanted the noises to be a lot weirder. And Daniel, he sings in some of this album, which he’s never done before. The main driving point was just pushing ourselves, doing something different for us and having fun with it.”
For a lot of new bands, it takes some time for the members to become comfortable enough with each other to begin experimenting and pushing each other, but for GHOSTSEEKER, they never seemed to have this issue. This could be partly down to some of the members having a previous friendship, or because they just have that drive to be better, but it works. Tim says, “Because we’re all friends, we get to be a bit pushy with each other because we know our boundaries a bit more. That’s our dynamic, if someone doesn’t like something, they’ll make it known. But it’s all in good fun.”
Writing and recording Divergence was a very deliberately long process, and the band knew they didn’t want to rush any of it in any way, because it was so important to them that they got it right. Tim defines the process as “One of the best experiences I’ve ever had. We’re working with Ionei [Heckenberg] from OCEAN SLEEPER, and this guy just makes every session fun. No matter how tired you are, or how stressed you are, he just makes it fun somehow. It’s always just a super positive experience.” Before they got fully into the swing of it, the band had some challenges writing Metempsychoses, the first song they wrote for the album. Tim explains that even to this day, he has many different variations of the song saved on his computer, and that it took some time to discover exactly what sound they wanted to go for. “We were just trying to push the boundaries. But it gets to a point where you know you’re done. I’m just gonna leave it and hope for the best. After you’ve done 1000 retakes, it’s really just the feeling, when you go, I’m enjoying playing this.”
Though there isn’t anything currently in the works, Tim makes it clear that one of the bands biggest goals is to tour the UK. GHOSTSEEKER love playing live, and they make it their mission to switch it up at every show. Tim explains, “Celeste and Daniel like to put on a performance, they’ll keep you guessing. They’ll get very dramatic and theatrical, then the next show Daniel will jump into the most pit, moshing with people.” While it seems as though everyone should catch a GHOSTSEEKER show at some point, in the meantime, the band just wants everyone to have a good time listening to the album. Tim says, “We had a fantastic time recording this album, and we really hope it translates across the songs. Even though some of them are quite serious, we still had fun doing it. We purposely laid out the songs so that no two tracks sound identical, and all the songs have different genre influences. Everything’s a bit different.”
Divergence is out now via RPM ROAR. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS121 here:
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The post GhostSeeker: New Band. New Sound. New Start. appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
