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Ghost Woman, a garage psych outfit from Alberta, is the alias of multi-instrumentalist Evan Uschenko. Evan has made a living on being a musician for hire, playing in Michael Rault’s band, and having the opportunity to tour with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, but in 2016 he decided to start writing and recording his own music. The result is Ghost Woman, a sound that sounds like the vintage ‘60s psych of bands like The Pretty Things mixed in with the more modern White Fence. He’s now on the UK label, Full Time Hobby, and is starting to plan his full-length debut.
Ahead of his M For Montreal performance, Evan spoke with PAN M 360 about his origins, influences, and future plans for Ghost Woman.
PAN M 360: Why did Ghost Woman start?
Evan Uschenko: Well I’ve always been, kind of largely, a hired musician for other groups throughout my life and just never really made anything of my own. And then, just kind of randomly, I was at a spot I think, emotionally or what have you, where a relationship ended and a bunch of shit started happening. And I was just like,’ maybe I should start my own stuff.’ So I just wrote a bunch of songs and then just randomly played a few shows. And lots of people liked it. And I liked it.
PAN M 360: Is there a story behind the name?
Evan Uschenko: It’s a light story but we were on tour in Portland. Oregon, I think we went to that Mississippi Records. It’s like a record store and they do like old compilations of old songs and stuff and they make their own records. I was just kind of like looking through and there was a blues compilation called Ghost Woman Blues. And I believe it’s a tune by … I can’t remember his name because I’m a little bit hungover.
PAN M 360: George Carter I think?
Evan Uschenko: Yeah I think so. So they made this compilation and I just kind of looked at it and thought ‘that’s cool,’ it reads well, and I just kind of wrote it down in my phone and thought ‘maybe we can use that one day.’ And then I just ended up using it. And so that’s kind of roughly the story. Then throughout the years, I’ve noticed that in any kind of like relationship I find myself in, everyone just ends up kind of leaving without saying a whole lot. So maybe that’s the common theme in my life—women who ghost, but I don’t know. You can make anything up you want to but basically it just sounded neat.
PAN M 360: I read somewhere that you want to live in a van at some point in your life. Is that still in the works?
Evan Uschenko: That’s like a two year goal. I got this van that I want to make into a livable situation. But that’s kind of on the back burner, something I would eventually do. I just got to get a little shop set up so I can work on it and stuff. If you check back in a year, something might be done. We’ll see.
PAN M 360: You have a few singles out and the EP, but are there plans to release a full-length at some point?
Evan Uschenko: So there’s a compiled proper album. I think the goal is to release it springtime next year. Okay, so we’re just like, like, we released that one song recently. And, like maybe a few songs released up until spring, and then they’re gonna release the record in its entirety.
PAN M 360: And the EP, Lost Echo’s, was more fuzzy garage rock, but this new single “Do You” is more laid back psych, like Brian Jonestown Massacre.
Evan Uschenko: So when the EP was written I was listening to a lot of stuff with a band and we were on the road with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. So that was kind of where my mind was at. I was like ‘These guys lay it down and their live shows were insane.’ So I was like, okay, maybe we should try something like that. I’m really into a band called White Fence, and all that kind of stuff. And then that kind of threw me into a whole bunch of older, like, garage rock compilations from the ‘60s and stuff. Throughout the years, I got more into Brian Jonestown Massacre and liked The Black Angels and decided that vibe would be cool in a live situation.
PAN M 360: Cool. So what is the live experience of Ghost Woman like?
Evan Uschenko: It’s a good time. I always try to keep in mind, when making or like recording a song is how is this going to translate live? Because I love a good live show. They’re louder, they’re harder and, and I actually kind of prefer how they sound with the band. It’s a little different. We try to emulate the recordings as closely as we’re able to, but a lot of times we just extend them and kind of screw around a bit. We got three guitars, bass and drums. So it’s been really rock ‘n’ roll.
PAN M 360: You must get some killer melodies with three guitars?
Evan Uschenko: (laughs) Yeah man, it’s like Lynyrd Skynyrd.
