Ghøstkid had the misfortune of emerging in 2020 in the midst of a global pandemic. Unable to play live shows for two years to support its self-titled debut, band mastermind Sebastian “Sushi” Biesler, formerly of German “electronicore” act Electric Callboy (when it still was known as Eskimo Callboy), fell into a bit of funk that he describes as losing his connection with music. Inspiration struck on a trip to Los Angeles, California, which turned into a stay of several weeks and birthed Ghøstkid’s sophomore record, “Hollywood Suicide” (March 22, 2024, Century Media Records; read Live Metal’s review), a concept album telling the tragic story of a Hollywood starlet’s downward spiral. Live Metal’s Greg Maki recently caught up with Sushi to discuss the new album, Ghøstkid’s upcoming debut U.S. tour supporting Black Veil Brides and more.
LIVE METAL: It’s an exciting time for you and Ghøstkid. The new album, “Hollywood Suicide,” is out, and you’ve been on tour in Europe and the U.K. How have the shows been going?
SEBASTIAN “SUSHI” BIESLER: So far, everything’s alright, so we have a great time. Blind Channel is awesome and Rock Band from Hell, as well. We’re having a good time. To be honest, we didn’t have that much time to prepare everything. We’ve been in a rush. Before we went on tour, everything was so fast—planning that whole release and so on. But now it feels great to play new tracks live onstage. We’re getting there. (laughs) It’s great.
When you play new songs live for the first time, can you tell which ones are gonna be the fan favorites and the hits?
I would say it’s hard to tell, because the record is so fresh that the people are not really used to it. Second thing is we are on a support tour, so probably a lot of the people just discovered us for the first time. So it’s hard to tell. But I can definitely say what tracks I like to play live. “Dahlia,” for example, is a lot of fun. “Murder” is great. I hate “Fuck Shit Up”—“FSU.” It’s so exhausting vocal-wise just to sing it. Every night, it’s like, “Oh my god.” So I wish we would’ve had more rehearsals. But it is what it is. (laughs) It’s still a fun track.
Going back a few years, when you left your previous band, it seemed like Ghøstkid and the first Ghøstkid album came together pretty quickly. But then it took 3½ –4 years for the second album. Was that a result of the pandemic, or was there more to it than that?
I would say the pandemic was kind of the reason. For me, to keep it simple, I kind of lost the connection to write music. I put a lot into that first record, and then we never had the chance to play shows. That’s the reason why you write an album, right? So it was like two years or whatever until we went back kind of to normal, and I tried to write some stuff and I kind of lost the connection because we didn’t know how is this gonna end? But after a while, I got back to songwriting because my label told me, “OK, we need new music. It doesn’t matter what has happened. You need to go back to songwriting.”
I can remember that I was struggling by writing new music in the beginning. Then I went to L.A., and that really flipped my whole world upside down, being an artist. I discovered a lot more and really—I don’t know—got the connection back. That was the point, after I went back home, that I started writing the rest of the tracks on “Hollywood Suicide.”
Did you go to L.A. specifically looking for inspiration, or was there some other reason you decided to go?
No, originally I went over because we wanted to shoot a music video. I did a track with Kayzo, an EDM DJ, and the track turned out so amazing that we wanted to shoot a music video for that. So I joined him at one of the festivals that he was playing in Orlando, and then we flew over to L.A. So it was more like a business trip, but it got extended because there was no specific date for the video shoot, and we ended up staying for weeks there. I discovered a lot about myself being an artist there, because I think in L.A., people celebrate it differently. It’s more connected to your persona than just people doing art.
When during this process did you hit on the whole concept behind the album?
That was pretty subconscious, I would say. I’m like a sponge. My whole environment, I just absorb it. Sometimes it’s aesthetics—even if it’s specific light and colors. It sounds a bit weird, but that’s how it is. I definitely got the vibe. If I feel something or I need to get something out of my system, I transfer it into tracks. Surprisingly, it turned out that all of those tracks fit in the same kind of topic. And what was even more crazy was that when we were working on lyrics for the album and I was in the studio, it turned out there was kind of a timeline in it. That was the point where I realized it could be a concept album, because there was a starting point and it just got worse and worse and worse. It’s about the downward spiral of a Hollywood diva.
Have you always had this interest in L.A. and Hollywood? The first album has the song “This Is Not Hollywood,” so I was wondering how long that goes back for you.
I think I always had a connection. Even when I was younger and I’d never been in America, I always had this connection. It always felt familiar, and it resonated to me. Probably, as well, this pop culture thing—that always got my attention. So maybe that’s why I had the track “This Is Not Hollywood,” because Hollywood, for me, is always a symbol of “This is where you want to live your dream.”
But there’s also this kind of seedy underbelly that you’re getting into on this album.
Yeah, true. If you’re an artist and you’re about to make it, you’ve got so many distractions, so many temptations, as well. When I was writing this album, I was thinking a lot about the power you have as an artist, but on the other hand, there are so many things you have to deal with. I’ve always given that example. At a regular job, you probably will never get that much attention that you get as an artist. You live in a different world that you shape. You can shape it for yourself. You live in a different reality, and sometimes people get lost easily. I always used to say you grow up so fuckin’ fast by seeing the world in such a short amount of time, but sometimes you lose the connection to yourself. This is the dark side of when you’re successful, and it just gets worse. So you need a clear mind and you need a good connection to yourself to keep yourself grounded, I would say.
When it comes to albums, I’m always interested in the track sequencing and how that comes together. I think it’s really interesting that on this album, you start out with one of the heaviest songs, the title track, and then you go into a song that’s almost a power ballad. You almost never hear that that early in the album. What was the thinking behind that? Was that just where it logically fit into the concept and the story?
For me, it was like we have this timeline that makes sense, because “Hollywood Suicide” is basically about this raw intention you have to kill yourself to live your dream because this is what we do. You have no holidays, no Christmas or whatever. Even when you’re sick, you have to perform. So you really have to love that shit just to keep going. Me as an example, you write four years for an album that is probably 40 minutes long. But that’s the starting point, because the intention behind that is pretty real, and it just goes into the downward spiral. Not all the tracks fit specifically in that timeline. “Murder” and “S3x,” these could be something like little movies that this Hollywood diva is shooting. I don’t know why I picked the ballad as track two. It just felt right. Sometimes, I like to keep it a bit more weird. For me, if the flow of the album is there and it feels good how it is, then it’s right.
You mentioned “FSU” at the beginning. How does that song fit into the story? It references the Joker, so I was wondering how he fit into the whole theme.
It fits perfectly in there because I would consider what the Joker’s doing is kind of like art. His whole character is so interesting because there is no intention behind what he is doing. It’s just passion and creating chaos. Money doesn’t matter. Power doesn’t matter. He just wants to create chaos. It’s comparable to an artist because you got the possibilities, like I said, to create your own reality, and by doing that, you’re kind of like an outsider. Even the Joker is an outsider. It’s not somebody who will fit the mold. By being this outsider with a different kind of consciousness and self-confidence, this is basically what “Fuck Shit Up” is about—the self-destructive passion for one thing. You start to feel the power by being different and doing your own thing. The Joker is doing the complete opposite of what people are used to.
What’s your favorite version of the Joker?
It depends. I would say in “The Dark Knight,” it was great. The movie “Joker,” as well, was great. One Joker that I really liked a lot was in the series “Gotham.” And it’s funny because the Joker is played by this little kid from “Malcolm in the Middle.” (laughs) It’s so crazy. What was his name? I think Cameron something. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Cameron Monaghan.) But I think he did a great job playing the Joker because I think it was this progress of getting more and more crazy, and there was so intense scenes in the series. I loved it. For me, personally, I would say that’s the most intense Joker.
“Heavy Rain” is the single that’s doing really well for you right now. I hear it on Octane all the time. I think that’s one of your best vocal performances. Do you have a style of vocal between the screaming and the cleaner, melodic singing that you prefer, or do you like doing both?
I would say I like screaming a lot better, because I’m more safe in screaming. But it’s hard to tell. Sometimes, with some tracks, you really have to struggle. It’s a struggle to keep your voice going and hit the high notes and so on, and I would never consider myself a good singer. But I would say screaming is probably a bit more easy, too, for me. When I’m in the studio, I do the screams first, because the possibility to fuck up my voice by singing is a lot higher. (laughs)
Even though you’re dealing with a concept and a story, I’m sure some of this stuff is also personal to you. Like “Heavy Rain,” for example, you sound very vulnerable on that one. What is that song about?
Basically, this track is about the abuse of a toxic relationship. It’s something I have experienced myself over the past 15 years, I would say. I was writing that track when I was feeling absolutely miserable, but this is how it always works for me. When I have a tough time, I need to write music. That’s the only thing that really helps me in those times. That’s the reason why most of the Ghøstkid tracks are in a negative context. With “Heavy Rain,” it was a special thing because there was a lot that came together. I don’t know—maybe that’s the reason why it turned out so intense, I would say.
The album ends with two of my favorite songs, and they seem to be inspired by two of the more well-known, more infamous Hollywood crash-and-burn figures—“Dahlia,” which I’m assuming is the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short, and then “Helena Drive,” Marilyn Monroe. Can you talk about the inspiration for those two songs?
Yeah. This is what I mean about the timeline, because it’s interesting. “Dahlia” is basically about this is the point where the dream starts to haunt her. Everything that started as a dream became a nightmare and is about to kill her. That’s the reason why I picked the term from the Black Dahlia murder. “Helena Drive” is basically the closure track that sums it up. How could it have gone this far? It’s because everybody is just trying to find a place to fit in, and some people get lost. Because that’s the intention as an artist—you try to create your own reality, your own world, because the regular life is not made for you. We’re all broken little puzzle pieces trying to fit into a world that’s incomplete. That’s something I wrote in a writing session with Dylan (Scott Quagliato) and Knox (Alex “Knox” Harris) in L.A., and I just kept the chorus. And it’s crazy, what I mean with the timeline. “Dahlia” is where the whole dream is coming after her. In the end, she’s dead and it’s the closure track that sums up why it has happened.
So you’ve got the songs and the music. Obviously, that’s the foundation for everything. But then the image and the presentation of the band is very important, too, and you’ve got great album art for this album. How did that come together?
The whole album artwork actually is hand painted by a guy called Aly Wayne Gacy. We played in Munich, and he brought us the original paintings. So everything is hand painted. I just sent him over the tracks with the lyrics and said, “Just feel the vibe, and paint whatever you want to paint.” I was a big fan of his art before, so we met at a festival and I asked him, “Hey, are you down for that?” And he was. He is one of the most loveliest guys. So this is how everything came together.
At the end of this month, you’re coming over to America for a tour with Black Veil Brides, Creeper and Dark Divine. Will these be the first American shows for Ghøstkid?
Yeah, it’s gonna be interesting. I’m totally looking forward to that. It’s gonna be tough, that’s for sure, but it’s fucking great to have the opportunity to open up for a band like Black Veil Brides. I think the package is pretty cool because I think all of the bands are doing makeup,and everybody has this dark vibe. So I think we’re in really good company.
What can people expect from Ghøstkid live?
I don’t know. I always used to say just five kids having fun onstage. (laughs) I’m not the guy who puts ourselves on a pedestal. So I would say I’m just telling my story with some of my best friends onstage. Get your tickets, and check it out for yourself. Hope you like it. If not, it’s OK. (laughs)
Is there anything else you’d like to say before we go?
I would say just check out “Hollywood Suicide.” If you like it, show it to your friends. If not, that’s OK, too. Just shoot me a message or whatever. But I hope you enjoy it.
LINKS:
Buy “Hollywood Suicide.”
www.ghost-kid.de
www.facebook.com/ghostkidofficial
www.twitter.com/iamghostkid
www.instagram.com/ghostkiddo
YouTube channel
Ghøstkid U.S. tour dates:
supporting Black Veil Brides, with Creeper and Dark Divine
4/25 — San Francisco, CA — Fillmore
4/27 — Las Vegas, NV — Sick New World
4/28 — Salt Lake City, UT — The Depot
4/29 — Denver, CO — Ogden Theater
4/30 — Kansas City, MO — The Truman
5/2 — Minneapolis, MN — Fillmore
5/3 — Chicago, IL — Concord Music Hall
5/4 — Green Bay, WI — Epic
5/5 — Detroit, MI — Royal Oak Theater
5/7 — Albany, NY — Empire Live
5/8 — Boston, MA — House of Blues Boston
5/9 — Richmond, VA — The National
5/10 — Raleigh, NC — The Ritz
5/13 — Atlanta, GA — Buckhead Theater
5/15 — New York, NY — Palladium Times Square
5/16 — Philadelphia, PA — Fillmore
5/18 — Nashville, TN — Marathon Music Works
5/20 — San Antonio, TX — The Aztec Theatre
5/21 — Houston, TX — RISE
5/22 — Dallas, TX — The Factory
5/24 — Tempe, AZ — The Marquee
5/25 — Los Angeles, CA — The Belasco
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