Today we’d like to introduce you to The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir. Them and their team share their story with us below:
It all started when Sleve and Tanner met while playing in the (now defunct) Savannah indie rock band Heavy Books. After discovering a shared love of loud, unpleasant sounds, they decided to try their hand at a project making the ugliest music they could.
It didn’t take long for them to find a guitar player in their friend Aaron Givens of Hot Plate fame. With him on board, the trio started writing songs. A couple of songs in, they began understanding that the music they were writing was too complicated for any one of them to appropriately provide vocals over.
The search began for a dedicated vocalist, and they began posting ads on different local Facebook groups for musicians with influences The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Locust, The Jesus Lizard, and a few others listed. Through a mutual connection, the three got connected with Nat and after a couple of practices together, they had undeniable chemistry in the band and decided the four-piece was finally complete.
The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir became what it is now. Named after the practice space we use. Using our core values of justice, equality, and social awareness that we pride ourselves in, we developed a few more songs and began planning shows. Before we could even get a chance to hit the stage, Covid-19 hit, and we ended up having to shift focus. For the next year and a half, we focused on rehearsing, tightening our performances, honing our sound, and getting to know one another.
Once live music returned, we played our first show in Jacksonville back in July and since then have been trying our best to make waves, garner attention, and do things the best that we possibly can. We’re continuing our mission to rip up every stage we play, show everyone that they have a space in heavy music, and push the boundaries as we continue writing and working on releasing more music.
We finished writing and recording our first full-length record and are now finishing getting it mastered, working on layout options, and releasing it, as well as accompanying merch. We are attempting to set out on our first full tour later this year as well but only time will tell as the world continues to change daily.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
As mentioned before, Covid was an early barrier to the Choir (and all musicians) starting at the time, but it forced them to spend valuable time writing and exploring different possibilities in their very collaborative songwriting process.
Outside of that, being a band of four different people from different backgrounds who are making art together is not always the easiest thing. Balancing jobs, partners, and our creative pursuits is difficult but our care for one another, the creative output we have, and the message we are conveying supersede the difficulties that come with having a band.
Our current major obstacle is trying to save up enough money to purchase a van to allow us to tour later this year. If anyone has any leads or feels particularly generous, please let us know. Besides that, just working on getting as much music completed as possible and looking to the future.
Focusing on trying to make each and every show better than the last however possible.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
In the music we make, we try to do everything we can to make some of the ugliest music possible. We aim to reflect the fractured, distorted, and dire state of the world today.
We strive to use our musical abilities to bring attention to ideas and issues we believe are crucial for the future of the world we live in, and to help make it a better place for all who live in it. The chaos and unpleasantness of the music are meant to portray the chaos and unrest, often specifically in America, and to draw attention to the struggle of marginalized peoples within it.
We are loud, complicated, ugly, and confusing, just like the modern world. Using the platform we continue to grow, we attempt to amplify those voices by having features, playing shows with diverse groups that deserve attention, and spreading information and awareness at all of our shows.
We hope that through our confrontational sound and communication of value to others, people may be captivated enough to understand something they may not have before. Their understanding could be of heavy music, could be of the struggles of marginalized groups, or it could even be in the appeal of harsh and unpleasant sounds, especially when used so intentionally and metaphorically.
Glory in discomfort and pushing the envelope.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
So our success has always been and will always be communal. There are so many people involved that help us in some way or another, whether it’s through believing in us from early on, or helping us with things outside of our realm. First and foremost goes to Chris “Scary” Adams from Black Tusk.
He believed in us from a very very early point and has helped mentor us and provide commentary on our sound and direction through the time we’ve recorded with him twice now. He reached out to us about our music and offered to re-record our first EP for us and from there we’ve been very quick friends.
We just recorded our first LP with him at his studio, Hidden Audio. He is an incredible person and creative and we are so grateful to have him in our corner. Mikey Ciero of Black Sunshine Booking and For Your Friends Booking and Metal On The Brain podcast and just being a great dude in general. He put us on our first official live show opening a hometown show for Evergreen Terrace and ever since then he has been spreading the word about our band like gospel.
He has also been a mentor and helped us with some business advice and talked to us about more long-term future endeavors and we are eternally grateful for his support as well. Next would be the partners of everyone in the band who have been supportive, shown up to shows regularly, and helped us with publicity and merchandise when necessary. Jenn, Mal, Kristen, and Scott.
We’re all so lucky to have them in our lives and we are so grateful for all they do.
Robbie Melton and Joe Napkin of Pink Peugeot. They have been our sister band in our practice space and we have seen each other work since the very very beginning of each of our projects. It is so cool to have two incredible musicians to workshop and bounce ideas off of, and it is so much fun to play shows with them because of how awesome their music is.
JT Timmons and John Ross for helping us with videos. JT did our first music video for Joe Dirt God a long time ago in the Savannah Underground building before they started construction on it. It came together in such a short amount of time and it was so wonderful to have that kind of support before we even got around to playing our first show.
John Ross has been shooting live videos as Our Home Videos and his work has been nothing short of a killer so far his output has helped some people take note who may not have known about us beforehand and that’s wonderful.
After that would be Ryan Graveface and Timothy Walls from AURA Fest. They do such amazing things for the music scene in Savannah, from booking baller shows like the Full Of Hell / Thou / Uniform show that happened in March or AURA Fest that’s happening at Ships By The Sea on June 11th. They’ve helped us gain an audience and give us the connections necessary to really break into the live music scene with a bang.
Ryan’s venue Lodge Of Sorrows has also been incredible to work with him on, and we are excited to see what comes of it when it fully opens. Tim had us on his Livestream festival for our first “show” and from there has put us on for Savannah several times. He’s gotten us connected with The Sentient Bean and El-Rocko a few times and has helped us out immensely. Beyond Savannah, Marshal Rones from Montgomery Drive Booking & Promo has helped us out a few times with getting stuff together and we are grateful to him for what he does.
All the bands who believed in us enough to spend a few days with us on little weekenders or just play shows with us multiple times: Gillian Carter from Orlando, Cursed Birth from Gainesville, Flagman from Orlando, Machinist! from Valdosta, To Forget from Charleston, Zeta from Venezuela originally but currently residing in southern Florida, and SOUL GLO from Philly.
From there all of our friends who have been around for us: John Edwards, Grey Rettig, Temple Cantrell, Lu Thor, Melanie Chaffin, Jack Landsmen, Devon Darvy, Joshua Glisson, every flashlight wiggler in the Joe Dirt God music video. Any creative who has offered their services to us. Aesthetic Print & Design for doing all of our printed merch for our entire existence.
Cory Swope for our first shirt design, Jackson Bunz for our first long sleeve design, Christian Denmark for photos on multiple occasions, Wolfe Eliot for photos on multiple occasions as well, Matthew Zagorski and Jeremy McGuire from Machinist! for trading off on photos every night on our weekender together, and every single band we’ve ever played with, any venue staff who have hosted us, and any person who has come out to see us.
And, most importantly, anyone who has paid attention this far. We make music for everyone who feels like they may not have a voice, or at least not as much of a voice as they should.
For every person of color, every disabled person, every LGBTQ+ person, every Native American, every femme person, every victim of abuse, every Jewish person, every marginalized group in this country and in this world makes it better than what it would be without them and that is why we do it.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: http://www.thgtc.org
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/thgtc
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thgtcsav
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/thgtcsav
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6BFVynwXJX7mWXd8_zmuBQ
- Other: http://thgtc.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
David Pérez
