Kickin' It Crypt-Style WithZombie Ghost Train

Wed 7th Dec, 2005 in Features

Sydney trio Zombie Ghost Train are a difficult bunch of bods to track down. It could be because they’re relentless in their dedication to touring their particular brand of fiendish psychobilly. It could be because nobody really knows what part of the cemetery they’re buried in, or it could be – well, when a corpse doesn’t want to be found, they generally aren’t.

You can imagine how difficult digging up graves can make an interview. But we at FasterLouder won’t let that stand in our way. We needed to find out more. How can a group of ghouls bring rooms across the world to life? Indeed, their album Glad Rags & Body Bags (reviewed here) fills the listener with more than their fair share of riff-induced lurching and shaking that it’d be downright unholy not to try and pin down its creators. 

We set to work. And, through a combination of ouija board and table-rapping, we managed to get through to the band’s frontman, Stu Arkoff. He was due for a gig at Hell’s RSL, but thankfully had a bit of time to answer some questions for us. Copying out the answers from planchette to paper was laborious, but worthwhile.

First, we asked how the band got together, and when. With laborious movements across the board, Stu answered … from beyond the grave! (Which is one up on all those phone-interview bands, it must be said.) 

“We formed early in the 19th century the graveyard scene was dead so we thought we better reanimate it with some musick. [Bassplayer] Captain Reckless and I had neighbouring mausoleums so we would annoy the neighbours at night with delinquent rock n’ roll. [Drummer] Mr T had a nice graveyard apartment with a view of the beach – we heard him rattling bones and dragged him down the hill.” 

We press on to the band’s unique look. How did their peculiar pallor come to be? Was there a lot of effort behind it? 

“What look? We always look like this,” he answers, with a ghoulish laugh. “No mainly the get up is a Carnival of Souls thing – a movie by Herk Harvey – and we have just have brought our own thing to it over the years. We are the classy zombies in the graveyard. B-movie culture and horror movies have always been a big influence. The name is a cross between horror theme rides and the movie Zombie And The Ghost Train, directed by Mika Kaurismaki.” 

If you’ll excuse the pun, do you think that the way the band looks makes people put you in a particular box?  

“Well unfortunately society always tries to put oneself into some kind of coffin but that’s cool – everything needs some point of reference. My only gripe with boxes is that people who don’t know about what’s in the box tend to miss out because they are afraid to look.” 

Given that there’s a strong rockabilly streak in what the band wants to do, does Stu feel most accepted in the world of quiffs and Holdens? How hard is it to find an audience for undead rock? 

“I’d say it’s more the psychobilly, punk and goth scenes,” he says. “The rockabilly scene is a little conservative. Mind you if they dug up Eddie Cochran he’d probably look a lot like us! Most punters are pretty open to our stuff. We just love putting on a show that people can dig no matter what they’re into.” 

Having a stage presence as fiendish as the band’s will invariably result in some strange punters. Who comes along to the average ZGT show? The answer is simple: ”Teenage delinquents, mentally unstable adults and the musickally challenged.” 

What parts of the processes involved in being in a band appeal most to ZGT, though? Do dead bods prefer to play live, or to go mad in the studio? 

“I’d say we love both,” says Stu. “Live, the songs come to take on a different dimension but the opportunity of wreckhording is always exciting as one can bring so many more layers to the songs that can’t be pulled off as easily live. To play our album exactly on stage we’d need a few different drum kits, a theremin, too many guitars, percussion and a choir of little demons.” 

That’s the sort of thing we’d like to hear. Something else we’ve heard is that there’s a band called The Bone Daddies. They look suspiciously like a zombie-makeup-free version of ZGT, and we’ve heard it rumoured that they’re the good to ZGT’s evil.  

Stu laughs. 

“Bone Daddies is our tribute to rock ‘n’ roll’s white trash pioneers – just a chance to bust out some rockabilly covers and have a darn’ tootin’ good time,”

He pauses, before adding more. “I don’t think either bands have a good side!” 

Of course, the bad side of the recording industry came out when the band went to make their debut full-lengther, Glad Rags & Body Bags. Tales abounded of in-studio dramas, illnesses and all manner of setbacks. What’s the real story behind the recording? What was it like? 

“Oh man! [Like] three people trying to give birth to the same baby! We all got along, really, during the wreckhording. Unfortunately, we hired a producer who didn’t work out so well. Our album in the end was wreckhorded in three different studios over about nine months. I had laryngitis during the vocals, we lost drum and bass tracks, and refereed arguments between the producer and engineer.

“In the end we’d blown all our money and had a pretty average sounding wreckhord. So I had to mix it at home in two weeks whilst running around getting all the artwork done and trying to rob banks to pay for the pressing. There were many drunken, sleepless nights, eating cigarettes and cursing the gods of rock. Luckily us zombies stuck together and helped each other fight the good fight!” 

Mixing the album must’ve been a bit of a trial then? Especially on top of everything else that’d gone on?  

“I’d mixed our first EP at home too so I wasn’t too worried,” admits Stu. “I guess mostly it was just pressure on myself to come up with something worthy of all the time, effort and money we’d spent on it. I am very fussy when it comes to wreckhording. I don’t see the point in putting out average musick – hell I can just turn the radio on. It just seemed like every time something was going well another problem would arise. A very frustrating process but we were all very happy with the end result in hindsight, and grateful to our friends for helping us through it. Wow – I made that sound like we were doing something unfun. No one told us rock n’ roll would involve work! 

“Glad Rags & Body Bags basically had a lot more time and thought put into it. The production values were higher – better mikes, more layering of sounds and work on backing vocals. 

“We set out wanting to wreckchord and album that was slightly more polished than [ZGT’s first EP] Monster Formal Wear. Something a person could stick into a big sound system and really blow their head off with. (No injuries reported yet!) I love the sound of lo-fi trash and at the same time want to make use of technology so pretty much we tried to have the best of both worlds with this album.” 

With such a split in goals, is Stu happy with how the album’s turned out? ”If you asked me 6 months ago no,” he begins, “but now I’m pretty pleased. What am I saying? It fuckin’ rocks! Get thee to a wreckchord store now and buy it!” 

It’s clear that the band are now diggin’ their big of recorded roughneckery – but how’s it been received elsewhere? 

“Our counsellor keeps all sharp objects and bad reviews away from us,” explains Stu. “So as far as I know everyone loves it. Although someone said I sounded a bit too much like Vincent Price. I took it as a compliment – hi Luke!” 

“It’s seems like there is a small village on the other side of the world called Karloffornia where we keep getting emails from inqusitive natives wanting to hear and see our jungle musick. Seems like they like us!” Stu laughs. ”We have had some great responses from O/S – not just the US, but with sales already in a bunch of different countries such as Germany, Japan, Ireland, Finland and France.  

“Our tour to the US in September was amazing and we made a lot of new zombie friends. Not to mention getting to play with Batmobile and The Nekromantix! We just signed a distribution deal with US Psychobilly/Hairball 8 Records, which we are very excited about.  

“We definitely wanna keep touring O/S and pushing our musick to the rest of the world.” That’s a lot of work for a bunch of dead dudes. Is there any resting in peace planned, or will there be more of the same being served up in 2006? 

“Our hope next year is tour Europe, Japan and go back to the US and Canada. Before that we are working for a film clip for the second song from our album R.I.P. which should be out in Feb/March sometime.” 

The table is moving. Was that you? The spirits seem to be leaving. We think Stu’s gone. But never fear, erstwhile music fans and parapsychologists: a disembodied whisper in the collective FL ear reminds us that the band will be taking more corporeal form and appearing at FasterLouder’s first Christmas Party, at the Annandale Hotel, Sydney, with Peter Fenton, The Morning After Girls and Sarah McLeod. Get along – RSVP here. It’ll be a … scream! 

Glad Rags & Body Bags is out now.