Third Man Records is excited to release the newest songs from Austin, TX’s Ghost Wolves, available today on 7” vinyl and digital. Formed in 2011 and hardly taking time to sit since then, the Ghost Wolves create, record and tour at a dizzying clip. Blending rock n’ roll, punk rock, garage and blues with electronic elements, the duo has earned a reputation as one of the hardest working bands in the modern rock n’ roll underground, touring internationally for almost 8 years straight, with nearly 1000 shows between them in 23+ countries including most of western Europe, the USA, U.K. and Japan.

The Ghost Wolves are a punk-blues duo born in the countryside west of Austin, Texas, on the great enchanted precipice of the southwest  known as the Texas Hill Country. Carley and Jonny met at a hippie campout festival in Kerrville, Texas nearly 10 years ago. Carley was raised in the area nearby on a small ranch where her family kept horses, goats and a pack of 10 wolf hybrid dogs who slept with her in bed and guarded her as if she were their own. She came up as a teenager playing rockabilly music in the dance halls throughout the state, vaunted old wooden places like Luckenbach, Gruene and historic Fischer hall. Jonny is one of those lost souls from the icy Yankee northern USA who “couldn’t get to Texas fast enough”.  His move to Austin was made with a two year stopover in New Orleans, that ancient, dangerous, fascinating city where drummers grow like weeds and the indigenous musical groove happens in the cracks of the beat. Once in Austin, he quickly found steady work with western swing, country, blues and rock n’ roll bands of all kinds, playing long nights in some of the same smokey honky tonks and dancehalls Carley had a few years earlier as a teenager. 

The Ghost Wolves came together first as an idea, an outlet for two musicians who had experience working as backing players, but were looking for a way to be more creative with their music. The strict and structured world of working behind other musicians had begun to rub Jonny the wrong way. “I learned a lot from drumming for other people, and I’m thankful for it, but it started to feel like I was stuck creatively, I needed to be myself and play things the way I was hearing them. I was doing stuff with my drums that was going to get me fired from other bands.” Jonny remembers. At their first band practice, Carley took her electric guitar, removed 5 strings, plugged it into an oversized bass rig and dubbed it “the one string wonder.” Jonny made a box with a myriad of analog synthesizers in it and slammed it with his fist between Carley’s riffs, sending shockwaves, space rays, glitter bomb explosions and bursts of electricity through their music. They reached deep into their record collection and learned cover songs by legendary guitarists like Jessie Mae Hemphill, RL Burnside, and Bo Diddley. Mixing these early American blues and rock n’ roll sounds with the fervent punk rock of the late 70’s and their own writing styles, they quickly got to work finding their own sound. They’ve been described many ways – blues-punk, blues-rock, trash – but one drunken fan described them perhaps better than any writer ever has: “The Cramps from the Crypt meet up with The Ramones and take all the cocaine Hasil Adkins left on the floor.”   

For The Ghost Wolves, having an explosive live show and being willing to tour incessantly are of paramount importance in their life as a band.  Since their first gigs around Austin in 2011, they have played nearly 1,000 shows across the planet in 18 countries including Japan, Scandinavia, Europe, the U.K., Ireland, and almost every state in the USA. This year, the band will add Cuba to the list of countries played, visiting in September 2019 on a 14 day tour. “When fans invite us to play for them, we go. We have to take this band to the people. That’s just how we’re wired.” Carley says. “Touring that much forces our creativity, teaches us to adapt and make every situation as great as it can be. We don’t let bad sound, shitty people or unfortunate circumstances stop us. Playing that many gigs has been the greatest lesson for us, as people individually and a band together.” In 2017 the Ghost Wolves were invited by metal band All Them Witches on a 23 date opening tour of theaters and large halls in Europe, the U.K. and Scandinavia. This trip had them surrounded by giant amplifiers cranked to extreme volume levels night after night. At one show, their thunderous racket rattled a top shelf bottle of whiskey off the bar, shattering glass and soaking patrons in high dollar liquor. They returned to the USA and promptly joined one man band Lincoln Durham as his opener on a tour of listening rooms and small clubs. To adapt to those intimate venues, they stripped their entire setup down to a cigar box guitar, a small amplifier, a tin garden bucket, crystal bowl and a pair of dinner knives. 

Their discography includes three releases. An initial EP In Ya Neck!  was distributed on vinyl by Pau Wau records in 2011. Their first LP Man, Woman, Beast, was picked up and released by Nashville based Plowboy Records in 2015. That label was helmed at the time by Cheetah Chrome, famed guitarist of 70’s punk band Dead Boys. The duo’s second LP, Texas Platinum, was released in 2017 by German label Hound Gawd! Records. On September 7th, Third Man Records released their third effort, a 3 song 7″ EP called “Crooked Cop.” 

Formed in 2015 in Amsterdam, the duo of Ajay Saggar and Merinde Verbeek (Deutsche Ashram) released their debut album “Deeper And Deeper” in 2016 to widespread acclaim. The band follow up “Deeper And Deeper” with the release in January 2020 of their second album “Whisper Om”. Recorded and mixed at Saggar’s Soundation Studio, and mastered in Berlin at D&M, “Whisper Om” is a neo-pop opus.

“A musical suicide pact between Siouxsie & The Banshees and Cocteau Twins”– PLAYLOUDER