Simon Pettigrew is best known as the frontman of British indie pop band Ghosts, which released a top 20 album The World Is Outside in 2007. Since then, news about Ghosts has been scarce. Pettigrew performed at the Music Matters Live showcase last month and he was kind enough to share with Power of Pop what was going on with Ghosts and his future plans.
What is the current status of Ghosts now? Is Ghosts still active?
Ghosts is kinda on hold at the moment – a rancorous legal battle between us and our record company dragged on for nearly two years and at the end of it we’d lost all our momentum – we spent some time writing for other singers, and even auditioned for some singers ourselves but nothing really worked out, so I decided to take some time out in asia, where I’ve been writing some new material.
What happened to the second album that was reportedly recorded somewhere in Sweden? Will it be released? Or will a second album consists of new material?
We never completed that second record, although some of the songs are done. Never Too Late and Say You’re Mine, which are both on the myspace, were conceived during those sessions. There is more material that I wanna go back to – I had the thought that given that the first album wasn’t really properly promoted out in asia I could take the best songs from the first album, the best of the new songs, and make one really stunning record to release out here!
The demo that you sent to Power of Pop is quite different in sound and feel from the Ghosts material. Is the song intended for Ghosts or perhaps a solo recording?
I don’t really see it as massively different in feel – it doesn’t have any synths in it, yeah, but to me it’s part of the same thread. We were always a band where the songs didn’t sound the same, so we’d have to be careful with tracklistings to make everything work together. I recorded that myself (hence why it sounds so sketchy), which might be why it currently sticks out like a sore thumb! I should have a mixed version shortly.
You were in Singapore for Music Matters 2o11 – what are your impressions of Singapore? Will be keen to return perhaps for a proper concert performance with Ghosts or as a solo performer?
I’ve spent quite a lot of time in singapore recently, as my brother lives here. I like it a lot, the music scene is fairly vibrant, although sometimes I wish the audience would let themselves go a little bit more! I played 5 gigs down at TAB earlier in the year which was good, and Music Matters was excellent also, I got a great reaction and met some interesting people. I’d love to play more – apparently I might be getting a gig at Timbre, we’ll wait and see.
Picture by Zurina Bryant
Special thanks to Sammy Shirra-Moore.