Mrs. Ghost Provides Us With Entertainment For The End Times

Presave “We’re Not Ok” by Mrs. Ghost here

Mustard had the pleasure of speaking with Jacob from Mrs. Ghost. Mrs. Ghost has an upcoming album coming out called “Entertainment for The End Times” which can be per-ordered now! We discussed their creative process, “Entertainment For The End Times”, and so much more! Check it out below!

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1. Hello! Mustard would like to thank you for being here. How are you doing?

Thanks for having me! I am doing well. It’s the first nice day in MONTHS in Montana, so I’m actually using a laptop… outside! Also, this is Jacob from Mrs. Ghost, by the way. The ginger!

2. Mrs. Ghost is a musical duo featuring a ginger and a dude who works at AT&T. Could you share the band’s origin story? Has AT&T approached you to create a jingle for a commercial for an HBO Max program?

Mrs. Ghost rose, like so many other groups do, from the ashes of another band. Sean (the dude who works at AT&T) and I were playing in a Blink-182 cover band in Austin because all white guys have to do that at some point in their lives. Otherwise we end up as ghosts with unfinished business until we play the “Dammit” riff to 7 people at the County Fair. Anyway, Sean brought an original song to practice and it didn’t really vibe with all three of us, but I loved it. We started writing and demoing on the side and we ended up playing a few shows literally a month or two before March 2020. The pandemic hit, we kept writing, I left Austin for Montana, and now the album is FINALLY done.

3. Mustard wonders about Mrs. Ghost creative process. Who (or what) inspires Mrs. Ghost?

For the most part, the creative process is Sean and I writing separately, then adjusting when we come together. I have a tendency to make his songs rock a little harder and he has a tendency to make me think harder about my lyrics. I’m really inspired by bands that never really “made” it. Band’s bands, some folks like to call them. The Swellers, ALL, and The Stereo come to mind. I think Sean’s songs are much more concerned with telling stories, while mine are more about fulfilling a central premise.

4. Is Mrs. Ghost a foe to the Pac-Man family? 

Mrs. Ghost really just wants Mrs. Pac-Man to ditch her (pac) man and do a Thelma and Louise style thing with us.

5. Mustard has noticed a theme of millennial exploration throughout your music. Including your EP, Bad Days. Could you share more about the millennial experience and how it helps influence your songs? Is there something distinctly millennial that may be misunderstood by “boomers”?” 

I think the millennial experience is one of unfulfilled promises. I know Sean and I are the age where we’re REALLY seeing how the lies play out. The lie that if you go to college, you’ll automatically be able to afford a house and family, the lie that anyone can be president, the lie that every generation will be wealthier than the last, etc. There’s a global awareness that wasn’t there for prior generations either, so I think it is easy to see how other parts of the world do things and be dissatisfied with certain areas of your own country. We are fortunate to write our songs from a place of privilege relative to many other people and I think our songs express that even despite that, we are not achieving the financial/cultural/romantic milestones our parents did at our age. But millennials made therapy cool, so that’s one win!

6. The first single off “Entertainment For The End Times” comes out next Friday, We’re Not Ok. What can readers expect from this single? Is it a precursor to the album as a whole?

“We’re Not Ok” is pretty indicative of the whole album for sure. It’s one of the first songs we ever composed together and has that exact global awareness I referenced in the previous question. Sean wrote the lyrics, but I see the verses and chorus as holding humans accountable, like “hey y’all, are we ACTUALLY okay with all of this?” The bridge, in contrast, is pretty personal to Sean. It’s one of my favorite songs on the record and I like to sit at home and imagine what it would sound like to have an audience singing along to the chorus.

7. Mustard loves the artwork for “Entertainment For The End Times.” Does it help foreshadow the stories that may be told? Could you share the inspiration behind the artwork? Who designed it?

Zoe Contreras of Ugliart designed the entire CD package. The cover, band photo, liner notes, etc. We went to college together and I always thought she was more talented than the professors knew what to do with and we’ve always had an unspoken working connection. I’m not sure what her inspiration was, but I sent her the initial mixes of the record and told her to make what she felt and we ended up with the artwork. I explained to her later that she touched on a bunch of power pop art references like houses, planes, etc. and she had no idea because we are definitely not the style of music she reaches for on the regular.

8. Mrs.Ghost has been hosting livestreams before it became 2020-Cool. What kind of livestreams did you host? Are they still happening?

Because it has always been just the two of us, we’ve been tasked with finding creative ways to communicate our music to potential fans. We did a lot of “Living Room Sessions,” which you can find on our website because when I lived in Austin I had an apartment with gigantic ceilings, like 20 feet tall. I’d love to put something together for this album’s release, but we don’t currently do regular livestreams anymore.

9. You wrote a song for Zoe C., Ugliart’s mother. Is this a service you still provide?

Yes and the mother of some kids I babysat in college also paid us last year to write a song for them! This is an ongoing service for sure, but we do it and price it on a case-by-case basis. I would feel terrible if I messed up someone’s engagement or something because I wrote a bad song.

10.  What do you hope fans get from “Entertainment For The End Times?”

I hope that fans find a little of themselves reflected in this album. Everyone is going through a hard time right now and we don’t shy away from it, but I like to think we inject a little bit of humor and levity into most of the proceedings. I also talk a lot about trying to reach fans who are not already my friends, so this project is definitely an attempt to do that!

11. Where can readers listen to your music?

All of our music can be found on any streaming service, mrsghost.com, or mrsghost.bandcamp.com. Pre-orders are up at mrsghost.com/store and I am personally fulfilling every order, so no getting that “your item has shipped” notification when it actually just means your shipping label has been created.