The Joe Ghatt Interview
When and where were you born? What was your childhood like? When did you first begin to fall in love with music?
In a place called sunny Nelson at the top of the South Island of Aotearoa (NZ). I grew up in a dreamy place, surrounded by mountains, rivers, and the sea with endless escapes, but not many people. It’s a paradise down there but I didn’t know it at the time. As early as I can remember the different sounds and flavours of music had a strong effect on me. My household constantly had Buena Vista Social Club and Gipsy Kings running on repeat. These records gave me goosebumps from a young age and I think set me off.
Were these things that were relevant around your household growing up? Do you have any siblings? What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years?
1x older sister. As above those two records and an acoustic guitar that nobody could play. My sister started learning piano and I would tinker every now and then, and eventually picked up the guitar and was hooked. Heaps of skating and all the riff raff that comes with that. Roaming the neighborhood in packs etc. making videos and so on. Every night my best friend and I would drive around in his Austin 1300 and park up at a spot called The Kumaras and extensively listen to music. When I found out my Dad was big on 70’s bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath that set me on a pathway that would eventually lead to wanting to play an instrument. Stylistically this also influenced my tastes leading me to dig into more and more 1960’s and 70s bands like ‘The Seeds’, The Byrds, etc. and then check out more modern bands that really pull from that vein such as The Black Angels, Night Beats and so on.
When and where did you see your very first concert? When did you realize you wanted to spend your life pursuing music? 2019 saw your debut on Third Eye Stimuli entitled “Banana Sludge”. Tell me about writing and recording that record and what the overall process and approach to this album was like. How did the deal with those guys come about and would you mind walking me through some of the songs that are featured on the LP?
Pearl Jam with Ben Harper & Liam Finn in Christchurch, 2009, before the earthquakes. I’m not sure I’ve ever had that realisation, it's sort of just happened. I often “quit” doing music but never seem to really stop. Writing and recording Banana Sludge was a very organic process, there was no real method to how or what I was really doing. I'd just had rather epic surgery and had significant recovery time. Up until then most of my energy went into bands or other projects and my own works were back burners. I came across a Tascam 388 tape machine via a comment on an old gear geek forum from 2003. This guy in Auckland had put up a post saying he had one for sale. Long story short he still had it and sold it to me for next to nothing. This started the Banana Sludge journey. I tinkered and followed my nose on something I'd never really done before. Before being rushed to hospital, another band I'd been playing in had just finished a tour and a portion of the gear was still with me (drums etc.) this allowed me to experiment freely.
I was super self conscious of what I was up to and often did it in secret. Some of the tracks really came about in hot flash type scenarios where I would just have a burst and ride the wave until it was all on tape. My methods were super unconventional and in a way B Sludge seemed to create itself. Mammon is the only song I vividly remember creating, the way about it was very abrupt and explosive. I had this red lamp that started to strobe one night as I was tinkering away and when it did the riff entered my mind and I just kept whacking record until the juice was all out - it was like a trance. A lot of the other songs like, Farewell and Chakras came in a similar way and remained mostly as they were from the first grab. The relationship between me and Third Eye Stimuli came about through a serendipitous meeting. The stars kind of just aligned at the right time. They are the top notch folk!
What have been up to in more recent years? What has your spring and summer shaped up to be so far?
Building Rockets for an NZ space company. NZ summer that has just been was tragic, the weather really tried to get rid of us. Me and the band did a tour with Sunfruits and The Oogars from AUS (also on TES). They were lucky to survive the very abnormal weather events but it was so good to have them over here.
Are you currently working on any new projects? Is there anything else you would like to
further share with the readers?
I have the Joe Ghatt no. #2 album on its way very soon. Look forward to putting that out. Always working on something musical and have been exploring some new directions recently. Will see what that becomes.
