Take that CCR!
Ghostfinger will drop a 7-inch record on May 8 called Born On The Moon. According to Ghostfinger frontman Richie Kirkpatrick, the record serves two purposes.
“The CCR guys have, ?Born on the Bayou.’ [Born on the Moon] came out of a conversation, because they weren’t born on the fucking bayou,” Kirkpatrick quipped. “But we were born on the moon. That song is about how we’re not into the moon, because we’re from planet Space.”
Um, cool.
Whatever the impetus, Born on the Moon gives us more vintage Ghostfinger. A quick listen to the title track and the accompanying “Follow the Water” and you can practically see Kirkpatrick performing the songs at the Basement or Casa Burrito in all his quirky glory.
Ghostfinger will do a record release show at Grimey’s on May 8. That show will be followed up by performances at Casa Burrito on May 10 and The Basement on May 11.
The other reason Ghostfinger decided to drop the 7-inch is Kirkpatrick’s love of vinyl. The band wanted to release some music before its second full-length album comes out later this year.
“I’m really excited. I love vinyl and we don’t have anything on vinyl,” Kirkpatrick said. “Everybody’s going to have to buy those little adapters for their 45’s so they can play our record.”
Kirkpatrick has been a busy man in 2007. Besides recoding the new Ghostfinger album (it’s 90 percent finished), he’s been playing bass on tour with Bobby Bare Jr. and David Vandevelde.
Playing with Bare and Vandevelde has allowed Kirkpatrick to tour the country and refine his already well-regarded stagemanship.
“I feel like I’ve seen every place like three or four times,” said Kirkpatrick, who counted Doug Fur in Portland, the Bowery Ballroom in New York and Pearl Street in North Hampton, Mass., as his favorite venues.
It’s also given him a chance to add some new elements to the live show.
“I bought one of those wireless guitar things. Now I’m running around the audience, licking people’s faces, ordering whiskey while I play,” Kirkpatrick said. “But seriously, just playing it’s led to me becoming more seasoned. Just learning to play other people’s music has helped me.”
When the band returns to Murfreesboro to start pushing Born on the Moon, it will do so with all its members in tow. While Kirkpatrick was backing Bare and Vandevelde, Ghostfinger drummer Van Campbell was on tour with his other band The Black Diamond Heavies, who hopped the pond and swung through Europe. Campbell wasn’t around when the band returned for its Murfreesboro shows in March.
“They’re like really big over there, it’s crazy,” Kirkpatrick said of The Black Diamond Heavies.
But the quartet’s focus remains on Ghostfinger, which surprised everyone including themselves with their debut release These Colors Run two years ago. The album received love from just about everyone in Nashville, not to mention national publications.
“I was surprised at how good the recording sounded. We were just hoping to put out a record that a few people in Middle Tennessee liked,” Kirkpatrick said.
Then the band started touring . . . heavily, and that’s when word began to spread. Kirkpatrick was voted Best Frontman in Nashville by The Scene for his and Ghostfinger’s uncanny ability to rock the proverbial house show after show.
But this remains a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately town and business, so the pressure was on Ghostfinger to provide fans with a worthy follow-up. The album, which Kirkpatrick said will be finished sometime this summer and released later this year, was recorded in the same fashion as These Colors Run, with the band learning Kirkpatrick’s songs on the fly in the studio and using the best take as the final cut.
The album, co-produced by Ghostfinger along with Matt Moody and Jesse Newport at Club Roar in Berry Hill, is not a carbon copy of the band’s debut. How could it be, since TCR was such a wildly eclectic mix of sounds? Kirkpatrick said all four members, including bassist Matt Rowland and guitarist Todd Beene meshed together better on this record.
“What we were going for us is a whole new spacey kinda vibe,” Kirkpatrick said. “We’re just excited to be playing out and back in front of everybody [in Middle Tennessee]. We’re hoping big things happen for us this year. It’s kinda hard to sell an album by hand, so we’re hoping for some label help putting the new record out. We’re just ready to get going.”
For more information and upcoming shows, go to myspace.com/ghostfinger
