Superficially at least, Ghost Of The Machine would appear to be born from adversity. Five of the band were the musicians behind This Winter Machine – an act who were garnering both attention and substantial momentum. Back in 2020, the quintet split, leaving that band’s singer Al Winter to reform with a fresh line-up. So, the obvious question is: who fired who?
“In a nutshell, there was an illness within the camp and he took about six months off from rehearsals and shows to get himself right,” says drummer Andy Milner. “In that time, the rest of us wrote music and we shot ideas about. When we were all back together again, it was a different musical direction than was agreeable. It was as simple as that, really. It was like, ‘Well, that isn’t going to work, is it?’ So we left.
“People would love for there to be gossip and all the rest of it, and I’m sure that harsh words were said behind closed doors at some point. But that’s what bands are like. When you get six blokes in a room together, there will always be spats now and again. Put it this way, ever since we’ve done what we have done, there have been no spats.”
Joining them is the rather talented vocalist Charlie Bramald, who had previously deputised for Winter at a This Winter Machine gig in 2019. “It’s been a great time joining this group of people and writing with them,” he says. “As Andy alludes to, a lot of this album was already formed when I was invited to join the band on January 5, 2021. It’s been a great atmosphere and incredible working with this group of people. My background with This Winter Machine was that I was a fan and I loved the first few albums. So as a six-piece we did have a bit of experience on stage together, but getting together and writing was really rewarding. It felt right from the first rehearsal that we had.”
Musically, there’s a natural transition from the dynamic backdrop that drove This Winter Machine. With the same musicians producing the music, this debut album, Scissorgames, continues their style of creating modern progressive rock, laced with evocative keyboards and harmonious guitar.
“Listening to the album now, there’s a signature sound,” says Milner. “We haven’t deliberately tried to do that, it’s just how we write and play. It came very easily and when Charlie joined it just rocketed. We don’t think too much about it. We have just enjoyed playing our instruments and putting it all together. In the future, we’ll need money to finance the next recording. It would be nice for someone to offer us that, to pay for the recording and then be able to go forward with a bigger distribution. I don’t want to sound arrogant at all, but we are confident that someone will be up for doing that. I think it is a good album and speaks for itself.”
