I checked out your website, and what’s interesting is that it says you re-visited the acoustic guitar after your close friends asked you to play a song at their wedding. So starting from that point and going into your career as a musician, why did you chose to focus musically on roots rock and folky rock jams? That seems to be the most prevalent genre on your album. What about the genre inspires you?

Well, first of all, playing the acoustic guitar as a medium when there are no other instruments there, it kind of lends itself to that genre. The genre of Americana rock utilizes the guitar, and a lot of the songs in Van Ghost are composed with the guitar first. When I first started writing again, to go back to that experience, I was really into Wilco and Ryan Adams and The Cardinals, which really fit into that genre. Now I listen to other stuff. That was a couple of years ago, but I still have a great appreciation for both of those bands, they’re two of my all-time favorites of this generation of songwriters. There are others that are coming out now, or have come out in the last two years that have been very inspirational to me. Be it melodies, strictly lyrical content or all sorts of things that lend themselves to that style and genre of music. So that combination of that fact that the songwriting style lends itself to that type of music in the first place. And that was definitely the sort of music that was inspiring me at the time, which kind of helped me formulate the voice for what Van Ghost has become. I like all types of music, but for some reason when I go to write, this is what comes out - pop-y folk songs. I found about a year into my writing, off this most recent batch of compositions, you can’t really try to appeal to a certain genre. You have to let come out what comes out. That’s what’s been happening, and for some reason it just lends itself to this folk-y, alt-country, pop rock, alternative vein.

Speaking of letting come out whatever comes out, it’s interesting how the first track off your album, “It All Leads Here” flows into the middle of the second track, “Summer Promise”. I’ve gotta admit that when I popped your CD in, I expected to hear something like space-rock jams. But then the second track sounded almost prog-like, similar to Yes. I was wondering if that is just what came out, or was that to throw listeners off guard a little bit? Or was it to push the limits of your band?

Basically, in the vein of Pink Floyd, or spacey stuff from The Grateful Dead, I’m really into ambient music. I feel like when you make a record, it can’t just be a collection of songs. It has to flow like a record; tell a story in a way. We started doing this spacey intro, before “Summer Promise”, at a bunch of our shows right around the time when we started recording. “Summer Promise” is a single, the song that we made a music video for with a company called Wiggle Puppy Productions, old friends of mine. When we were recording the record, we (the band) decided as a team that we wanted to put that spacey track on there. People from the label, from the management team and from the band questioned, “Do we wanna open the record with something like that?” The consensus was yes we did, because we wanted to open with an ambience, a feeling that is there before you get into the songs. When the song actually drops in, you’ve already evoked some emotion. In terms of pushing the boundaries of the band, we’ve only hardly scratched the surface of that. You can definitely count on future albums going more in that direction, as well as working on better songwriting craft. There’s definitely jazz and jam band roots amongst some of the people in there, so we want to be able to show the band’s musicianship as well as our creativity. Obviously the most important thing is the songwriting, that’s what people are going to hold onto the most. But we also want to incorporate the art of recording into it.

Seeing that you blend musical styles on your album how has Chicago’s musical history with blues, jazz, and more modern bands like Wilco informed Van Ghost’s writing style and musical textures?

Certainly the city itself has equally contributed to the songwriting and to the experience of the full project. As far as the musical history of the city, most of us are from Chicago, and a lot of the songs have been written about real-life things that have happened to us. Considering all of us, most of them, al least the majority of mine has been spent in Chicago. There’s a lot of relevance to Chicago in general. But in terms of music, I definitely don’t think Chicago is the only source of inspiration. You just mentioned Wilco; they are probably one of our greatest influences from the beginning till now, for a plethora of reasons. But it’s not just Chicago music. There are other bands out there now, like Andrew Bird. That’s been very inspirational to us as well, and he’s representing Chicago extremely well around the world right now. In terms of the classic Chicago stuff like jazz and blues, I don’t see it linking too well with what I’m doing. A lot of the musicians in Van Ghost have a jazz background, but they’re not really playing that here. They’re playing rock music with their touch of jazz. So jazz is more an underlining influence as opposed to a direct influence of what the sound is actually like. In terms of the blues, that is traditionally about depressing, bad things. A lot of Van Ghost’s songs are about anguish and trials and tribulations of life and trying to get through things on a daily basis. But a lot of the best moments on the record and in Van Ghost’s material are definitely based off of dark, deep things. That conceptually fits into the blues very well, but again, it doesn’t sound like any blues, and we’re not doing traditional blues licks and not playing traditional blues keys. On more of a modern sense, the singer-songwriter, folk rock, Americana and alt-country that are coming out of Chicago, it’s what’s more so influencing what we’re doing right now.

Van Ghost has had a few important shows so far. There was your debut show at The Metro in January 2008 and Rothbury earlier this month. There is also the upcoming Wicker Park Fest. Can you give a gauge of how audience expectations have changed between these points? How are the band’s goals to meet those expectations changing?

My history in the music business started when I was way younger, in junior high and high school, being in bands. But creating music and performing has always been a giant element in my life, literally from when I was a very young teenager up to right now. Even during the times when I wasn’t performing or composing myself, during a break from the mid nineties to the early 2000s, I was promoting concerts, helping manage a band, helping do other things for people around the music industry. The majority of those things were rooted in live music. I touched earlier on the art of recording, that being a privilege for the recording artist, but certainly the other side of that coin is live performance. Myself, all my peers, everyone in the band and on Split Red Records has a great appreciation for that. So the other side of the thing we care most about is our live performance. So in preparation for this Wicker Park Festival performance, which is the start of our CD release tour, we’ve been practicing regularly, have written a bunch of new material. So when the band gets together we can work on evolving and developing our old songs, and work on new stuff to keep the vibe. As many performers and singers can tell you, people get sick of playing the same songs over and over again, which is inspiration for writing new material. The more songs we write, the greater our repertoire can become and the more options we’re going to have with bands we can share the stage with. A lot of the shows we’re doing right now, because we’re an upstart band, we’re supporting their band and we’re doing a lot of one hour shows. But something we’re gearing up for in the near future is coming out with our own events, which we do some of right now, but we could do full two-set shows. We’d like to eventually get to the point where we can play two or three hours worth of music for our fans. The longer you’re on stage, the longer you have to connect with people. That brings me to the other element of what you were talking about, what people can expect. What we want people to expect is a connection with what we’re doing, content-wise but energetically as well. It’s cliché to say, but there really is a genuine exchange of energy between audience and performer, and we try to embrace that just like any band should. If you’re having fun onstage, which we try our hardest to do at all times, then the people in the crowd are going to pick up on that and experience that with you. So on this CD release tour that we’re going to embark on is something that you can guarantee that we’ll be up there having a good time, and we hope that transcends to the audience. Material-wise, I hope the songs are catching on and getting stuck in peoples’ heads. There’s a nice fan base building around Van Ghost now, and it all starts off with some people in the back hearing us play. It’s really an honor to be a part of someone’s social life.

Do you think Van Ghost’s true colors come out in the studio or in a live setting? I perfectly understand if you don’t want to pick between either one.

I think our greatest moments come through in the recording. Due to modern technology, you can pretty much make a record perfect. But at the same time, we’re just about to release our first record and we’ve been a band for a little bit over a year and a half, and we’ve done tons of live shows. So the majority of what the band has been so far has been a live band. Like I said earlier, it’s a 50/50. The two elements artistically are the live performances and the recording. I, personally wouldn’t mind sitting in a studio recording every single day for the rest of my life, it’s my passion and what I love to do. But I equally love getting up on stage and pouring my heart out with everything I have in it, and singing lyrics that mean something to me for whatever reason they do, and hoping people can connect with that. The human element is the great thing about live performances. Sometimes people make a mistake, sometimes you sing a note that’s not perfectly in key. To me that’s also part of the mix. Part of becoming a better performer is learning to work on the fly if things do go wrong. Will you get through it and not ruin the song? If you’re in a club, and the sound isn’t loud enough or too loud, how do you work through these things with such a large ensemble? These are all things we’re trying to work through.

As a producer, promoter and band manager, what do you think is the best way for Van Ghost to win over fans? Do you think it’s coming out with great albums, or is it the live show as well?

Easily, hands down both of them. Everyone likes different things, that’s just the way the world works. You can have two people that equally love a band, ten out of ten. One of them likes the recording and driving around listening to it in their car, while the other one could care less about the recording. They like the energy that they get when they’re watching you live, and all they care about is when your next show is coming up. I think in the vast populace, more people would care about the recording rather than the live music. But from the community where I come from, live music holds a very important place. To not just be able to record, but to actually go out there and show people that, “Hey, I can’t just get this in the studio where I can do takes over and over again until I get it right, I can do it live and night after night.” The beauty of it is that the more often you do it, the better you get. It’s a viscous circle in a positive vein. So I believe it’s 50/50 between the two, but the most important element to add into either one of those, is to keep it real. There was a period in the first few months of me writing these songs, where I was wanting to make them something they were or weren’t. Then I had an epiphany at some point, that you can’t fight what’s coming out. You have to not only accept it, but embrace it. That to me is keeping it real as a songwriter. I gotta tell you that some of the music that I write, is not the kind of music that I would pop in when I’m driving down the street in my car or queue up on my iPod when I’m working out, or anything along those lines. But that’s what keeps it unique, real and cool. I think that’s the best way you can connect with people. Between that and a combination of social networking and online marketing, I think that’s the best way to get a band’s name out there.

So as far as I understand, sticking to your morals and originality is key to Van Ghost right now. You’re being yourself, your being honest.

Just being yourself, exactly. Not trying to be something you aren’t. Love it or leave it, take it or leave it. Like I said, you can’t win all the people all the time. For every group of people that you find like something, there’s going to be an equal group of people who dislike it.

That sounds like a great motto to live by, and real words of wisdom.

You know, it’s easier said than done. But I do agree that what we’re saying here is applicable to life in general and not just music and songwriting. But if music and songwriting is what you make your life about, then that’s where it’s applicable. But no matter what you’re doing, if you’re keeping it real, you’ll succeed.

Check out Van Ghost: www.vanghost.com

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