The Mouth of Ghosts

Who’s The Mouth Of Ghosts? How you guys all met?

Simon: The Mouth of Ghosts are Alla (vocals), Marco (bass), Phil (drums), Valerie (backing vocals and synth) and myself on Guitar. At the start of 2011 I started looking for people to start a band to make live performances of some songs I had written. I found Marco on a local musicians website, he’d just moved to England from Italy and was looking to join a band. I met Alla in the same way, she was studying singing at a music school near where we rehearse. When we found her we knew she was our singer! Everything fitted so well!! Phil joined the band in late 2011, and Valerie is our newest addition, she joined in March 2012. The line up works really well though, we have a great chemistry with each other.

Alla: I knew when I heard the demos of the songs that this was my band!! I loved the music so much, it really fits me!

What’s the story behind the band’s name?

Simon: It’s actually a song title by one of my favourite bands, Dilinger Escape Plan. The song has so much atmosphere and tension in it, so much dynamic. It inspired me to make a bunch of tracks that had all of that atmosphere, but I wanted to include some other influences and some really sweet female vocals. The name of the band is tipping my hat to that influence.

How would you describe your sound?

Marco: It’s a fusion of alternative rock and trip hop, with lots of atmosphere and tension in the songs. The soft parts are sweet and pure, the louder parts are intense and full. It’s all about the atmosphere, the experience.

Alla: It’s the sound of a crazed mind close to madness!!

What are your music influences?

Simon: Between us we are in to lots of different bands and genres. I think for this band the main influences are Portishead, Deftones and The Cure. I’ve loved Portishead since their first record came out, I kind of wish they’d release more material, but maybe that’s part of the allure of them, the exclusivity of their songs. The Deftones’ album White Pony is especially important to me, I love that album. So much atmosphere and feeling it’s crazy, and it’s got this really dark sexual undertone to it, I’d like to think we have a bit of that record in here somewhere. Also The Cure just wrote really amazing indie-pop songs that were so dark. Again I think there’s some of that in the track ‘When The Sun Sets’…it’s dark but catchy and almost poppy, you can sing along to it.

When The Sun Sets. How was the recording and writing process? How you came out with the album’s title?

Phil: We recorded the EP over 5 days in London. Mixing and mastering took another 6 days. It was a pretty intense process, but we are really happy with the debut record we’ve put out.

Simon: Three of the songs were written before the band was put together, one was written by myself and Alla a month or so before recording (Close). The other song is a cover of the Deftones track ‘Digital Bath’. So we knew most of the songs pretty well before going into the studio.

Marco: The EP is named after the first song, When The Sun Sets, we just made a video for that song and it had some radio play recently as well, so named the EP after that track.

What has been the funniest moment you guys have been or took part while touring?

Phil: I knocked myself out 30 minutes before a gig, by accidentally hitting myself in the face with a music stand! I played the gig, but couldn’t remember much about it!

Simon: You can guarantee if there’s something to hit yourself with, or something to fall over….Phil’s your man…

Phil: Shutup!!!

Are there any plans for the near future?

Valerie: At the moment we are hoping to get to play the Envol & Macadam Festival in Quebec, Canada in September. We are part of a competition to play there, hopefully we’ll win!

Marco: We’d like to follow up our EP with either another EP or a full-length album within the next six months, but we are currently working hard on promoting this EP and getting our name out there, and playing gigs not just around the UK but across the world.

Simon: A record deal would be nice too!!

What’s your method at time of writing a song?

Alla: Simon writes the music first, and records demos with all the instruments recorded. He then gives it to me and I’ll come up with some melodies and lyrics for the tune. Then we’ll record a demo with vocals and give it to the rest of the band.

Simon: Yeah, then Phil will take my bad attempt at drumming and turn it into something crazy and beautiful, Marco will change the bassline, Valerie will add or improve the synth parts and come up with some backing vocals…it develops from there really. A lot of the songs were written before the band was put together, so it will be interesting to see how that evolves as the band progresses.

Do you guys feel you are moving on the right direction?

Valerie: Definitely. We’ve been getting lots of exposure since self releasing the EP, and have had a great reaction to the first video we made.

Alla: Our first gig outside of London is booked, and we’ve been getting support from radio stations for the track When The Sun Sets, so hopefully we’ll get more exposure, play more diverse locations and make more music for both ourselves and the people who like the band. Hopefully you’ll be hearing a lot more about us!!

Check out more at: http://www.themouthofghosts.com