EventsAbigail’s Ghost
Written by Dan on January 12, 2009
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Abigail’s Ghost is another one of the phenomenal bands I’ve come across since Nirav and I began Obnoxious Listeners. Their debut (and only album thus far) came out in 2007, but I hadn’t heard them until I poked around the “Listeners Also Bought” section on iTunes. I knew I’d buy Selling Insincerity immediately after listening to a short clip. This album is a must have for anyone that follows the modern progressive rock scene, and yet they’re still rather obscure. I’ve only come across one other person that knew of them independently, and she was just as surprised I was to find the other already owned Selling Insincerity. In any case, here is our exclusive interview with Kenneth and Bones.
Selling Insincerity was recorded at Axistudio, but was it self-produced?
Kenneth: Selling Insincerity was produced by Joshua and myself, so it is very much a self produced effort. The inherent problem with self production is that you always want to spend more time than the budget allows, so I’m always having an internal struggle between making sure the takes/sonic elements are perfect and making sure there is enough time left in the studio to finish the album.
Bones: For the most part I like to let Kenneth handle the production/editing side of things. He has a better ear and more patience for it than I do, whereas I like to involve myself with the finances, logistics, itinerary and scheduling surrounding the project. For a band like Abigail’s Ghost, with a limited budget and 5 busy members scattered across the US, it becomes quite a challenge to sort all that stuff out and actually have a decent record come out at the other end.
There is a striking resemblance between Selling Insincerity and In Absentia, particularly in the production and mixing aspects. Was this unintentional or perhaps something you put on an pedestal and accidentally achieved?
Kenneth: It is definitely intentional as I think it’s the vanguard album for the kind of music we make, though I can see in hindsight now that a lot of people mistake production techniques and tracking order as outright plagiarism. I can understand that line of thought, but it’s certainly not the mindset we had making the album, as most of the songs on the album were written prior to us ever hearing In Absentia (circa 2001-2003). We had worked on the songs for a very long period of time and started while we were still in high school. Selling Insincerity was a collection of the things we had worked on leading up to the recording of it in January 2006. By then, the Steven Wilson/Trent Reznor production techniques were ingrained in us, so it’s no surprise that it was mixed and sequenced, to the best of our abilities, to be similar to their work.
Bones: I honestly don’t think we achieved anything near what In Absentia is. While Porcupine Tree is not my favorite band, anyone would be a fool to dismiss that album in particular as being anything but perfect. That being said, Selling Insincerity is pretty far from perfect. It’s true that we used both IA and Collective Soul’s Dosage album as references but we didn’t nearly have the time or money to produce a record so sonically rich as either.
Being compared to groups like Porcupine Tree must be an honor, but at times I’m sure you also feel it’s limiting (interview with Sea of Tranquility). In your best words, can you describe the style of music you produce? We saw “art rock” but I’m sure that was a way of just being different and not being confined to one genre.
Kenneth: It was most definitely a way of being different and not wanting to be pigeonholed into a genre. There are many more facets to Abigail’s Ghost than the material found on Selling Insincerity so it’s difficult to put a stamp on what it is we do. Though at the same time, SI is the only identifiable work that people outside of the band have to judge us by, so our identity as a band is something that will really come to light after maybe our 4th or 5th album. The album that we’re currently working on sounds much different when compared to Selling Insincerity, so hopefully it will be another small mark in carving out the band’s niche in the world.It is my hope that we live up to the “art rock” moniker and are some day able to present the music as a more encompassing multimedia experience as opposed to just the album with music. If I had to actually describe the music it would be selling the music and the members of the band short, though at its absolute core, it is rock music that aspires to be something greater without being pretentious or unlistenable.
Bones: Yea, I agree with Kenneth in that if you are going to slap a genre label on a band, it’s best done when there is some context. It’s like judging a person off something they did as a child. At the time when we were making Selling Insincerity I felt like the term “art rock” defined what we were doing there, but even as the album was being released our musical direction was taking a turn. The new album we have been working on would be better categorized under “alternative rock or metal” and I welcome it’s distinction from SI.
I noticed Selling Insincerity has been out for a while, but I haven’t seen you guys on a lengthened tour. With the increased ability to get your music known via the internet over the years and the stresses associated with touring + getting the full band together, do you have an interest in becoming a touring band? Or would you guys prefer to keep this project strictly as a hobby with smaller shows from time to time?
Kenneth: Touring is a very different animal from making albums and it’s something that I’m not very confident in at the moment. We’ve played several one-off shows and the ProgDay festival this past August. The problem with getting a tour together is more of a financial issue than anything. It stems from being a self-financed band with VERY limited funds. Also, throughout a good portion of the year, the members either go to school or have day jobs. I would love to be a touring band, but it’s really on the backburner until we can sort out the specifics, clear our schedules, and get some financial backing in some way.
Bones: The job/school factor has played the biggest role in preventing us from doing and extensive tour. It’s difficult to ask someone to quit their job or studies to devote themselves to something that isn’t necessarily stable or guaranteed. I would love to go on the road though and I believe that our new album will put us in a much better position to do so.
Have you guys begun writing another album? If so, are there any stylistic divergences and in what direction might they be?
Kenneth: As I stated previously, we’re currently working on a new album and will have it finished by the end of the year. There are some significant changes to the sound, but it’s still very much an Abigail’s Ghost album. The material is much darker this time around with more emphasis on big, catchy choruses and there are many more layers of guitar than we’ve done before, mostly due to the addition of Randy, our rhythm guitarist. I had only a small role in the writing this time around, though I still wrote several riffs and some of the lyrical content, it was mostly the effort of Josh and Randy. We really wanted to make the music more of a band effort this time around and gave the new guys a lot of room to breathe (musically speaking).
Bones: Before writing a majority of this new album, I got an Emusic subscription, downloaded the 50 songs they promise you as an incentive to join and then cancelled the subscription. 49 of those 50 songs came from artists I had never listened to before: Amon Tobin, Moloko, Ruby, Theivery Corporation, Morcheeba. As I’ve said in interviews before I’m much more of a Trip-Hop fan than I am a fan of Progressive Rock. So I took these new influences and combined them with all the things I loved about APC, Tool, The Smashing Pumpkins, and The Cure. Everything I contributed on the new album came from that mindset. Enter Randy: Every song on the new album was originally conceived on guitar. We rarely use a piano as a songwriting tool. That being said, Randy has a totally different but brilliant approach to guitar than I do. He’s a very aggressive player which affects his tone a lot. I play with a relatively light touch. His fingerstyle picking pattern is more classically influenced whereas mine is actually more country/bluegrass based. Much of that is reflected in the riffs we write. So when we got together to write the album, the collaboration, to my ears, sound really unique. I don’t know how to describe it other than saying that it feels like Abigail’s Ghost.
Some might argue that Berklee’s high drop out rate is attributed to prestige, but it’s my personal opinion that music school isn’t necessary. I believe higher education in music production can absolutely be helpful, but not so much in the creative process. Kenneth: What was it about Berklee and/or music school in general that deterred you from finishing at Berklee? Bones: What was it about Berklee and/or music school in general that kept your interest long enough to finish at Berklee?
Kenneth: Everything!
Seriously though, school has never been my style, which is ironic considering I recently graduated with a degree in Biology. I found that once I started Berklee, I thought some of the teachers were extremely arrogant for being so unaccomplished, unless you call a masters degree a musical accomplishment. That attitude didn’t sit well with me and there was a moment where I felt that I didn’t want to surround myself with self-important primadonnas for 4 agonizing years, so I just quit as soon as possible. I thought about waiting it out for the semester, but I didn’t want to have to owe money. This, coupled with the fact that I had just moved to Boston and faced massive debt if I stayed there, made me want the hell out of there. I ended up getting a scholarship to a college in Louisiana and getting my degree for free, which to me was a much better alternative.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Berklee is great for meeting other like-minded people, making contacts in the music industry and learning the ins and outs of the music business, but it is a very expensive road to travel.
Bones: First off, I believe Berklee’s high drop out rate is due to the fact that people really discover the kind of person/artist they would like to be while attending there, namely someone that is out playing and not in an apt. studying for an ear training exam. The high tuition doesn’t help. The third reason is that students often get offers to go play while studying there. Who wants to study and pay tuition when they could be getting their foot in the door of the career they’ve always wanted? There are some very good reasons to attend Berklee. Networking will always be the best one but the education there is beyond excellent. Randy and I will both tell you that Abigail’s Ghost would not be possible without what we learned at Berklee. Often times when Randy and I are writing music I’ll ask him about a chord he played and he’ll say something like “oh it’s just a Dmaj13 in first inversion and then you put the E in the bass before it moves to that secondary dominant” and I understand exactly what he just told me. Hell, we spent the car ride to Prog Day trying to stump each other musically by harmonizing Harmonic Major scales LOL. Randy and I often talk about how lucky we are to be able to communicate in this way. It’s a luxury that many musician’s simply don’t have. Being a Music Business/Management major had a lot to do with keeping my interest. As a guitar player I could have gotten by without Berklee (although I learned a lot on the instrument in my time there as well) but as a songwriter and business man it would have been impossible because I had not clue about those things before attending. All the business stuff I learned there was applied to the label we created for Abigail’s Ghost, Aesperus Music. We wouldn’t have had nearly the market penetration we had without that entity. So if it’s one thing that Berklee did for me, it was to make me very well-rounded and self-sustaining as a music industry professional.
Lastly, I think the necessity of music school is based on the individual. What education is “necessary” anyway? There are many successful individuals out there who never graduated from college. It all comes down to the kind of grasp someone has on who they want to become. As far as creativity is concerned, you can’t learn it. For those people to whom creativity comes naturally, education is only a means to develop it.
How is the music scene in Louisiana? Obviously, New Orleans (or “Newarlins” if my memory serves me correct) has a big jazz scene, but I don’t remember there being a strong rock (and certainly not a progressive rock) presence. Is this still the case, or have things changed?
Kenneth: I never concerned myself with any sort of music scene, as I don’t get out much and don’t really care to do so. I try to lead a very insular existence musically and don’t want outside influences affecting me to the point where I feel I have to adjust my style to suit whatever is popular. I like the idea of being the black sheep or being the odd man out, so I think our style is quite appropriate. If it means that the band is perceived as anachronistic or swimming upstream then I’m absolutely fine with that. I prefer being the sole dissenter if it means I can do what I like or what I think is right.
Bones: New Orleans is pretty friendly on the rock front but mostly to cover bands who play on Bourbon Street. Originality is often times as much an inhibition as it is a highlight. NO is not the absolute best environment for growing a band from nothing as venues are often reluctant to book new acts. The other problem is that New Orleans doesn’t have any huge rock record labels so you never hear of rock bands coming out here to get noticed. Voodoo Fest has been really successful though. We’d love to play there some day.
Progressive rock seems to have a stronger reception in Europe. Have you guys pushed for any sales in Europe or considered touring in Europe?
Kenneth: That is definitely something we are interested in and if you’re from a record label and you’re reading this, call me up; don’t be shy. There is a geographical and financial problem, considering the utter shambles our economy is in, it’s even less feasible than I would like. We are definitely going to look into worldwide distribution for the new album, so hopefully we will have a retail impact that we didn’t have before. The band have also been looking into a lucrative record deal, but so far the offers have been worse than what we make on our own without promise of tour support on even a small scale, so that’s the crossroads we are at now.
Bones: A huge chunk of our record sales have been European. I’d love to extend out distribution reach over there. I’d also love to tour the continent when the opportunity presents itself. So far it hasn’t though.
What’s the story behind the band’s name?
Kenneth: I just made it up on the spot while I was talking to Joshua via AIM (AOL Instant Messenger). He was in Boston at the time and I was living in a dorm in Louisiana. Our only mode of communication was through the computer, so we finished the album and pretty much created the band online. We had been in bands previously and have been playing music together since we were in grade school in 1997, so we took a lot of the material that we had written together and reworked it ad nauseam until Selling Insincerity was written. We somehow spun the name of the band into lyrical ideas on the first album and the name gave us a thematic identity in some ways.
Bones: Kenneth and I LOVE to joke around. In fact we often joke about getting work done for Abigail’s Ghost because we’re so lazy. A typical conversation would be, “Man we have the whole weekend to work on the album”, “yea but we probably won’t do shit because I just got Halo 3?, “O fuck”.But on the occasion Kenneth mentioned, I had suggested to him that we start a band and so then we had to come up with a name. The first couple weren’t serious in any sense of the word. Kenny suggested that we name the band Aardvark Lies and I giggled for about 10 minutes until he typed Abigail’s Ghost and then I stopped laughing. That was the name.
Last and final question - tell us honestly, do you do everything just for the ladies. No shame in it, we just want to know the truth :->
Kenneth: Considering the fact that most men are biologically programmed to pursue the opposite sex of the species in any way they are capable, I think it’s not so far-fetched to think every male musician became a musician with the promise of confused, beautiful teenage girls with “daddy issues” who were just looking to piss off the old man or fulfill the void where a father should have been by dating and thereby fornicating with (or copulating if you want to be romantic) a musician.
Honestly though, I always had a passion for music and I already have a girlfriend/fiancee/wife, so I suppose if that was my ultimate objective, I would just quit playing music. I don’t foresee myself doing that.
Bones: Honestly I think ladies are better off staying away from me. I tend to put my girlfriends on the backburner to prioritize the band and music. Aside from that I’m pretty sadistic and manipulative. But hey if some girl feels like putting up with me, who am I to tell her otherwise.
Interview was conducted on November 12, 2008.
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