Photo Credit: Ruvan Wijesooriya
NYC natives Holy Ghost! have been keeping busy with remixing basically any band you’ve danced to lately (Cut Copy, Friendly Fires, Mark Ronson), DJ-ing across the globe, and now have their self-titled debut album come April 12th. Sticking to the DFA label’s brand of analog and electro-tinged disco-funk, Alex Frankel and Nick Millhiser are supporting their debut with a full band tour opening for Cut Copy, which brings them to sold-out shows at the 9:30 Club this Tuesday (3/29) and Wednesday (3/30). Their new track “Wait & See” premiered earlier today.
Nick Millhiser chats with TVD Contributor BQ Nguyen about their start, influences, and why his boss’ band, LCD Soundsystem, is the best.
Holy Ghost! | Wait & See
TVD: So you guys have 20 dates opening for Cut Copy between Europe and their North American tour; I assume you’ve been friends since they recorded In Ghost Colours at DFA with Tim Goldsworthy a few years ago.
NM: Yeah, they came to New York to do their last record with Tim, and I met them, I believe, on their first day in New York because they needed to borrow a drum set to use on their record. So I loaned Tim and them one of my kits. After that, with the Juan MacLean we did a pretty long tour in Australia opening for them and so we’ve gotten to know them pretty well over the years.
TVD: But your first live gig as a 4-piece band was just last May at Under 100 in NYC?
NM: Yep. Since then we were basically on tour up until early December and had a little break until recently. Although the past month has been pretty busy gearing up for the release of the record, and we spent a fair amount of time re-tinkering the live set.
TVD: When you and Alex were much younger and playing music together, did you know it was something you wanted to pursue as far as you have?
NM: We didn’t go to school for music, but for a long as I can remember, I remember wanting to do this. It never really dawned on me that I should have a backup plan, especially because our band Automato got signed while we were still in high school. It really wasn’t until after Automato kind of fell apart, that was the first time where I was like, ‘Hmm, I’m never going to make a living doing this.’ And sort of by luck when we weren’t really looking and no longer on a major label, being on DFA, this independent vinyl label, all of a sudden it became clear out of nowhere that we did have a career. So yeah, as a kid that’s all I can remember, was wanting to be a musician. But now that I’m older and jaded… (jokes)
TVD: What are some of the influences behind this debut album?
NM: We were learning as we went, trying to decide what we wanted Holy Ghost! to be. Our influences are anything and everything. We both have as varied taste as anybody our age, I think. But I think with the record, we were trying to do a culmination or median of everything we’ve done before. Aesthetically, we’re definitely influenced by dance music, and song-wise, we’re more sort of traditional pop songs as opposed to club tracks. We’re both children of the ’80s, so we grew up loving Michael Jackson and Talking Heads, so that sort of pop influenced us as much as weirder, older disco records. Also, Gavin Russom and Delia Cruz’s Days of Mars record is certainly one of my favorite records DFA ever put out and was a huge influence on Alex and I when we first started.
TVD: There are a handful of collaborations on your album. How did they come together?
NM: They all happened quite organically. Alex and I never thought ‘This song needs a special guest.’ Alex and I do almost everything on the recordings ourselves and pride ourselves on that, but we’re also not precious about bringing in people when we need help. So a lot of the collaborations on the record came about when there was something we felt we couldn’t do on our own.
For example, the song that Luke Jenner from the Rapture sings back up vocals on, the hook to the song is in a really high register, and Alex basically had to sing the chorus in a sort of Bee Gees falsetto which sounded good, but it was hard to make the chorus feel big while he was singing in falsetto. We were racking our brains for anybody that could sing that high in their main voice. At some point, I thought ‘Luke from the Rapture.’ Luke has this amazingly high-pitched voice. He came by the studio, listened to it once and did it in 10 minutes flat. Chris Glover from Penguin Prison has an amazing voice and much in the same way that Steely Dan or big bands from the ’70s would bring in really amazing singers to make parts of songs feel bigger, Chris Glover was kind of like our secret weapon.
TVD: You named your band after a Bar-Kays song you both really like. Is there a song you wish you had written?
NM: Man, there are a ton of songs I wish I had written. This may sound like a weird one, but “Stillness is the Move” by Dirty Projectors. That song is so good and so simple that the first time I heard it, it sounded instantly familiar in a way that it felt like not necessarily something that we could write, but something one of my friends would’ve written. I remember the first time I heard it, I had this strong emotion of really loving it but also being really kind of mad that someone I knew didn’t write it.
TVD: Yeah, that’s a beautiful song. What other music are you into right now?
NM: All of the Midnight Magic stuff is awesome. They are an awesome, awesome band, and their full-length record is going to be really great. I’m doing a remix for them for the song “Drop the Line.” The new Shit Robot record, I guess it’s not brand new anymore, but that’s been on repeat since it came out. I’m really bad about staying up on current music.
TVD: Speaking of Shit Robot, I love his track “Take ‘Em Up” he did with LCD Soundsystem’s Nancy Whang. I heard that Holy Ghost! did a track with her called “Changes.” When can we expect to hear that?
NM: I don’t know if it will come out. That was one of the earliest things we ever did. It was so early that the reason Nancy sang on it, it was before Alex settled into the idea that he was comfortable singing himself. Alex wrote all the vocals and the melody, and we asked Nancy to sing it. We’ll definitely do more stuff with Nancy. She sings backup vocals on the Friendly Fires cover we did of “On Board.”
TVD: Tell me about being in the DFA family and the difference of being on a major label (Capitol) and on a label run by musicians like James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy.
NM: Getting back to what I was saying about Automato, when we made that record with James and Tim, we were on a major label. And while we certainly worked with a lot of great people at the time, it was immensely frustrating. On one hand to have this excruciating and frustrating typical major label experience while at the same time spending everyday, all day, working in the studio with James and Tim and watch them run this amazing independent label that just seemed so much more efficient as a label. Aside from the fact that it’s great, that it’s run by artists, almost everyone on the label are close friends, and you really don’t have any arguments whatsoever. There would never be a discussion at DFA about “Where’s the hit?” or “We think you need a single” or even them questioning the music you that you want to put out at all.
Major labels are just run so poorly. Getting anything done on a major is so incredibly slow. Obviously there are advantages; they have a lot more money and whatnot. With DFA, it’s great being on a label that in some ways is so small and getting an answer from someone or having a discussion about a release or artwork or anything is just a matter of picking up the phone or walking into the office. Yes, it’s obviously also great being on a label that’s run by your friends, and all the other bands on your label are your friends, and we all collaborate together. It’s really fun. I’ve gotten so accustomed to it, and it’s a pretty unique scenario, but I really can’t imagine doing it any other way.
Holy Ghost | Do It Again
TVD: Aside from being on DFA, you’ve played extensively with LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, Cut Copy, and Chromeo. What have you gotten from being around these more seasoned artists?
NM: We’ve been really lucky whether as Holy Ghost! or me touring with Juan MacLean. We’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time watching, I think some of the best bands of our genre play. Especially Hot Chip and LCD, and if I can toot my own horn for a band I played in, the Juan MacLean as well. We learned an immense amount from those guys and took a lot from the general philosophy behind the way those bands play, which is you know, that there should be a band on stage when you play live.
Obviously, you can go the laptop route. There’s a lot more work, and it’s a much more financially daunting undertaking, but what made or makes those bands I mentioned great is that you’re watching this group of musicians actually play together, which is less and less common in dance music. Which is unfortunate because if you think about the roots of dance music, people played disco; it wasn’t played by computers. I don’t have anything against people who do Ableton sets or anything like that. It just feels like that has entirely replaced bands. And the fact that you can only list four or five bands that are doing it supports that fact.
Those guys are all amazing, especially LCD, who for my money is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, live band ever. Sometimes I think I’m just being personally biased because they’re my friends, and I’ll go a little while without seeing them play, and then I’ll go see them play and I’m, ‘Oh shit, no, they actually are the best fucking band in the world.’ Every time I see them play, they get better and better. There’s no cheating going on that stage at all. A person is playing everything you hear up there, which is remarkable in this day and age. No one does that anymore.
TVD: There are no loops at all?
NM: On some songs like “Losing My Edge” or something like that, there’s obviously the little drum machine, but hardly anything. I’ve seen the MPCs that they have on stage, and I helped them program some stuff on it. There’s about 1-meg of memory being used on it. There’s nothing in that thing. Like the bass line to “Get Innocuous” is sequenced, but everything else and that synth is actually being played on stage. I can’t tell you any other band, and I’ve seen a lot of bands. Everyone is cheating somehow. I’m not judging but just saying.
TVD: Do you have any insight into LCD’s retirement and this week’s string of farewell shows leading up to their final show at Madison Square Garden on Saturday?
NM: I really shouldn’t speak for James, but knowing him, there’s no way this means it’s the end of him making music at all. He just can’t help himself. I think as he’s said in interviews publicly, LCD has just gotten to this point that feels really great, and if it got any bigger, it would just be weird. Which as a fan, purely objectively to me, which you may agree or disagree, makes total sense to me. I think it’s amazing that they’re playing the Garden especially as someone who grew up in New York. I never dreamed of having a number one single or selling a million records, but I’ve dreamed of playing the Garden. That’s fucking awesome.
But at the same time, it would be weird to me if LCD were the type of band that got so big that they had to play the Garden or venues that size everywhere they went. I feel that part of what makes LCD special is that people have a very personal attachment to them. People really feel like LCD is their band and those songs are written about them and their friends. When you watch them play there isn’t this disconnect of ‘there’s these people on stage and I’m in the crowd.’
It sounds cheesy obviously, but there’s a certain ownership that people feel over LCD that people I don’t think feel for Coldplay or U2 or bands that play huge venues. Not to knock those bands, but those guys write epic songs, and it makes sense for their music that they play in stadiums, they write anthems. From what I gather, I don’t know, for James maybe it felt like it was going to lose something if it got too much bigger, it would get kind of out of his control. But with James, honestly, I bet he’ll start something else, he’ll be producing other bands. He’s even said that it may not be the end of LCD; it’ll just be the end of LCD as this touring juggernaut. Maybe he’ll make another LCD record, who knows? But I know the last shows are going to be really special.
Read more of BQ’s musical insights and introspections at MujicBrog.
