I recently had a chance to have a digital sit-down with one of retrowave’s darker, more sinister artists…. GosT. It turns out that despite his Satanic malice, the apparition had much to share with me during our meeting.
1. Thanks for agreeing to an interview! Let’s get right to it… what got you into music as a whole?
I do not remember a time that music wasn’t a big part of my life. If I had to pick a moment or period of my life that I remember as pivotal, my parents had a Kiss pinball machine in our house when I was very young (which I still own). So as a child I was instantly drawn to Kiss. The make-up the pyrotechnics, the insane boots! My mother was also always listening to current rock music which left a very lasting impression on me that is still with me today.
2. Clearly your work is horror-influenced. What horror films from the 80s affected you the most, and what about them?
A Nightmare on Elm Street terrified me as a child but I was simultaneously drawn to it as well. This was the film that started my love of horror for sure. The knife glove was so badass to me! Also the first two Halloween movies were massive for me. John Carpenter’s score for those films just blew my child head off! The film Silver Bullet with Corey Haim was also in constant rotation among my group of childhood friends.
3. Not that I mind at all (in fact I’m into it), but what’s the deal with the Satan imagery? It seems to be something you gradually adopted.
I’ve always played in metal bands so it just kind of naturally found its way into this project. Also, I live in a very small town which is dominated by Christianity and the obnoxious passive aggression that community throws at non-believers. The negative of that belief is an easy way to distance myself from the religious right in my community and the world… Basically HAIL SATAN!
4. Who are your biggest influences musically?
As I said before Kiss has always influenced me. My influence are fairly vast and kind of all over the place. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Suicidal Tendencies, NIN, Danger, SebastiAn, Depeche Mode. I could literally go all day but these bands in particular hold a lot of influence for Gost.
5. On the “Skull” EP, it’s easy to notice a jump in overall production value. What’s behind that? New equipment? Better facilities?
I started Gost to just have something I could do on my own without an actual band. People started to really show interest which made me want to do better. With Skull I started spending loads more time on actual production and trying to make something somewhat different from the rest of the synthwave community.
6. What’s next for Gost? What can we expect? I know you’ve been doing some track remixes and stuff, but is another album coming?
I’ve just signed with Blood Music which is crazy to me! They have already put massive amounts of energy into my next release. I am releasing my debut LP the first of 2015 with them! There are a couple surprises that I think my fans will be pretty stoked on and I can’t wait to share all of this. I am also releasing a remix I did of a Carpenter Brut track for free DL on Halloween.
