In Conversation: Spirit Ghost
I spoke to Alex Whitelaw of Spirit Ghost about his great new record!
Spirit Ghost, the musical moniker of guitarist and songwriter Alex Whitelaw, is a bedroom-surf-garage project that was started outside of Providence, RI. Over time and visits to Western Massachusetts and Austin, Texas, the project became a fully fleshed out band
and was fully developed and fleshed out in Western Massachusetts and Austin, TX. The project was started out of frustration. "I didn't want to be at the whims of other people in order to make music,
“I wanted to make [music] when I wanted to make it, and I wanted to make it as often as possible," Whitelaw said, but the pandemic forced him to sit tight with these songs for longer than anticipated.“I Prayed,” a psyched-out rocker, was written in its entirety by Whitelaw in the first months of the pandemic, but only dropped as a single this past fall.
Over email, Alex spoke to me about the songwriting process and the next steps for the project.
Spirit Ghost is your solo project, but you also play in Sasha and the Valentines. What's the experience like when you're writing material for two things?
I don't do much of the writing for Sasha. Sarah is the main writer for Sasha. I wrote the chords for Flower, but mostly I just throw guitar parts in here and there, which is nice for me, it's nice to focus on doing one thing. I think it's vastly improved my abilities as a guitar player. It's also nice to play what someone else has written, I think it can help get you out of whatever funk you might be in with writing your own music. I try to write for Spirit Ghost as much as I can, which is becoming a thing I can do more and more regularly.
Do you ever write a song and then decide to shelve it for one project or the other?
That is what happened with Flower, I think I had this chord progression that I was like, "what the hell would I ever sing over this", and then Sarah just picked it up no problem, she's a much better singer than I am and much more creative with melodies. I have some songs like that now that I have been thinking of giving to Sasha, but I'm trying to also push myself to sing out of my comfort zone. I want to write something where I have to do falsetto.
When you're writing a Spirit Ghost track, do you have ideas in mind for other instruments or do you let the other musicians write their parts?
I like to write and record all of it. I think I have a specific sound because I've always written and performed all the instruments myself, and I'll probably always write the demos alone. This most recent album is one of the first times I'm not playing everything you hear in the recordings, but I still wrote a majority of the instrumental parts. I think Billy may have the most creative freedom because I've acknowledged I'm just never gonna be that good at drums. I try to have Tim and JB learn the parts I've written though and then embellish tastefully. Tim wrote all of the solos on this newest album though and JB added violin to two of the songs, which came out incredible. I am very fortunate to have found such talented musicians working with me, who know how to serve a song.
A lot of Spirit Ghost's material reminds me a lot of the stuff that was coming out of Williamsburg in the late aughts. Was that at all inspirational to you? How did you arrive at your sound?
I just listen to a lot of stuff and I like a lot of stuff. I think I'm a very melodic player, and I have an affinity for jazz chords but I also have the same affinity for three chord songs and psyche rock. I've kind of always just listened to everything. I'm very particular about singer tonality. I can like all the instrumentals of a band but if their singer doesn't have whatever it is I seem to like in singers I'll probably be turned off pretty quickly. I love The Walkmen, The Strokes (though they've been missing the mark for me lately), Angel Olson, Roger Miller, The Kinks, Jonathan Richman, Broadcast, etc... I always want to list the millions of bands I listen to but it just seems like it'd be more annoying than helpful.
"Rock music" or guitar stuff in general has been getting a reputation as being perhaps dated or not so much the focus of younger generations. How do you feel about that?
That's just dumb lol. I think those statements are usually made by big wig industry folks or I don't know just people trying to sum something up that can't be summed up. I think it might be true in a mega pop star sense, but even then, it doesn't look like the Arctic Monkeys are struggling for fans. I also just don't care, there's music being made for everyone and if someone doesn't like guitar stuff, someone else will. I also don't think I'm married to the idea of making guitar stuff, it just happened to be my first instrument. My favorite band for a while has been Cut Worms and I feel like he's only seeming more sincere and more refreshing to me as trends continue to rise and fall. I also just think good music is the only thing that actually matters. I don't care what instruments are being used, and no one else should either.
I've come to the opinion lately that the idea of a "scene" doesn't really exist any more and that with the internet and rise in social media, bands can gain followings outside of their direct neighborhoods and venues. You've been playing with people in bands that all live in different parts of the country. What's the impact of that on writing and feeling like being part of a band if you're all dispersed? Do you also find that it's difficult to not be directly in a scene or has that not impacted your ability to find fans?
I think it's totally normal for me. I've always written Spirit Ghost songs by myself. It is why I made Spirit Ghost in the first place. If I have time to work on a song or write something, I don't feel like waiting for someone else to come write their part before the song can be done, coordinating with their work schedule, planning around their trips, talking to them about what the song means. I just want to finish it. I can play everything well enough so why not just finish it right then and there. I can't write with other people. I can get together after I've written the songs, play the songs, work on parts together maybe branch out from there, but I need to write the core idea by myself. I think the space from the people in my band is kind of nice. Mostly because we all lived together during the pandemic in a house that was too small for all of us to be cohabitating and I think we all went a little crazy. My creative process when I'm writing a song just doesn't benefit from other people, I really thrive when I can be left alone in a room for hours by myself and fuck around for ten minutes on piano, not come up with anything, look at something online, hum something and then boom ten minutes later I've written a song. I just have never figured out how to incorporate someone else into that. I think the fact that music is so accessible to people outside of my "scene" has tremendously benefited me. I think if I played a show in Providence (where I'm from) about ten people would come, I think if I played in Southern California about 70 would come. I think it's kind of cool that the internet has kind of connected folks in that way. I think a lot of technology gets a bad wrap and a lot of it is well deserved, but I do think there are some instances where technology is mostly a benefit.
There are lots of stories out right now surrounding the difficulties of touring. You've been doing this on the truly independent circuit and booking shows yourself. What's that process like and is it something you see yourself doing forever?
It's a lot of work, it's a lot of organizing, it's a lot of financial stress, it's a lot of time spent looking at a computer screen and listening to bands on bandcamp. It's a lot of emailing venues, having some of them be super nice, some of them be super condescending, and some of them just kind of move along in a very business-like manner. I wish there was a better network for people to book tours themselves. When it works it's amazing; you meet cool bands, you kind of create that community from miles and miles away, you stay in touch, you listen to each other's music, you give eachother places to crash when you're in each other's areas. When it doesn't work; you get ghosted by bookers till last minute, people are weird about backline stuff, you don't know where you're staying that night, none of the local bands brought anyone, they borrow your amp and fuck with all the settings, venues give drink tickets instead of food, because musician's have this strange ability to live only on alcohol I guess, and that's not incorporating all the COVID stuff. It's kind of fun that it can go so right or so wrong, but it also can be a lot. I don't know if me and JB can sustain it forever but we're definitely down, at the moment, to continue doing it ourselves. I just think we like to work in a particular way, and because we do it for ourselves we're able to learn a lot and it feels more rewarding because of that. I also think we're able to consider our emotional needs much better than a booker we've never met could and we're very aware of taking care of our mental health on the road, organizing rest dates and all that. I think it's something we'd relinquish control over in a heartbeat though if it was the right circumstance.
Your new album is out in March. What's the timeline been for writing and recording and what comes next for Spirit Ghost?
I've been sitting on some of these songs for years. I wrote Got a Feeling before I moved to Austin. I just wasn't in any rush to record for a while and I wanted to consistently play with a live band before recording anything. I need very much to trust the people I am playing with before I can relinquish any control for Spirit Ghost. It has been mine and mine alone for 8 years. I think I got very lucky finding Tim, JB, and Billy. They're people that I can wholeheartedly put my trust in and they're just very solid people. I think having them all play with me consistently is the reason this record sounds as good as it does. Their presence and comfortability on the records is what makes it feel so good to me to listen to. It took a lot for me to relinquish that control though so it took some more time than it normally would between releases.
I think I also wanted to find the right engineer to record and produce the album. I wanted to find somebody who could make these songs feel fully fleshed out and realized and who would get as into the songs as I am. I got really lucky in finding Connor Schwanke. He ran sound for us a couple of times at Hotel Vegas in Austin and he did some work for my friends in brother sports for their "Mala" EP and a bunch of other stuff that they released. I started talking to him and I just liked his whole approach, he is very patient and deliberate and you can tell he wants the songs to sound as good as you do, and he knows how to do it. He sat with us for hours picking out all the harmony lines, recording JB's violin parts, he also helped restructure some of the songs on the fly. He's just one of those people that should be doing exactly what he's doing, he's very very good at it, and he's hilarious.
Spirit Ghost’s new album Melting Right Before Your Eyes is out now!