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Ghost Frog 👻🐸
168 Plays5 years ago
Ghost Frog are four humanoids from planet Earth who started to make strange sounds together in the winter of star date 2013 in Portland, OR, USA. This interstellar transmission captured the words of Humanoids Quinn Schwartz and Karl Beheim.
They play heavy psychedelic stoner grunge that combines doomy riffs with punk energy and otherworldly melodies while exploring themes derived from sci-fi/ horror film and literature, as well as all things spacey and/ or spooky.
The result is what they call “paranormal stoner punk,” a retrofuturistic brand of nebulous noise rock that sounds like it was made by angry aliens on acid.
https://ghostfrog.bandcamp.com/album/astral-arcade
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Transcript
Introduction to Ghost Frog
00:00:00
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host Ken Volante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer. This is Ken Volante with Something Rather Than Nothing and very excited this episode to have Ghost Frog with Quinn Schwartz.
00:00:24
Speaker
in Carl Beyheim, a band I've just really gotten into lately. Guys, I am very excited that you've made it to something rather than nothing. Yeah. Thanks, man. Happy to be here.
00:00:38
Speaker
Now, I've listened to your music, which I highly enjoy. There's been new videos come out. There's a lot of fascinating elements to Ghost Frog, but two questions on the intro to Ghost Frog is
Origins and Formation of Ghost Frog
00:01:01
Speaker
Where did Ghost Frog the project come from? And I saw that there really are ghost frogs. That's a type of a frog. Do you know anything about ghost frogs? Frogs. Yeah, the project started. Carl and I are both from Alaska originally. We went to high school up there in Anchorage together and
00:01:28
Speaker
We started playing music together and writing songs and stuff after we had both graduated college and we were back in Alaska for a while. Living with our parents. Living with our parents and we were both super depressed. Back in Alaska, it's so fucking dark. Yeah, back in Alaska during the winter, dark and cold. Dumped.
00:01:52
Speaker
And yeah, we'd both just gotten dumped by our long-term girlfriends. We were commiserating together and started writing music as a form of therapy and whatnot. A lot of really bad super emo. Yeah, it started our own personal pandemic back in. Yeah. Well, so you were riding the high street great then, right? Yeah. Yeah. Now, you said at the time you were up in Alaska, right? Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:22
Speaker
And was it, I mean, um, I'm from New England and I have had limited exposure to that far north, but is it the type of, you know, as the type of climate, which is the amount of sunlight and all those types of things are an issue despite in addition to the, the, the, the cold, right? Yeah. That for me personally, the sunlight thing is the biggest issue. I mean, it's like Anchorage, where we're from is South central. So it's not like not crazy North slope.
00:02:51
Speaker
you know, freeze your eyeballs off cold, but like the darkness in the, uh, the height of winter is like 20 hours of darkness and it really gets you. And, but like on the flip side, you get like 20 hours of sunlight or even more. Sometimes it feels like just, you know, for the solstice. So it's just the greatest, like the greatest highs you can get very bipolar to live. Yeah. Yeah. Why?
00:03:16
Speaker
I, um, I think some of the limit of my knowledge is from like 30 days of night and Barrow, you know, like, and I hate to say stuff like that. Um, but like, I just have that point of reference, but tell us more about the ghost frog, the development beyond the, you know, beyond being up there in Alaska and how the project continued. Yeah. So then I, I, I went to college in Portland at PSU. And so I, uh,
00:03:44
Speaker
came back down here and then Carl and also like I had a bunch of family living down here like siblings and stuff. So I'd always been coming down to Portland through most of my life because my brother lived here like ever since the early 90s. So come visit him and stuff. So yeah, move back down here and Carl came down and joined me and we kept writing music and
00:04:13
Speaker
I recruited my college friend Archie to play bass. He's an amazing bass player. And we got another one of our mutual friends to join us on drums, Ben Heckler. And that was like the first iteration of the band. And then we played a lot of shows just around the Portland area and put out an album called Laser Tag.
00:04:43
Speaker
Uh, and then Pretty much have been doing the same thing ever since and we put out two more albums Uh since then and Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it. Yeah. Thanks. Um, and we're talking about with uh, quinn schwartz and carl bayheim of uh of ghost frog and um
00:05:06
Speaker
I tell you, the music really appeals to me. We're going to play some for the listeners, but the influences I just adore. I believe in Sasquatch and UFOs.
00:05:24
Speaker
and heavily influenced by science fiction and movies and books. And of course, the gaming themes, a couple of my boys are very much into
Influences and Themes in Music
00:05:36
Speaker
gaming. I've played video games for a long time, but could you just both tell us the bits and pieces that show up in your music or the stuff that shows up as far as influences?
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I think we're all just pretty big nerds. So, you know, I always wanted to do a band that would incorporate like a lot of my other interests. And I feel like there's not that much
00:06:17
Speaker
Music that gets really conceptual like in the sci-fi realm, so I just thought that was a cool area to explore So yeah, I'm just I've always loved reading sci-fi books and watching like old sci-fi B movies and stuff and I just fascinated by you know outer space and aliens and All that all that good stuff
00:06:47
Speaker
I don't know if anyone else in the band is really as into that stuff as I am. Oh, I definitely am, for sure. I grew up with, obviously, Star Wars is like my, I watched that like as a nine year old, pretty much every day, three times. But yeah, a lot of my influences musically, so I come from classical music background. And so I didn't really
00:07:16
Speaker
start playing guitar or rock until later in life. So Quinn introduced me to a lot of like what was like cool rock and roll, what was cool and heavy. And I was coming from like playing in orchestra and listening to Mozart. So that was kind of my background. Yeah. And I think Carl's background in classical music lent itself really well to the whole like
00:07:46
Speaker
sci-fi aesthetic because it brings in this whole cinematic quality to the melodies and stuff. Which evokes sci-fi film scores in my mind. Totally. But all that sci-fi music is so influenced by like 60s sci-fi music, it's so influenced by
00:08:14
Speaker
classical composers like wc and Chopin and that was like my favorite stuff that french impressionistic music yeah growing up for sure yeah i was um and i i i love hearing about that and the classical um you know the the influences and and kind of like the sweeping you know epic parts of uh the sound i was at um i was at the i'd never been to the symphony and i had a habit of going to the
00:08:43
Speaker
the Portland Symphony when that was held regularly. But I remember listening to some of Beethoven and some of classical music. And I'm not educated in that way, but the intensity and the rock and roll that was just embedded, it just blew me away. And it's a big stretch sometimes for some folks, but not so much, right? Totally. I mean,
Art as a Mirror of Society
00:09:13
Speaker
Beethoven in his time was like the heaviest most hardcore rocker the original rock star Yeah, this guy loses his hearing and he just keeps on getting heavier and harder and more badass As he's riding it, it's insane. He's like the og I think we just hit you know you we could take you could take a course on this stuff I think you just hit it right there, man. They're the og right that right there. Yeah, I mean we're all influenced by something
00:09:43
Speaker
It's like a chain of influences. Hey, guys. I wanted to cut into it. It's tough to talk about music. I want to give people, the listeners, a little bit of a taste for the music. There's a track, Kill Screen, that I want to cut to. And this is off Astral Arcade. Anything you want to say about this particular track?
00:10:12
Speaker
I think it's my favorite song that we've ever done. Yeah. Me too. All right. I love it. I love it. OK, everybody, we've got the kill screen coming up from Ghost Frog.
00:11:15
Speaker
Don't kiss somebody
00:11:38
Speaker
Turn it off
00:12:15
Speaker
No time to make me sad There's one life left, can't go in the town Focus on what's high enough
00:14:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Well done. Thanks, man. Well done. Love that track. I've seen that you have had some videos coming out. What's the story behind the videos? I've seen a couple lately. Yeah.
00:15:03
Speaker
Well, we made a video for that track. We've always done our own videos in a pretty DIY way. Usually, we just get some costumes and some props and go out and just film ourselves acting. Is that stupid stuff? Pretty much.
00:15:30
Speaker
I think part of our being super influenced by sci-fi movies comes into play with our videos because I just like to use them as a vehicle for telling little short stories, almost like little mini short films, just as my own. I like to look at the song like it's a score for a short film. Yeah.
00:16:00
Speaker
Sometimes even when we're writing the songs, I'll be thinking about like music video ideas. So I definitely think that the music videos are, I see them as like an extension of what we're doing, you know, creatively and artistically. It's an important aspect for me. Yeah, I've enjoyed seeing that they're a lot of fun and definitely compliment
00:16:28
Speaker
your musical style. I got a big question. We have to give the listeners your answers to some of the bigger philosophical questions. Oh, boy. Yeah, yeah. So hey, guys. Help me out here. What is art? Whoo. You want to take that one, Carl? Art. Honestly, I think art is a reflection of what's going on in society.
00:16:58
Speaker
It's like if you go look at a mirror when you're having a bad day or society's having a bad year or decade or a hundred years or something, when society looks in the mirror and the reflection they get back, which is in my mind, it is art. So like it's like they look in the mirror, they look, what comes back is that art, the production of people's
00:17:30
Speaker
emotions and passions, trying to, I guess, create something in the mirror. That was a terrible answer. I think I smoked a little bit too much weed before.
00:17:44
Speaker
Sorry, kid. No, no, wait a second. No, I'm going to I'm going to rescue you here because the mirror is the reflection. It's the reflection and it turns it around at the same time. Right. So yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly what I'm trying to say. Exactly.
00:17:59
Speaker
I knew that was there. I kicked this one around too, guys.
The Role of Art in Turbulent Times
00:18:07
Speaker
What's the role of art? And I started asking this more of saying, hey, what is art and get a definition? But we have absurd political times. We've got a world feeling in upheaval. We've got people
00:18:23
Speaker
Basically with the kind of a drip line to their Wi-Fi and social media a lot of strange things happen in what what's arts role in all this Right now does that have a different role or well, what's its role? For me, I mean it's it's I think it's crucial in preserving People's or what's left of people's sanity
00:18:54
Speaker
What would we do during this whole pandemic if we didn't have books to read and movies to watch and records to listen to? We would all be totally screwed. It's like a way of being able to connect with people without actually having to physically be present with them, which really lends itself to this particular situation.
00:19:23
Speaker
Um, I mean, if, if it wasn't for art, like you're saying right now, we'd all be so paranoid. I feel like, you know, like it is, it is the connection to humanity. And without that connection, you just, you isolate, you hate. It's like a guard against violence in a weird way. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. That, that, that, that's, I mean, yeah.
00:19:51
Speaker
One of the things that I've seen is people think about it within Political terms, but you know, there's such an intensity to the art that's been created but There's also things like the like defunding, you know under Trump There's no there's nothing artful in my mind about any of that stuff. So it's kind of like art stands in opposition to our to our recent times totally
00:20:20
Speaker
One of the big questions I ask, and it's kind of to get into how you both developed as artists, I was wondering if you could each reflect on who or what made you who you are, a person or influence or a dang record or what.
00:20:45
Speaker
Well, I got a shout out to Wes Borland of Limp Bizkit. He got me wanting to play electric guitar because his riffs were pretty sick. We both, we grew up in the new metal era. We apologize if any of those influences come through in our music, but we can't help it.
00:21:15
Speaker
it's embedded in our psyches. When it was also like, you know, you start going down their, their trail of influences, and then you discover some really rad shit. Like, yeah, keep on going back in their trail of influence, like from nine years old to like, whatever, you find some incredible stuff. Totally. And I would argue that
00:21:40
Speaker
You know, time hasn't been very kind to that era of music. But I think, you know, they had a lot of interesting ideas musically. And I think it was a pretty creative time in, in like, mainstream music, you know, I think it was
00:22:02
Speaker
For better or worse you can definitely argue that a lot of the the vocals and the lyrics are pretty cringe-worthy Nowadays, but I think musically they had a lot of Kind of pretty cool stuff happening. So yeah, it's a bad rap, you know, oh, I think you know one want to hear something interesting is my
00:22:21
Speaker
My son, Aiden, he's 17 and he's self-taught guitar, just really obsessive into music like I am and it's a really good
00:22:38
Speaker
guitar player But you know he he reintroduced me To new man. I didn't really listen to that much of it at the time And so my experience of new metal was not at the time It was actually my son over the last year or two who? appreciates a lot what was in the new metal teaching me
00:23:01
Speaker
So it was a very interesting dynamic of how I learned about it. And I ended up with a much more favorable impression of New Metal than anybody I talked to because of his influence. That's cool. You're probably like a very unique individual in that sense. Like most of us were
00:23:22
Speaker
forced to grow up in it or forced to listen to it all the time because that was everything back in the day. And I think that's why it gets a bad rap. But we loved it too. We loved it. But like everybody else who is forced to listen to it really, I don't know.
00:23:36
Speaker
They loved it as much, but... Hey, but here's the thing, too. No, I appreciate that. It's just kind of a fun thing that my son has taught me. I'm also a little bit unreliable, as I love you guys. But the only music I've listened to from December on has been Taylor Swift's last two albums in Ghostwatch.
00:23:58
Speaker
And guys, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, it makes sense to me, but I'm having this conversation with others and they're not they're not vibing with me on this. I don't I haven't listened to them or they're good. I mean, well, I'm a Swifty. All right. And you might not. I am too, man. 1989 is 1989 is a banger. That is one of the greatest albums in a long time. I love that. I love
00:24:28
Speaker
I love her last few albums. 1989 and on are all my favorite ones, but her last Evermore and Folklore are deep, dark fucking trips. Listen to it. It's dark, it's intense and creative.
00:24:53
Speaker
There's a there's a lot of emotional depth there and I love it. Anyways, but it's it's it's her in Ghost Frog for me lately. So, you know, two sides of one dark coin. We're in good company. Yeah, I mean, I think we're we definitely write like pop songs, you know. Yeah. So I wouldn't say that we're that far removed from Taylor Swift, like
00:25:22
Speaker
I mean, we might we try to write catchy sounding shit. Yeah, but we try to balance it out with some weirdness and some some darkness and some noise and yeah, so that it's not completely like
00:25:37
Speaker
You know, sugary, sugar pop, sugar pop. Yeah. I mean, like our biggest influences when we were starting out, like we were listening to a, we were listening to a lot of Nirvana and you were showing, which is totally a pop band. Oh yeah. You guys, you guys, you and Nirvana are like, in my opinion, like some of the best pop pop songwriters, like just in a different.
00:26:01
Speaker
There's simple hooks and just really, really freaking good pop songs, great melodies. It's just a different aesthetic as far as the sound, the instrumentation and the production and stuff. But at the end of the day, it's all just hooks.
00:26:20
Speaker
Well, it's confusing for the I mean, I'm really fascinated that you brought that up because, you know, I was when we were talking here, I was thinking of Nirvana. And I think Nirvana as a band still presents big problems for like casual music listeners, because right, you can dance and have fun dancing to Nirvana. And but some of the vocals and some of the tracks are just super, you know,
00:26:49
Speaker
Uh, at times, uh, uh, uh, intense and an abrasive, but melodies, right? Melodies for the most part. For sure. Yeah. He was a genius, uh, Mel, melody writer. Yeah. And I think like the, the contrast, like we always talk about how like contrast is what makes like a lot of really cool things happen in music.
00:27:16
Speaker
And the contrast between like the abrasiveness and just like some of the nasty chords and stuff and the effects and everything. Soft loud. Yeah, but with the contrast between the nastiness and then the beauty of the melodies, like just how genius they were. That's what makes it. That's what makes it work. Which I guess you could argue maybe that's why regular top 40 pop stuff
00:27:45
Speaker
isn't as, I don't know, it's not as appealing, at least to me anyways, it's because it's very much one thing. It doesn't have that same contrast. So I guess that's why I gravitate more towards the hard rock pop.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah. Or the dark stuff, the dark side. Yeah. The sides of that dark coin, I think, that I heard. Yeah. Absolutely. Hey, not to throw a very hard curve ball at you both, but I love an answer to why there is something rather than nothing. Oh, boy.
00:28:36
Speaker
Hmm 42 all right Finally it took ghost frog and it took 73 episodes, but the answer has been given 42 That's right the real question is what's the question Wow so um
The Philosophical Question of '42'
00:29:01
Speaker
So, so I'm going to, you know, listeners always expect an answer from that. And for me, 42 is a complete and total answer for listeners. Just so you know, we're talking about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and that story where it's been argued, shown in some have done it in a PhD thesis that the answer to all these questions is 42. And here we have arrived with with Ghost Frog telling us that. So thank you, guys.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no problem. I almost panicked when you asked that question, but then I thought to myself, don't panic. And then the answer just came to me. Guys, we're going to think this is pre-rehearsed. This is off the cuff. Taylor Swift, Ghost Frog.
00:29:51
Speaker
Douglas Adams, 42 is the answer we've been waiting for. You can quit the podcast now because you got the answers. You don't know what dilemma you put me. I mean, the rest of my day is shot because of you guys. I don't know what I'm going to do. I will say one thing before I ask you a final question.
00:30:17
Speaker
And you might be interested in this. I am actually going to create a weird short offshoot of this show, and it's going to be called Nothing Rather Than Something.
00:30:29
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. So and it's going to be four episodes about the theory of emptiness and nothingness. That's all it's going to be. So maybe I just have to go that direction after you gave the big answer of forty two. That sounds so cool. I'll be I'll be listening to that. All right. I already got it. I already got some subscribers. We're good. Hey, Ghost Frog. Just wondering if you could let listeners know
00:30:59
Speaker
Where to find your material, where to download the music, how to connect with you, with the band. Can you just share some of that?
Where to Find Ghost Frog's Music
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook. And then we have a website, ghostfrogband.net.
00:31:25
Speaker
where we post updates on things. We got a YouTube channel that has all our music videos on there. If you just type in Ghost Frog, I'm sure you can find it. And then a Bandcamp. Oh, yeah. And we have a Bandcamp page that has all our albums available. And then we're also on all the streaming services and stuff too. But of course, we encourage you to go through Bandcamp if you
00:31:54
Speaker
if you want to support us. Yeah. There's some sick t-shirts on there too. Yeah, we got quite a bit of merch on there, like some cool tapes and shirts. And we got a vinyl, a really, really sweet vinyl version of our new album, Astral Arcade, available on there. And yeah, we're working on writing the next one. So after this podcast is over, we're probably going
00:32:23
Speaker
start diving into some songwriting. Yeah. That's fantastic. Thanks for sharing that, too. And yes, Bandcamp, a service I love. And everybody check that out, Ghost Frog on Bandcamp, also doomed and stoned collections of doom metal, stoner metal.
00:32:52
Speaker
and such. You can find some of that stuff on Bandcamp. Guys, as I let you know at the beginning, I've been really excited to have you on the program and really enjoyed talking with you. I do deeply enjoy your music and I am serious when I'm only listening to Ghost Frog and Taylor Swift since December. That'll change. But you know, only... This is one of the greatest compliments that I've ever gotten. Huge, man. Hey, hey.
00:33:18
Speaker
I'm glad it worked out that way, but I just wanted to extend. We need to do a tour with her. I think it makes sense. The merch will be incredible on both sides for sure.
00:33:35
Speaker
But we need to do a collabo. Fantastic. Hey, thanks, guys, for hopping on the program. I wish you great success. And for myself and other listeners out there, we really look forward to some of the new material that you'll probably be working on soon, as you said. So thanks so much, guys. Thank you. Yeah, man. Thanks for having us. Have a good one, Ken. All right. Quinn Sports, Carl Beyheim from Ghost Frog. Thanks so much. Good night.
00:34:06
Speaker
so
00:35:41
Speaker
you
00:38:17
Speaker
so