Ghost Family is a five-piece band with an indefinable sound put together last summer through the social network of Medill junior and PLAY writer Matt Weir. The other four members, Communication senior and drummer Arturo Menchaca, Weinberg senior and violin and bass player Kavitha Chekuru, Communication senior and keytarist Mike Gaertner, and Communication senior and keyboard player Nayla Wren talk about the band, keytars and its upcoming show.
PLAY: How would you describe your sound?
Kavitha Chekuru: Inconsistent?
Mike Gaertner: We play ghost music.
Nayla Wren: It really is like our name; we play music that a family of ghosts would play.
KC: That’s really true!
NW: We like to make things fun – fun to listen to. Sometimes it’s a bit scary.
KC: I like to creep people out personally.
NW: We do a lot of genre hopping.
Arturo Menchaca: But when we write love songs, they’re always about other people. Like other people’s emotions.
MG: Our songs are all very emotive, but other people’s emotions.
AM: Yeah, ghosts don’t have feelings.
MG: Yeah, like when Slimer drinks something it just goes right through.
PLAY: What are your influences?
AM: I think if you took all three Hank Williams together and put them in a band and they tried to cover battles.
MG: Uh, I don’t know, maybe. I think it’s like if it was Back to the Future Part III and you went back to the time when all the cowboys and Indians were fighting – and not (Kavitha’s) kind of Indians – and you replaced their weapons with musical instruments it’d be something like that.
NW: I think that and also C+C Music Factory.
MG: Yeah we have a little bit of “Everybody Dance Now” in us.
PLAY: Do you define yourself as a noise band?
MG: Well, in the beginning, see, none of us really thought this was going to get past the stage of fucking around. In the beginning it was just like a lot of noise and loudness, loud noise. Then we kinda realized that it was working, and we slowly starting writing pop songs and now we’re pretty much a pop band.
AM: A noisy pop band.
KC: Noisy, with a dance beat and heartfelt songs.
PLAY: Mike, I was wondering how you decided to play the keytar.
MG: You know, I just bought it back in high school off Ebay. I felt like it’d be a good decision. I knew that one day I would need it. It was like a calling.
PLAY: How did you decide to go with ghosts?
KC: We were trying to come up with a band name.
AM: What was the first one? Skeleton Blood?
KC: Yeah, but there was already a Swedish metal band with that name or something. I think the word Ghost just kept coming up.
MG: Before we even started practicing we would send out e-mails with buzz words we liked, and it just sorta became compiled from buzz words.
KC: It seemed sorta friendly.
MG: Friendly, yet spooky.
PLAY: Can you tell me more about your upcoming show? It’s on Halloween, correct?
MG: It’s on Helloween.
AM: Yeah, we’re playing on Halloween, it’s 18 and over and I’m opening for my own band. I do electronic music too.
KC: It’s at Bill’s Blues, and we’re all going to be dressed up. I don’t know if I’m supposed to say what.
AM: No, it’s a secret.
AM: And we’re encouraging anyone who comes to come in costume.
MG: Yeah, it’s more fun for everyone that way. Costumes are highly encouraged.
Ghost Family plays Oct. 31 at Bill’s Blues, 1029 W. Davis St. Find the band online at www.myspace.com/theghostfamily.
– Carrie MacQuaid
