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Ghost: Can you tell us about your journey into music? How did you get started and what inspired you to become an indie artist? Scarica: Music has always been a part of my life. I got started at a young age. My father taught me piano since I was 2, and Madonna was the original inspiration as to why I wanted to do music in general. After listening to artists like The Birthday Massacre, The Cranberries, The Mars Volta, and Alanis Morissette they made me decide I wanted to be in a rock genre as opposed to pop. Dan: A lot of my uncles play guitar and other instruments. I started out playing piano and learning some Final Fantasy songs and other video game type things on a little Casio keyboard. My cousin always played my sister's classical guitar, but I never really cared to learn. He passed away in 2004 when I was 13 and then months later, I decided to learn the songs I already knew on keyboard onto that same guitar. Started a band in high school, then got into recording and it just went from there. Ghost: What is the story behind your artist's name? Does it hold a special meaning for you? Dan: We went through a couple of names and ideas. Audio Visual (AV) and Beta were ones that we tried to get to stick. After band practice one day we were talking about high school things and Erica said something along the lines of "Apparently I was Scarica Erica in high school because I was scary" I jokingly said it should be our band name. Everyone agreed but her and so it was decided by majority rule hahaha. I personally love it. It also means download in Italian so that's neat Ghost: Nice! How would you describe your music style? What genres or artists have influenced your sound? Scarica: TBM, Alanis Morissette, The Cranberries, Miyavi, Metric and more. Dan: Good lord there's a ton. It's gone through a few changes but that's due to changing band members and just what I'm listening to during that time. I'll go a year listening to a bunch of grunge and stuff like AIC, Nirvana, Local H. Then hop onto the entire Birthday Massacre catalogue. As of lately it's been more mellow so a lot of Amy Winehouse and Alanis Morissette inspiration/influence, so we'll probably be releasing more songs around those genres minus the few songs we already have cooking that we wrote years ago. Ghost: Awesome! I can't wait to hear your future new stuff! Can you share the creative process behind your latest album/single? How do you usually go about writing and producing your songs? Scarica: Sometimes it can be as little as hearing two notes in the background from a fork hitting a plate and I hear the pitch then it turns into an entire melody. Sometimes it will be influenced by other songs. Just depends. As far as lyrics go, it’s usually something I hear in my head while I’m hearing the sounds of music. So that being said, I hear A flat to G and I hear an elongated note or something of that nature. Usually, the lyrics don’t come before the melody, however, when they do it comes from a need to write down my feelings. Dan: So, the latest single Of What I Am was written years and years ago. I wanted to write a song that had a lot of chords and variation because most of our songs we released aren't very complex in terms of chord progression or melody. The production style and decisions on panning/volume of the instruments was having listened to You Know I'm No Good by Amy Winehouse and Right Through You by Alanis Morissette. Ghost: What challenges have you faced as an indie artist? How have you overcome them? Scarica: My inability to sell myself. I’m really bad at bragging about our music because it feels unnatural to brag about my own accomplishments. I wasn’t raised that way so it’s kind of a weird hurdle to get through to tell people about our music just because it feels so unnatural to mention it at all. Dan: Keeping dedicated band members. I get that life happens, but we've met so many people that have a "passion" for music only for them to either ghost us or quit at some point soon into joining. We decided to keep the band just the two of us. We wrote our first song Mirage (up on Soundcloud) with just us and some virtual drums. After that we started getting more band members so we can play live, but they were in and out of rotation, so it caused a lot of hiccups. We find that we get a lot more done with less people. Ghost: Can you tell us who inspired your passion for music growing up? Scarica: My parents. They were both passionate about music in different ways. My mother loves to dance, and my father loves to play. I used to get stage fright, and I hate to sing in front of other people, but Dan had posted on Facebook that they are looking for a female vocalist. I knew I could do it, so it pushed me to sing by myself rather than a part of a group or choir. It was the first time that I did a solo and I could never replicate the feeling that I got when I saw his recognition of my talent. Dan: Would most definitely be my cousin Russell who passed in 2004. Big inspiration for me to pick up the guitar which in my opinion is a gateway drug to other instruments lol. Ghost: What message do you want to convey through your music? Is there a particular theme or emotion you aim to evoke in your listeners? Scarica: It depends on the song. Each song has a different motive and a different message. Usually, it’s supposed to be empowering but not always. Sometimes the point of the song is to capture the vulnerability. It really just depends on the song that’s at hand. Dan: I like catchy, simple rhythms and melodies. I really enjoy a less is more approach and love having the vocals shine/not be buried in the mix. Ghost: Nice. Your songs definitely come across as empowering for sure! I'm a fan of simple rhythms and melodies as well. What are your future plans? Are there any upcoming projects or collaborations that your fans should look forward to? Dan: Lots of future plans just need the time to work on them! The first four songs we released last year were mastered by "AI" solely due to us not having enough money to hire a professional. We're re-releasing them remastered because the problem with the AI mastering services we used are that they're mainly just presets and don't take into account what's already been boosted or cut. So it'll identify "This is a rock song so you need a 4dB boost at 2k and a 3dB boost at 50-100 which if it's already been boosted it just makes certain frequencies sound too harsh and downright goofy. We got a new interface which is a HUGE improvement to our workflow already and began mastering the music ourselves. So everything moving forward will be all in-house! So with that being said, Farewell, Unoriginal, TIC, and Scrapbook will be re-released slightly remixed and completely remastered on June 28th! We plan on releasing another EP with about 4-5 songs sometime this year. Could be July, could be December but the promise is THIS year. Ghost: I wanted to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude for the recent interview. It was an absolute pleasure connecting with you and learning more about your music, creative process, and unique journey as an indie band. Your passion, authenticity, and dedication truly shine through in your music.

Ghost: Can you tell us about your journey into music? How did you get started, and what inspired you to become an indie artist? Kevin: Music – a wide variety of music – has always been around me from a young age. I’m incredibly thankful to my parents who have an omnivorous taste in music which they have passed on to me. My desire to make and write music myself came from the hours of listening to music of all genres: A day of listening to music may have consisted of metal in the morning, classical in the afternoon and a bit of hip hop in the evening. It is from all these influences and more that I draw my inspiration when I write my own music, which I started doing when I was fourteen. After writing and performing the songs for two live bands, one during my school years, the other during my university years, I have now turned my focus to recording music and I am delighted to be able to share it with all of you! Ghost: What is the story behind your artist name? Does it hold a special meaning for you? Kevin: I had the honor of proofreading Sophie’s theses for her university studies. At the time we both played in the second live band I mentioned earlier. When I stumbled upon the term “multivariate outliers” in her thesis, I said to Sophie “now that’s a band name right there!”. It took a little bit of convincing, but Sophie agreed that it’s a unique name (albeit not a very memorable one) that is abstract enough for our eclectic music and we came back to the idea when we started recording music together as a duo (Joel has joined us since then to work on our second album). Finding band names is so hard nowadays – all the catchy ones are gone! Once unsure of our name (due to it objectively having way too many syllables), we have now grown fond of it and it’s here to stay. Ghost: How would you describe your music style? What genres or artists have influenced your sound? Kevin: This has always been and will always be one of the most difficult questions that anyone has asked me about the music we make. We never set out to make music “in the style of…” or “that sounds just like…”. Instead, we just follow the ideas that come to us and see where they lead us. Sometimes, the song comes out in a certain genre because that’s what suited our original ideas best: On our upcoming album we have a song that sits neatly in the singer-songwriter genre and another that can easily be classified as electro-pop. At the same time, we are working on a new song for our third album that mixes Latin music with metal guitars. So what is our music style? Good question. Can I just put down “eclectic” as an answer? Ghost: Can you share the creative process behind your latest album/single? How do you usually go about writing and producing your songs? Kevin: One of my music teachers once told me that a truly good song does not need a huge production or an insane arrangement to shine – it just needs “good bones”. If the song works with vocals and a guitar or piano accompaniment, it’s a good song. This idea really stuck with me and it’s the way I usually go about writing songs nowadays. Once I have an acoustic, “bare bones” version of a song ready, I go about arranging and producing it and I enjoy putting on all the fancy bells and whistles a lot. All of our songs on our upcoming album have been written and produced this way, regardless of who wrote the song, either Sophie or me. If you listen closely, you will also be able to determine whether the instrument we wrote the song on was the guitar or the piano – usually one of the two becomes the foundation for the entire arrangement. Ghost: What challenges have you faced as an indie artist? How have you overcome them? Kevin: To put it in one word: Time. Finding the time to devote to writing, making, recording, and producing music is challenging on top of a full-time job, family, friends and other obligations. Sometimes it’s difficult to find the energy to engage creatively after a long, tiring day and I get frustrated about the half-finished projects that lie on my hard drive, stagnating. To really get musical work done that I am thoroughly satisfied with, I need at least two or three hours of undisturbed concentration. Sometimes, it’s hard to find that time and I’m still working out ways to make it easier to find it. Ghost: Can you tell us who inspired your passion for music growing up? Kevin: Here again, I need to name my parents who have never questioned, but rather encouraged my wide taste in music (which I’m sure was difficult at times, because I’m sure they didn’t appreciate every band I enjoyed growing up). Another important person on my musical journey was a friend who was quite a few years older and who could play virtually any song on guitar, or at least that’s what it seemed like to me. We sang a lot together and I was amazed how he was able to make any song his own. Wanting to be able to do what he did, I looked up to him and was inspired to pick up playing the guitar myself. I can still remember how proud I was when one day he handed me the guitar and told me to play the next song. “Here, you play it”, he said. “You’re much better than me now anyway.” I had wanted to be “that guy” and then suddenly it came true. In the grand scheme of things, this was just a tiny little moment on my musical journey, but when I feel like I’m not going anywhere with the music I practice and make, I remind myself of the fact that we often do not even realize how far we have come and how good it feels to be reminded of our progress. Ghost: What message do you want to convey through your music? Is there a particular theme or emotion you aim to evoke in your listeners? Kevin: There’s not an overall theme or message that I would like to convey through our music, but what would make extremely proud is that people connect to it. Everything we put out is deeply personal since they are the musical ideas that we love and celebrate, and the lyrics that we come up with from our personal experiences. If someone is out there who listens to our music and feels a little less alone or a little less unseen, then I am proud. Ghost: What are your future plans? Are there any upcoming projects or collaborations that your fans should look forward to? Kevin: As mentioned earlier, we currently have our second and our third album in the works. The reason why they are going to come out as two separate albums is that it seemed to make more sense to group the songs by similarity. The next album we’re releasing will have more of an acoustic / singer-songwriter vibe to it, whereas the third album leans more into distorted guitars and heavier production. This wasn’t an easy decision to make since we’re postponing great songs that will only be released later on, but artistically it just made more sense. So, wish me luck that I finally solve my time management problem and there will lots of new tunes by the Multivariate Outliers coming your way really soon! Ghost: I'd like to Thank Kevin for giving us the opportunity to dive into the beautiful soundscape of one of the most amazing bands in the world! Multivariate Outliers! Check out this awesome interview from Blue Grazer Records!

Stolen From The Sky is a band with an infectious and distinctive sound. Their music has garnered early attention and a die-hard loyal fan base. The new song titled “The End of Me” is a collaboration between Stolen from the Sky and Feminoise. Released in 2024, this track combines their unique styles and heartfelt lyrics and creates a beautiful and dreamy vibe. You can listen to it on Spotify or YouTube Music. Ghost: Can you tell us about your journey into music? How did you get started, and what inspired you to become an indie artist? SFTS: I started playing guitar at the age of 13 with the intention of joining a high school band with some friends. I’ve been lucky enough to have had a lot of excellent teachers in my life musically. First, I had one-to-one lessons with a local guy who lived and breathed everything guitar related. He taught me theory and technique and suggested I go on to study music after high school, which I did at a contemporary music school in Birmingham, UK, that specialized in rock music. That’s where I started really learning drums as well because there was always a kit around to bash on. I also had a few lessons from a guy that taught there and who now tours the world with some famous artists that were very informative. Other than that, though, I was largely self-taught on the drums and learned by doing. I played guitar in a bunch of bands in my late teens and early twenties with some equally talented people that I also learned a bunch from in terms of song writing and arrangement. I also played drums for a couple of years for another band. I learned a lot about production from a guy who ran our local studio where we practiced, and the rest from just doing it myself, and more recently honed a few skills from a website called URM Academy, which is like an online mixing school geared towards mixing and producing metal that is actually well worth the money if you have the time to commit to it. I didn’t really have the time, but I again learned a lot of valuable lessons from it in a short space of time. Ghost: What is the story behind your artist's name? Does it hold a special meaning for you? SFTS: So, this question actually ties into the fourth question of this interview because my name is pretty much symbolic of my writing process, so I’ll just answer them as one. My whole writing process currently involves me sitting down at a computer and just recording ideas straight into it and working out a song from there. I try not to force anything and just make moves that will serve the song rather than forcing parts in or trying to adhere to a particular structure, and by doing it this way songs just tend to fall together. Sometimes I’ll start with guitar, sometimes bass or drums or piano and then fill in the blanks with the other instruments. I’ll usually leave the vocals and lyrics until the end though and the lyrics will usually be written on a theme or based around the song title which I’ll often come up with before any of the other words. I try not to get too attached to anything during the writing process though. If an idea is bad, I just toss it out and try something else until it works. If I feel like the song works better without vocals or guitars or anything else, I just won’t include them. I’ve found this in other projects in the past as well, all of the best things I’ve ever been involved in writing have always just fallen together with ease, even if the final arrangements are complex. So, getting philosophical about that writing process, I’ve sometimes felt that we’re just acting as conduits for songs that wanted to exist and we’re just there interpreting them and bringing them to life, and I’ve had conversations with other musicians that have felt a similar way. So yeah, sometimes it feels like I’m literally stealing music from the sky and calling it my own. Maybe that undersells all the hard work I’ve put in learning my craft to be able to interpret the songs, but I thought it was a pretty good band name all the same. Ghost: How would you describe your music style? What genres or artists have influenced your sound? SFTS: I paid some dude on Fiverr to write me a bio and he came back with alt/prog which I guess fits. There are influences from everywhere though, I don’t want to make just one kind of music. I don’t want to be just a metal band, even if that’s the direction I lean in the most. If I want to make a reggae song next that’s what I’m gonna do. Notable artists that have influenced my sound are QOTSA, Tool, King Crimson, the Dillinger Escape Plan, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, etc. Too many to name really. Ghost: Can you share the creative process behind your latest album/single? How do you usually go about writing and producing your songs? SFTS: I guess I can answer this one a bit more fully now actually. The end of me is a song I started writing between finishing my album and releasing my album and I wrote it for a friend who told me they wanted to write shoegazey type music. Months passed with no progress and I kind of wanted to get it completed because I don’t like leaving songs unfinished. Since releasing my album, I started interacting more with our community and lo and behold we have our very own, very talented shoegaze artist among us. I’d already been mentally lining Feminoise up as a good fit for finishing the song when she dropped me a message one day about one of my other songs, so I took it as a sign and got my friend’s blessing to complete the song with Feminoise. I sent her the rough track and she sent back a week or so later an incredibly rich and nuanced vocal arrangement that was drowned in that lovely spacious reverb and a killer lead guitar line for the end. She suggested I add a lower octave to the choruses, and I bolstered up her vocal during the heavier section at the end with some gritty vocals, mixed it a little and called it a wrap. It turned out so much better than I could have hoped, and I already had a high opinion of her. Ghost: That is awesome! What a great song it is! You two killed it! Can you tell us about what challenges have you faced as an indie artist, and how have you overcome them? SFTS: Getting to a point where my recordings reflect what’s in my head has taken a while. Getting people actually interested in hearing your music is also a struggle I think we all relate to as well. Other than that, everything you do as an indie artist costs money, and if you’re solo you have to bear the full cost. I’ve learned a few extra skills I had no real interest in like basic Photoshop (I use Pixlr because it’s free) for making album covers, some basic video editing because it costs a fortune to have people do it for you. I’ve tried to write my own press releases and be my own PR guy and submit music to playlists and radio stations and here there and everywhere but that’s tough going. Ghost: I definitely can relate. Can you share with us who inspired your passion for music while growing up? SFTS: Growing up, I was inspired by various teachers I’ve had throughout my life. Their mastery of their instruments was truly inspiring. My love for rock music really began with the band The Offspring, who served as my gateway into becoming a musician. Later, I discovered musicians and instrumentalists within bands who were totally unique and at the top of their game across a spectrum of instruments. People like Danny Carey, Robert Fripp, Layne Stayley, Chris Cornell, Les Claypool, and Josh Homme, who are or were a cut above the rest in what they do, have always inspired me. Ghost: What message do you aim to convey through your music? Is there a particular theme or emotion you aim to evoke in your listeners? SFTS: I don’t really have an overarching theme or message in my music. Some songs are just nonsense, while others carry a slightly deeper message like embracing imperfections, living for today, or addressing the left/right divide and trying to face down feelings of cognitive dissonance from holding two incompatible beliefs. GHOST: Nice. Embracing imperfections and living for today are things I vibe with as well.. Wabi Sabi! What are your future plans? Are there any upcoming projects or collaborations that your fans should look forward to? SFTS: I’m currently in the process of recording some instrumental songs with my brother. These are songs that we wrote together when we were still teenagers. There’s enough usable material there for at least an EP, and it’s largely just one guitar part, one bass part, and we’re programming the drums we always envisaged. We’ll probably write at least one new tune together while we’re at it as well. I have another Robot Birthday Party song locked and loaded and just need to set a release date on that one. I’m also open to doing more collaborations although I would like to get some more of my ‘solo’ stuff finished soon. Ghost: Exciting! Looking forward to what the future has in store. I'd like to thank Stolen From The Sky for giving us the opportunity to hear about The End of Me with Feminoise! Also, to dive into the beautiful soundscape and story of one of the most amazing artists in the world; Stolen From The Sky! Check out the Blue Grazer Records Interview with Feminoise!!

In celebration of her two-decade journey in music production, Nadine de Macedo has chosen to mark this milestone with a unique double album of remixes, eschewing the traditional route of a ‘best of’ compilation. This ambitious project saw music producers and arrangers from across the globe reimagining 30 songs from her extensive discography in their own distinctive styles. The first volume, aptly titled “The Club Remixes”, is a pulsating mix of house, techno, trance, synthwave, and darkwave remixes. With over an hour of music, it’s perfectly curated for the underground club scene. The second volume, “The Radio Remixes”, offers a diverse blend of dance pop, lo-fi, pop, rock, and jazz remixes. It’s a sonic treat designed to be savored on high-quality speakers, whether you’re relaxing in your living room or on a drive. But this album is more than just a compilation. It’s the culmination of several months of intense collaboration, bringing together artists from various stages of Nadine de Macedo’s artistic journey. It’s a testament to her evolution as an artist and the profound impact she’s had on the music world. Check out the album here! https://nadinedemacedo.bandcamp.com/album/20th-anniversary-the-club-remixes https://nadinedemacedo.bandcamp.com/album/20th-anniversary-the-radio-remixes Please make sure you check out the Ghost of Rucker remix on Volume 2 along with all the other great tracks!!! Deep Heart (Ghost of Rucker Remix) | Kate Stanton & Nadine de Macedo | Nadine de Macedo (bandcamp.com)