“And that’s what this EP is. It’s completely me, being me, you know?”

elaborates Cameron when asked about the difference in their past and latest release. ghost prom sets to release their latest EP, Blood City, this week, riddled with noise rock absent from their previous sound. The duo reflects on their change in music taste and how that transforms and manifests in their newest record, swapping Elliot Smith for Wednesday. death of a rabbit had the pleasure to sit down with the pair to talk more about the upcoming EP and more.

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DEATH OF A RABBIT: How are you two?

EDEN: Super great! Happy and busy.

CAMERON: Too busy to think or do anything. I’m trying not to be on my phone. I just ordered a flip phone, because there’s so many ideas going through my brain and I’m like, “What’s the one deterrent from me creating more things? My fucking phone?”

DOAR: It’s been a bit since the two of you released anything. How has it been in between these two releases?

CAMERON: The music that I make is so different from the music I listen to. I’m usually listening to hardcore and a lot of punk. Then I started to listen to more shoegaze-y stuff, and I was like, “Oh, this is kind of like a variation of punk.” I just started — I never had my guitar in standard tuning. I just started tuning it down all the time and writing songs. It took a lot to make that record (Void Sweet Void), and it kind of burned me out. I didn’t want to do anything for a while; we were playing so many shows and recording and promoting the album. Honestly, promoting the album is kind of what takes it out of me. I really don’t like that part about music, and I was still writing songs — I have so many songs written — but I just didn’t want to do all that again. 

That’s why there’s been so much time (in between the records). It cost money to record as well, and it was just a really slow going process. Then, we got these songs recorded and there’s a whole bunch more songs that aren’t recorded. We’re in the process of making all these songs acoustic. So, after this EP comes out, hopefully all the acoustic songs will be done. We’ll have this EP and that acoustic album with the strings, and then hopefully more band recordings will be done. I want to slowly release music instead of saving everything up and dropping it.

EDEN: It’s been interesting with ghost prom, because I work on my own project, and I know that Cam has a little bit of a different musical style than I do. Earlier ghost prom work has been in that folk vein, more of that folkier influence. Cam has this grunge, shoegaze, punk influence that was important to lean on for him a little bit more. This EP has been such a cool opportunity for him to really start trusting his decision making and his musical intuition a little bit. 

I think that’s been the most exciting thing to see, you know, you (Cam) got to start saying yes to your own idea, because they’re good ideas. And I feel like this EP really sort of showcases that it’s also a mix of recording at different places and having different environments too. It was super interesting to see how Cam responded to different recording environments and certain environments where he needed to lean on his own ideas a little bit more and really trust the ideas of what other musicians were bringing in. I feel like he went hard on the sound he wanted on this one. I feel like I took a backseat and was just like, “I want to just add whatever you need to this,” as opposed to really being in the mix with songwriting. It’s also been fun too, because I really love writing choruses and Cam has a little bit of a harder time with like–he’ll build a song around a chorus but not necessarily have a chorus in place. So that’s really fun for me to listen to him practice and listen to him, right? And then be able to say , “What if you put this in here?” And be able to look at his lyrics and shape something into a chorus from that as opposed to fully collaborating on a song from start to finish. That’s definitely been a big difference in how we worked on this EP. You can really see Cam trust his musical ideas more because they’re really good.

CAMERON: Eden writes the best choruses. What I meant to say before was I was so scared of my musical talents or ideas that I was like if somebody had an idea, I would just say, “Fuck it. Your idea is obviously better than mine.” But with this EP, I was more confident, like I have good taste, I know what I’m doing, I know what I want to hear, and I just fought to try and get those ideas out there. And that’s what this EP is. It’s completely me, being me, you know?

DOAR: So this EP, you’re taking the training wheels off your bike. I liked the way Eden was talking about you and your process, it’s like you’re a child in an experiment and she’s placing you into different environments to see how you react. It’s like you’re out of the baby phase and into the adolescent phase of ghost prom.

It feels like the indie-folk from the previous record is transforming into more rock alternative on this EP. This EP sounds fuller and more electric guitar placed in there, less acoustic.

CAMERON: There’s acoustic stuff throughout, but it’s more buried in the background whereas the heavier, louder guitars are moved forward.

DOAR: For sure, and I’m assuming the music tastes y’all have have definitely been the influence of this direction sonically.

EDEN: Yeah, when we were starting to build ghost prom and doing that first album, there was a lot of like Elliot Smith and some older outlaw country stuff. And, it was just funny, because when I started to hear the stuff that Cam was doing with the newer ghost prom songs, I was like, “Oh, this is you, and this is always where you were meant to be.” I think he’s always sort of taken influence from those noisier genres, but it’s also funny because we were building that first ghost prom stuff in the midst of COVID and utilizing the resources that we had. 

And then with Cam being in that space where he’s like, “Oh, you probably have the better idea,” was really interesting to see how that sort of built out the last record. And this [EP] feeling a lot more like, this is where Cam sound has always sort of been. It just needed to find its legs a bit, and I think for me, I had a little bit less influence on this record as far as writing and musical arranging goes. But I also feel like I really tried to be like, “No this is good,” “This is a good direction,” “This is the direction that you’re supposed to be in.” I feel like anytime we would rehearse the songs as ghost prom, Cam was always like, “I want it to be louder, noisier, harder.” This has been a really nice opportunity to mix those things and really lean into that. It’s been fun to be the cheerleader along the way.

CAMERON: The best cheerleader.

DOAR: That’s good to have a cheerleader being like, “Don’t change who you are!”

EDEN: Don’t let them change who you are? Literally, you have to start trusting. I feel like it’s great to be able to trust the resources around you and to be able to pick and choose those resources based on what you want to hear and lean into.

CAM: But Eden, she writes the best. She wrote the chorus for “Blood City,” which is so good. And all these new songs that aren’t recorded, I feel like she’s written some amazing, amazing choruses. I’m excited for people to hear those too.

DOAR: I also wanted to talk more about the new EP! It was really cool to hear the new direction. It sounded different but at the same time you could tell it was a ghost prom song. It’s cool to hear that you have a staple style.

CAMERON: What’s your favorite off the EP?

DOAR: Has to be “My Friend.”

CAMERON: I think that’s my favorite too.

DOAR: I was actually curious about the difference between “My Friend” and your other song “My Buddy,” since their names are similar.

CAMERON: “My Buddy” was a song I wrote about Eden, because that’s what we call each other. There was this essay that Patti Smith wrote about Sam Shepard after he died. And ever since I read that, we’ve been calling each other that and there’s also a Chet Baker song called “My Buddy” that we always listen to.

“My Friend” is about my best friend that I grew up with. We have known each other since we were four years old. He was like my brother to me and my family and he passed away in 2019. I think about him everyday, multiple times a day, and it’s always felt really hard, like a piece of me has been missing ever since he passed away. When I have new experiences, I always look at it through a lens of wishing he was here and being able to tell him about it. It bums me out so hard that he’s not here and it’s been hard for me to write about it. I was thinking one day of just feeling like this piece of me has gone since he died. One day, I was walking my dog and thinking about it in a different light, like what if a piece of me didn’t go and wherever his spirit went and his love was with me all the time, like his spirit went into me? 

I think that song is mostly about wishing he was here so I could tell him things. And wishing that he could experience when I got married, for example. The lyrics are pretty dark, like that one lyrics where it says, “sometimes I wish I could die so I could see you again.” I don’t actually want to die, but sometimes I get so bummed out that he’s not here that I would do that to see him again. That’s “My Friend.” But it’s such a fun song to play and I feel like it’s really interesting playing that song live. When we’re in a room and we’re playing and there’s chatter or anything, I feel like when we start playing that song, the room will go dead quiet and turn their heads. It’s probably because it’s pretty emotional and so I think people connect with that. Especially if anybody’s ever lost somebody.

DOAR: That’s so amazing. It’s nice to be able to write about the people you love.

EDEN: It’s so cliche to say, but songwriting is such a cathartic experience. It’s such a good way to keep things alive that have passed us by and a beautiful way to process things. Any creative act is, but I think that’s such an important thing to note and remember in this age of AI and doomscrolling. And the song “Sunset Yesterday” was about his friend too. And I think the cool thing about songwriting is that, you know, Cam could write a song about his best friend with every iteration of ghost prom and every record that goes by, and it’s going to feel different because it’s in a different chapter of his grief, you know? There’s something really beautiful about keeping somebody’s spirit alive in that.

DOAR: I also wanted to bring up “Marlboro Man.” Is that your version of the Benadryl Man?

CAMERON: I wish! “Marlboro Man” is–I’m obsessed with people watching because there’s so many cool people out in the world and like strange people and nothing is going to be as cool as that. Nothing is going to be that cool on my phone, you know? And so I just look for character all the time. And I also have this weird thing too, my dad has it as well, where we’ll be out in public and just the strangest people will come up and talk to him out of nowhere and it’s just crazy, deep conversations. No matter where I am, New York City, Indiana, Oklahoma, the strangest people will come up and talk to me.

EDEN: He’s just a charisma magnet and people will come up and just start conversing with him, which I think is so cool, I feel like it takes a special person to be that way. Cam just beams something out of him that makes people be like, “Who is that? I must go talk to him!”

CAMERON: It happens all the time. But I just get obsessed with certain types of popel and I like to write all sorts of things, not just music but short stories and fiction and a whole bunch of stuff. So sometimes I’ll meet people and I’ll just become obsessed with them. That’s what happened with “Marlboro Man,” was that I met this guy and I wondered what his life is like, I wonder what he’s doing at home. I wonder how he lives his life and I just daydream. And it’s usually when I walk our dog that I’ll just be daydreaming about people and thinking up stories and imagining what they’re doing. That’s how “Marlboro Man” came about.

DOAR: That’s amazing. I think there was some lyric in there that popped that interpretation into my head.

CAMERON: That’s what’s so awesome about songs, it’s up to whatever somebody’s interpretation is!

DOAR: I wanted to ask about the “Blood City” music video. Was it just the two of you that created it? It looked like a lot of fun!

CAMERON: We made a music video for “Marlboro Man” too! I don’t know, I’m really obsessed with making music videos. I’m just trying to get the most out of what little I have. I’ll just shootit with a little camcorder that has tape. With “Blood City,” we were at Eden’s family ranch in California. Eden’s little brother Peter is in the music video too, because there’s a crossing and the creek went up so high that he couldn’t cross in his car, so he threw a rope across to the other side. And he had all his bags and was walking with this rope back and forth in a rainstorm. So that was the B storyline of that video. Then on another day, Eden and I went down into a field and made fake blood. That video cost, I don’t know how much the fake blood mixture costs, like $8.

DOAR: I didn’t realize you could make fake blood. I thought you just buy it from liek Party City.

EDEN: Yeah, Cam made a little mixture with corn syrup and red dye.

CAMERON: I tried to find already ade blood, but it wasn’t Halloween so it was so hard to find. And I was just like, “Fuck it, I’m just gonna make it myself.” My favorite thing is finding creative solutions, like how can I use my brain creatively to figure this out?

DOAR: How’d it taste?

EDEN: Extraordinarily sweet, but horrible texture, too thick. It’s fun too because neither of us are pros by any stretch with filmmaking stuff. It’s a lucky thing to be in the time that we are with content because everybody’s doing DIY shit, it’s so rare, such a small handful of people that are getting real budgets to do music videos. It’s fun to be like, “Well, we’re a small band, who the fuck is gonna see this?” Like let’s just follow the creative leads, problem solve, have fun, and make something interesting. It gives us both an opportunity to use our creative thread that there is. 

I think one of my favorite things is hearing somebody have an idea and then be able to help them execute that idea. And it’s nice to be able to do it with your significant other who you’re extraordinary comfortable with, where there’s no fucking upt here. There’s only opportunity to try things. And i feel like that’s what we’ve gotten to do with these ghost prom video is like, just fuck around for a couple of days and one of us edits it and sees what comes out.

DOAR: death of a rabbit likes to focus on lyricism and poetry — I was wondering, what’s a lyric that you’ve listened to lately that you really enjoyed, or what’s a lyric that you wish you’d written?

EDEN:

I was out late sneakin into the neighborhood pool

Then I woke up early and taught at the Sunday school

If you’re lookin for me

I’m in the back of an SUV

Doin it in some cul-de-sac

Underneath a dogwood tree

Cause I’m the girl that you were chosen to deserve

 Wednesday, “Chosen to Deserve”

CAMERON:

I love your music and your face

I love it when we feel out of place

I love it when you tell me god is gay

That your aunt was a metal head back In the day

I love it when you call me on the phone

And tell me that you saw a ufo

I love it when you cry and you moan

Life is beautiful

If you just let go

Surfbort, “Lucky”

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Check out ghost prom’s new EP below!