From onstage “musical trust falls” to psychedelics and Soundgarden-inspired mixes in the studio, Ghost Light has emerged as the jam scene’s underdog supergroup.
In late 2017, the members of Ghost Light assembled for the first time at Rittenhouse Soundworks, a 4,000-sq.-ft.former Chrysler factory in the Germantown district ofPhiladelphia. Stationed in a circle, with exposed wooden beamslooming overhead, the newly acquainted bandmates—guitarists/singers Tom Hamilton and Raina Mullen, keyboardist HollyBowling, drummer Scotty Zwang and bassist Steve Lyons—pluggedin their instruments and held their breath. The only task on theagenda was to nurture a collaborative, creative spirit, but it wasanyone’s guess what kind of music they would actually produce.
“We started rolling tape and trying out songs—just playingand seeing what happens,” Bowling recalls. “We were very muchmeeting each other musically as a group for the first time. So therewas a lot of, ‘OK, what do you do? What do you have to say? If I dothis, how do you respond? How are these things going to lock upand meld with each other?’”
“Every time we would write something new, we’d figure outwhat everybody’s strengths were,” Mullen says of those initialrehearsals. “I just remember being so excited, like I was doing stuffthat I had never done before.”
A few months prior, when Ghost Light was still a sketch of anidea, Hamilton and Mullen scheduled marathon writing sessions,ingesting coffee and LSD, and listening to acts like Sufjan Stevens,Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. They were open to anything thatwould spark something new in their creative receptors.
“We were eating a ton of acid and really trying to expand ourminds,” Mullen remembers. “Like, ‘What can we do that’s prettydifferent but incorporates all the stuff that we love?’ But we didn’twant to do it in a super derivative way.”
Looking at their résumés, the members of Ghost Light all hailfrom disparate, distinct corners of the live-music scene. Bowling,for one, made a name for herself as a solo artist, creating highlyintricate piano renditions of Grateful Dead and Phish compositions.Mullen logged time in Hamilton’s American Babies band, pairingdexterous vocals with thoughtful rhythm-guitar lines. Zwang wasthe former drummer for proggy jam act Dopapod, and Lyons spenta few years laying down bass for Philadelphia alternative outletNicos Gun.
At the helm of Ghost Light’s master plan was Hamilton, who has dipped his toe in a variety of soundscapes over his 20-plus-year career, from the jamtronica of Brothers Past to the more straightforward roots-rock of American Babies to the avant-weirdness of Shpongle’s live band to his most recent, and perhaps most notable, post as one of the guitarists and singers in Joe Russo’s Almost Dead.
“I like building something. I like being in a band,” Hamilton says, retracing the Ghost Light origin story. “There’s an underdog feeling. We’re Ghost Light. We’re a new band. We’re an up-and-coming band. There’s an interesting thing there. We’re earning fans one at a time, and that shit is fun, man. That’s the good stuff!”
And with that leap of faith came Best Kept Secrets, GhostLight’s far-reaching debut. Listen to any track and you’ll finda taste of the band’s vast sonic palette, from the Pink Floydianexplorations on the instrumental “Beyond/Before” to rhythmicrock numbers such as “Don’t Come Apart Just Yet, My Dear” and“Keep Your Hands to Yourself.”
In an album full of unexpected shifts, the delicate-yet-powerfulopener, “Elegy,” is perhaps its most surprising moment. Thenuanced composition finds Bowling’s pseudo-classical pianoarrangements dancing through Mullen’s soprano hymnals, a trickshe learned from a college professor who was once an opera singer.
“The album itself is sort of like a film,” Mullen says. “We wanted‘Elegy’ to be like the opening credits to the record. And when youturn the track on, you’re like, ‘What is this supposed to be?’ andthen it absorbs you.”
“That was the first thing that I brought in that we worked ontogether,” Bowling adds. “It was like, ‘Here’s this idea and I’mgoing to bring it to four other musical minds and see what directionthis is going to expand into.’ And as far as Raina’s vocals, it’s reallyamazing having someone in the band who is able to sing stuff likethat. It lets us dip into a realm that I don’t think a lot of bands inour scene are able to.”
Another experimental standout is the mid-album “If Only,for Now,” which features DIY samples like the clank of a marbledropping into a shower and the raw street sounds of Philadelphia,which were captured by sticking a microphone out of the studiowindow.
Hamilton, who produced the record, echoes Mullen’s idea thatBest Kept Secrets is more akin to a cinematic experience than amish-mash of original music.
“I approach albums a lot like filmmaking, taking the tracks and using the themes and the larger story to create an arc,” he says. “The album starts delicate and ends brutal. It all makes sense and all tells the story. The instrumental tracks are these long landscape shots that help give the movie context and show where you are.And then the songs that have lyrics are the scenes that have thedialogue and explain the plot.”
It's been a whirlwind run for Ghost Light since their formation in late-2017/early-2018. In less than two years, they’ve logged over 100 shows, played some of the biggest festival stages around, sold out rooms all over the United States and produced their debut studio LP.
“There was a lot of trust involved,” Hamilton explains. “It wasjust like, ‘Listen, man, Raina and I think we should start a newband; we think that you should be a part of it. This is the plan as faras when we can get in and start working on tunes, this is the planfor when we’d start touring, this is the plan for when our recordwould come out—and I think it’s going to work. Are you in?’”
Bowling argues that the band’s sonic connectivity onstage hasgrown exponentially, thanks to the “musical trust falls” they takepart in. Their improvisations are high risk and high reward, givingthem the opportunity to foster the type of musical telepathy mostbands would envy.
“We’re all pretty comfortable with each other at this point,” sheexplains. “Now it’s about finding ways to dig deeper and discoverlittle musical corners of each other’s minds—to find new placesto go and make sure that we’re not having the same conversationnight to night. We don’t get to rehearse much since we don’t all livein the same place and everyone has a lot going on, so it’s definitelya cool feeling when we haven’t played for a little bit and we getonstage together. It already feels like slipping back into a reallyawesome, familiar, comfortable pair of shoes, where you’re like,‘Ahh, yeah, I missed this.’”
“Onstage is where the ownership comes into everything,”Hamilton concludes. “That’s where everybody gets to grab theirpiece of the pie. They can grab it by the short and curlies and belike, ‘This is it, man. This is what I’m saying in this song and thisis what my truth is on this day.’ And I think there’s this incrediblesense of democracy there.”
And while each performance has certainly aided in the growth of the band, several members point to LOCKN’ 2018 as a landmark gig for Ghost Light. With Best Kept Secrets waiting in the wings, the band had been touring around the country for months without any studio music available and they hoped that their individual accomplishments, and the intrigue of this new project, would be enough to draw a crowd. By the time they reached the rotating stage at the Virginia jam festival, it seemed like their strategy had taken them to a whole new level.
“That stage turned around and there weren’t a lotof people there,” Hamilton recalls. “And then, within10 minutes, it was packed. I remember it was during‘Diamond Eyes’ that it really hit me because I lookedout and there’s just a shitload of people all singingthe chorus. It was definitely one of those moments.”
“It was like, ‘Holy Christ, is this really happening!’”Mullen laughs. “I’d never played on a stage that bigand we were trying to play for all these new people.They were all so into it and we were on fire. We werejust so excited because of the energy from playing ina place that big and putting ourselves out there forpeople who had never even heard of us before.”
“We were playing on one of the biggest festival stages, with one of the biggest productions for any festival, and we had only been a band for eight months,” Zwang affirms.
But that’s not to say that Ghost Light hasn’t been without its growing pains. As with most bands, lineup shifts are bound to happen, and with the grueling demands of touring taking its toll, original bassist Steve Lyons stepped down from his role in Ghost Light in March 2019, just a few days before the release of Best Kept Secrets.
“We regret to share that our friend and bassist Steve Lyons willbe moving on to new endeavors and will no longer be touring withGhost Light. We wish Steve nothing but the best and look forwardto watching his career continue to grow,” the band wrote in anofficial statement.
In Lyons’ stead, Ghost Light brought in Elephant Wrecking Ballco-founder and former John Brown’s Body member Dan Africano,who now serves as a touring bassist.
“We don’t want anyone to ever feel like they are trapped in thisthing and, therefore, not able to put their all in this thing,” Zwangsaid of Lyons’ departure. “Being in a band is tough. Being on theroad is a whole other level.”
Hamilton stresses that Africano’s arrival brings “a whole newset of possibilities” to Ghost Light, giving everyone—includingLyons—the chance to pursue what makes them happiest. “I thinkHolly and Raina and Scott, and now Dan, are all incredible peopleand incredible musicians,” the guitarist explains. “I take a lot ofpride in the fact that we’re all together creating success, andeverybody’s getting their names out there.”
Despite having just released an LP, Ghost Light are already looking toward their next studio project. Mullen and Hamilton plan to start up their marathon writing sessions once again this fall, and Bowling continues to write her sweeping instrumentals between solo tour dates. It’s an exciting time foreveryone involved, and it seems that each memberof Ghost Light is in it for the long haul.
Specifically, Hamilton and Mullen are giddy withthe prospect of what lies ahead. As the two bandmembers who saw this project grow from its earlieststages, they relish in how far Ghost Light has comein such a brief amount of time.
“With JRAD, we don’t sound like the Grateful Dead because that’s not doing anybody any fucking service,” Hamilton explains. “It’s not about sounding like anybody else. That’s not the goal. The goal is to sound like yourself, and I couldn’t begin to fucking quantify how lucky of a human being I am. I get to be in two bands that, as far as how we improvise and how we interact with each other, are not only unique unto themselves but also in our scene. Both bands have their own identity, and I feel very grateful for that.”
“I’m just super happy and excited to be in this band,” Mullen says. “I’ll play some songs for my friends and I say, ‘I love my band!’ And it’s funny because people are like, ‘Should you be this hyped on your own stuff?’ And I’m like, ‘Abso-fucking-lutely!’”
This article originally appears in the September 2019 issue of Relix. For more features, interviews, album reviews and more, subscribe here.
