Above: The Ghouls,(@aneasybakeoven).
London band proves 'hard graft' pays off.
Ghouls frontman Benedict, talks about the bands beginnings, the recent successes and what his hopes are for the future of the band.
Everybody knows about the glitz and glamour of the music industry. From Kanye to Rihanna to Justin Bieber, the so called top layer of the industry is there for the world to see. But what about the 'nitty gritty' side of it, and those bands and musicians 'grafting away' at the industry's core.
Ghouls, are a London based punk-rock quintet. Who, since deciding to 'take their music seriously' in 2013, as explained by Benedict, have taken huge steps toward success in just 5 short years.
'We were just gigging around, playing some shows, it wasn't until we sat down as said, “look, lets really have a go at this” that we really started looking at it seriously, and that when we launched the kickstarter campaign.
The campaign in question here, was a fund dedicated to helping the band make their first album 'Ten thousand words on'. 'We made something mental like 4000 pound', and it's not hard to see why. With the band pushing and pulling together to make it work. 'We did things like, everyone who bought the album got a T-shirt, things like that to try and get our name out there'. It was also rather refreshing to hear someone say 'at the end of the day, every musician has that on their mind' when answering the painstakingly regular 'where do you want to go' question (which I felt a need to apologise for in advance).
What was extremely interesting however, was how the bands hard work payed off in an 'unbelievable way'. A 2 week tour of Australia booked by the power of a single tweet.
'Some girl tweeted us saying, you've got to play some shows over here, so we replied make it happen, thought nothing of it, and bang, the next day we've got a message in our inbox, six weeks later we're doing the shows'.
We both agreed how incredible the power of social media can be in helping bands such as themselves gain exposure.
'We didn’t know anything, we looked up the venues, but as far as we knew we could've been playing to an empty room'.
What they actually found was a 'surreal experience, the Melbourne and Brisbane shows were incredible, it was just great to meet all those people'.
He went on to gush about how insane it is to have people on the other side of the world 'come and sing our songs and request our songs' at the shows.
'A moment like Australia, puts all the hard graft and work into perspective'.
One thing that really stuck with me was how he talked about the bands 'DIY ethos' and how the effort put in by everyone made something like a tour of Australia, and a tour of the US in late 2016. 'not seem a distant dream'. Not that the aspect of touring was anything new for the band. 'We did a 30 day straight tour, right after (the kickstarter) and that really helped us for touring now'.
The hard work for the band doesn't stop there. A 14 show tour of the UK begins on the 5th may in Salsbury and ends on the 2nd June in Basingstoke. 'It'll be really cool to play in places we've never been, like Derby and Cantebury'. Followed by a single launch party on the 22nd, however information on that single is unfortunately for fans, under lock and key.
The goal of the band itself seems simple, 'to expand and get bigger'.
'As a songwriter it would be amazing to have a song, people hear in like 10 years and go “oh my god remember this” so personally that'd be nice'.
And with the hard work and dedication of a band who's creative and song writing ethos is 'everyone turns up with their own influence and instrument' I don't see why in another 5 years they can't have moved on to even greater successes.
You can follow Ghouls on twitter @GhoulsUK and on Facebook GhoulsUK upcoming tour-https://en-gb.facebook.com/ghoulsuk/
