Till there’s nothing
But complacence
With these minor wins
As we fight with
One another
Over crumbs again
Josh Thomas, the mind behind High Diving Ponies and Spidermums, has conjured up a new project called RxGhost. It’s a familiar lineup for those who’ve followed Thomas’s journey—drummer Justin Brooks, guitarist James Capps, bassist Chris Smead, and multi-instrumentalist Jeremiah James. But RxGhost? That’s a whole different beast. It’s a potent dose of what Thomas dubs his “weirdo shoegaze music,” only now it’s bigger, crisper, and cleaner—much like Thomas himself.
The Covid-19 pandemic saw many artists emerging with fresh endeavors, but RxGhost is more like Josh Thomas turning himself into a project. Before the pandemic hit, Thomas was in a tailspin: a divorced, full-blown drunk junkie, holed up in his own guest room. His life was a chaotic blur, juggling a stressful software gig with insane deadlines, drowning in booze, and popping opiates and speed just to keep the pieces together. Now, RxGhost is his lifeline, his rebirth after a stint in rehab.
“I was a mess, my voice was destroyed…” Thomas says of those dark days. “I was an absolute disaster…I didn’t want my kids to grow up without a dad, so I finally went in, mainly for that reason…In rehab, I started writing a bunch again. I had lots of songs that were half-finished from before I got clean. Once I was finally healthy enough to start having band practice, I was lucky that Justin and James were still willing to do it since I’d been so flaky for so many years.”
“I was worried that I couldn’t write sober, or that it wouldn’t be as interesting,” says Thomas. “If anything, it’s easier to write now, and far easier to remember later what I wrote.”
RxGhost’s latest single, Candles, burns with the frustration of a world gone awry. It’s a hard-boiled lament for the powerless, a haunting melody that speaks of passion flickering against the wind. The tune spins a yarn about conflict and complacency, where folks are trapped in an endless cycle, duking it out over crumbs while the fat cats sit pretty.
The sound is raw, yet refined, a testament to the band’s evolution. The melodies are like a punch to the gut, the lyrics a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s a pill that heals as much as it hurts. Thomas’s voice cuts through the distortion, delivering each line with a raw honesty that resonates deep. Candles, off their newest album, Scaffolding, is music for the broken-hearted and the hopeful alike.
“If you keep up with public policy and government handouts, it’s hard to feel like the system isn’t rigged for the investment class,” Thomas says. “Conservatives act like poor people are welfare queens while ignoring that the ultra-wealthy get more handouts than anyone. The middle class is getting fucked by the ultra-rich, and it’s been obvious for a long time. They have a system set up to get the left and right wing fighting each other, while quietly siphoning all the resources out of the system and hoarding it. We could die at any time, like tea candles floating on an ocean, getting extinguished by random waves. This song is about how, even in this current reality, it’s important to try to do interesting things, even when the system is rigged against us. we won’t be here long, let’s do something interesting.”
The video, filmed by Matthew Dunehoo ( MARY CHICKEN SOUP), shows a young woman in a state of depression and desperation – her walls are full of messages of hope and love, but doors slam over and over in her face as she tries to find employment. It’s a story too many of us can relate to – when faced with systemic opposition, sometimes all we can count on is a moment of tranquility as we work through the injustices of a rigged, indifferent class system.
“With Candles, I was eager to embrace and flesh out the metaphor of the candle for the spirit and the volatile experience of trying to keep it together while burning in spite of the elements,” says Dunehoo. “The pace of the song itself seems to always hover right before breaking apart, at the repeated mantra of the “main character” expressing the feeling of being frayed, stretched thin, flickering between stability and losing it when considering a ton of pointless routine shit. I was thrilled to work with up-and-coming hyperpop artist DELARAY! who starred in the video. She knows all about crippling anxiety and struggling with substance use disorder and self-destructive impulses. It was easy to reach that moment, where battling anxiety she tries to go out and do the abysmal job search, and ultimately has to abort the mission as the surging anxiety inside makes her feel as if she’s drowning. A hopeful glimpse at the end, a place that calms the nerves just looking at the planes departing from LAX, maybe portending her journey through the rat race, and her habituated hangups and mental struggles.”
Watch the video for “Candles” below:
RxGhost has been busy, laying down 15 tracks with Paul Malinowski at Massive Sound. Since those sessions kicked off, Thomas has penned six more tunes, each drenched in the dangerpop and sorrowwave his previous bands were known for. Distortion? Check. Heart-wrenching lyrics? You bet. But now, the melodies stretch further, and the delivery of those sorrowful verses packs a cathartic punch.
Listen to the song below, or order the new album Scaffolding LP on vinyl and cassette here.
RxGhost will be performing with Shiner and Lafayette at recordBar in Kansas City on August 2nd.
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