Photo Credit: Sam Wiseman
Palm Ghosts
Some bands are influenced by a previous era. Others blatantly steal sounds under the guise of an “homage.” Bands like Nashville’s Palm Ghosts, however, feel like they could be embedded in the goth and new wave sounds of a previous era without feeling the slightest out of place. The band simply does dark, brooding music well, and you can hear that on 2021’s The Lost Frequency, and Lifeboat Candidate, its pandemic-produced predecessor. The band, however, is showing a brighter side of their demeanor on upcoming album Post Preservation, and will be taking their shifting sounds to Company Brewing in Riverwest on Friday night. Ahead of the show, we talked with Joe Lekkas from the band about what is on the horizon.
It's an exciting time for Palm Ghosts! What is the feeling going into putting out the new record?
We’re pretty prolific right now. I have a studio at home that we all record in, and so we have a back catalog of stuff that we can just release. During the pandemic, we did remote recording for Lifeboat Candidate and then the record we were going to release prior to the pandemic came out afterward. We put an EP out since then, and then Post Preservation is coming out, so we’re releasing a lot of music. I'm excited because I want to see how people react to this set of songs.
The sound of the record is a newer direction for you guys. What changed?
This is what I would consider a really poppy record. We did Lifeboat Candidate with more abrasive sounds, and really angular guitars. That was a lot of anger at the administration at the time, and the pandemic, and all the craziness that was happening in the world. Then this record is kind of like a little crack of light, trying to kind of look at it that way. It still has dark overtones, but I think there's a lot more positivity or just general poppiness. I love The Cure, Simple Minds, all that stuff. So we ride the line of new wave and post punk and things in that realm.
With the amount of music you guys have stored up, does that add weight to when you finally release those songs? Do they feel the same?
There’s a lot of new songs on the new record, and there’s a lot of things that were recorded slightly prior to the pandemic. They all just become a set of songs that we listen to. Over time I start to like some more than others, and sometimes I think “oh, that song, what was I thinking?” When they’re actually released as a group, though, they’re picked because they sound good together, with a flow to it. So releasing all of this music is kind of a relief. Here are these songs, and I think they work well together, and I think they tell a story on their own. I always wonder what people think of stuff when it gets released, but not a ton of weight. I always like releasing it to get it off the plate, and get stuck on something new.
There’s no better reaction than when it’s live. Have you been able to play any of the new music live yet to tease it out?
I don’t think there’s anything from the new record that we’ve played. We’ve got so many records that we’ve put out now, that we take a few from each release that we think would be good live. The set is certainly different from the record. We’ll eventually get some of the new songs in to the set once it comes out, just to see how they go. We don’t write in a room together, but more often just in the studio. So when we relearn it, we start to see what works well and what doesn’t. It’s kind of an odd way of doing it. But by the next tour there will be one or two in there for sure.
Anything in particular you’re looking forward to when you’re in town?
I love Wisconsin in general. We opened for Rose of the West the first time we played at The Back Room at Colectivo Coffee. We’ve also played X-Ray Arcade and the Mile of Music in Appleton this past year. The audiences are super awesome. Coming from Nashville, it reminds me of a cross between where I’m from, which is Philadelphia, and where I live now. It has a bit of both. I’d love to live up there, but I can’t take the winters. It’s a dealbreaker for me.
Palm Ghosts play Company Brewing on Friday night with The Quilz. Get more information about the show here.
