Dead Boy Productions

 

11/26/06
Dan-Zig

Dead Boy Productions with The Ghastly Ones

 

If the Munsters had a surf band play at their house, that band would probably be the Ghastly Ones.  Taking some cues from the Munsters as well as instrumental surf music and a little of Disney’s Haunted Mansion, the Ghastly Ones have a unique brand of horror surf that has caught the attention of even Spongebob Squarepants! The Ghastly Ones consist of Dr. Lehos, Sir Go Go Ghostly, Captain Clegg, and Baron Shivers, who was kind enough to answer a few questions for us, and of course their Go Go Ghoul Necrobella.

Your work is very Haunted Mansion influenced both in sound and in the style of the artwork.  Are you all big Disney fans and how much would you say that the Haunted Mansion or Marc Davis (Disney artist and designer) style art influenced you?

Garrett (Dr. Lehos) and I are the big Haunted Mansion fans in the band.  I would definitely say Marc Davis has had an influence on us.  But it doesn’t end there. We tried to throw in a heaping helping of Forry Ackerman and Famous Monsters, Hammer Films and Russ Meyer into The Ghastly Ones.  Well, let’s not forget Ed Wood, Ray Dennis Steckler, Arch Hall Jr.  Let me stop there.  The list could be quite long.

As weird as it may sound the Ghastly Ones have a connection to everyone’s favorite Saturday morning cartoon Spongebob Squarepants.  What is the connection the band has with the show and how did it come about?

We got a call one day from Steve Hillenburg, the creator of Spongebob.  He really dug our stuff and wanted us to do the music for the Halloween episode.  It was that simple.  We did three pieces of music plus a redo of the Spongebob theme.  Lots of fun.

The band took a hiatus for a while. Was this a necessity or just something that kind of happened?

Garrett and I do special FX makeup and creature design for the movies.  We got real busy with work and the band took a back seat for a while.

Can you mention any projects that you have done creature work for?

I've been working in FX since '85 and some of my credits include Alien III, Dusk till Dawn, 13 Ghosts, The Cell and Spawn.  Some of my recent projects are X-Men 3, Fantastic Four and Hellboy.  I'm most proud of Hellboy.  I created the re-animated corpse that Hellboy carries around.  I'm currently working on Hellboy 2.

How long have you been playing together again and is it more fun now than it was when you started?  What was the reason for the return?

We started The Ghastly Ones 10 years ago.  It’s hard to believe but it’s true!  After taking a break for a couple of years we got back together for one show and had such a great time and got such an incredible response that we decided to record a new album and play gigs again.  The reaction we got from our MySpace page didn’t hurt either.  Our friend Kristena Hernandez suggested we put up a page and in the following days the page exploded with people wondering were we’ve been and when we would have a new record out.

Are there any new tour plans?

We have several things lined up for 2007 but it’s too early to announce them just yet.  We update our MySpace page and our website frequently, so be sure to check there for tour dates and more.  

Do the band members have any side projects going on?

I do a side band once in a while with our Dave (Capt. Clegg) our keyboard player called The Headless Hearsemen.  It’s a vocal based Halloween band, but because of The Ghastly Ones we haven’t had much time for it lately.  Plus Garrett and I work full time doing creature FX for films so there’s not much time for anything else.

The Headless Hearsemen recently announced that they were going to release an album "sometime" soon. Can we get anything else more specific about it?

We'll hopefully put something out in 2007 but for now we're concentrating on The Ghastly Ones.  The Headless Hearsemen really have the potential to be a kickass band but there's just not enough time in the day to do all the projects I would like to do!  

This year saw the release of a brand new CD of new material.  Where can people get the new CD or any Ghastly Ones Merchandise?

You can pick up the new CD and t-shirts and so on at www.ghastlyones.com  

Is A Haunting We Will Go-Go ever going to be put back into print?

We hope so.  It’s currently trapped in the vaults of Universal.  We hope to get to re-issue it soon. 

What is next for the Ghastly Ones?

We’re working on a new album that will be out August 2007.
You can bet it’s gonna be spooky!  

Any last words or thank yous?

I want to thank our fans and friends that have been with us since we started and all the new fiends that have picked up our stuff.  It’s your enthusiasm that keeps us going.  Stay Ghoul!