XL Cover Story

Ghostland Observatory

Austin's dynamic electronic duo finds its groove

By V. Marc Fort
Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Selling out is no small thing.

For Austin bands on the verge of Something Bigger, "selling out" most often means trading creative control for a shot at a wider audience.

But for Ghostland Observatory — an army of two, laying down a mix of electronica and dance pop anchored with rock beats — "selling out" applies only to tickets. As in good luck getting them.

In its two-year existence, Ghostland has risen to the top of the underground scene without compromise, on its own terms and on its own dime. And in September, the underground bubbled up to a main stage at the Austin City Limits Festival, where Aaron Behrens and Thomas Turner went from playing for hundreds of people at Emo's or Trophy's to rocking a crowd in the thousands.

"It's dance music that works within a pop music framework," says Phil Waldorf, booking agent for Emo's, a club Ghostland filled to capacity in August (not bad for a local band with no radio airplay and no major-label support). The band's show tonight at Emo's begins a packed October tour that includes dates in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis and Chicago.

"I think the reason they've got people getting up and off their couches is that they're connecting with people who don't normally go to shows," Waldorf says. "Some of the audience at Ghostland shows are your typical Emo's clientele, but there is definitely a segment that does not go see a lot of music. They are there for a huge party, and that's what Ghostland delivers."

Although the fabric of its music is ornate, Ghostland is a humble duo. Turner, 28, crafts the jackknife beats and ephemeral soundscapes with synthesizers, drums and keyboards. Behrens, 24, howls and sings, prowling the stage with chest-length twin braids, projecting a clean-shaven androgyny punctuated with tight T-shirts and low-riding jeans. He plays guitar. The female fans pay close attention.

Prince? Freddie Mercury? Daft Punk? All of the above.

Ghostland has released two solid albums on Turner's Trashy Moped Recordings — "delete.delete.i.eat.meat" and "Paparazzi Lightning" — but the biggest reason for the band's rise has been the inferno of its live shows, those soul-infused indie-rock dance parties. Ghostland shows have become 1960s-meets-1980s, hybrid-styled "it's all happening now" events, propelled by two distinct personalities driven toward the same sonic goal.

•••

Fort Stockton is the point of no return on Interstate 10 when you drive from Austin to El Paso. The majority of sound coming from Fort Stockton is the roar of big-rig 18-wheelers howling, almost mimicking the West Texas vacuumlike wind. And that sucking sound just didn't work for a musically inclined and creative kid such as Turner.

Fort Stockton is a small town where most folks just gas up and drive on through. Turner's destiny dared him to drive away. And he did, leaving and returning four times during high school. During his junior year, he was living in Dallas, throwing raves there and in Austin.

"As soon as I graduated in 1997, I headed (to Austin)," Turner says. "I had some connections. The majority of my parties I threw at Austin Music Hall."

Turner took note of how relaxed his rave performers were. "I was always kind of envious, because the performers get flown in, picked up, taken to the hotel. They come in and jam, pick up their money and then they're gone," he says.

"When I stopped throwing parties, I had spare time and a huge void to fill," Turner says. "I was so used to having something to look forward to creatively that when that was cut off, it was a shock. It was like, 'What do I do now? OK . . . I'll work on tracks.' "

•••

Behrens grew up in the small town of San Saba, a couple hours northwest of Austin.

"My dad and my mom knew what I had inside of me," Behrens says. "They always encouraged me." He remembers a moment as a small child when he lip-synced while playing air-piano on his bed to Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire." Little 9-year-old Behrens infused the playtime performance with such passion that his parents offered to register him in his sister's after-school performance troupe, Performance Incorporated.

It was in that troupe where Behrens fine-tuned his ability to dance. M.C. Hammer had the No. 1 album in the country at the time, and Behrens learned Hammer's every move, along with the ability to pop and lock. He was a natural hip-hop dancer, a genre from which he culls his current moves.

Before too long, he left his dance troupe and quit his middle-school band's percussion ensemble to form his own hard-rock/metal band, Dismount. In Dismount, Behrens was singing (and screaming), and he'd found his true calling. Dismount provided an outlet for the fire in his soul waiting to burn its way beyond the San Saba County line.

•••

After high school, both Turner and Behrens made a beeline to Austin. Turner worked strenuous jobs during the day and somehow mustered energy to work on music at night.

"I was a truck driver for Coors. I drove a truck for myself, delivering materials to job sites," Turner says. "I've run heavy machinery. I've done almost every end of the whole construction deal."

He also drove an 18-wheeler for a spell. After work, he taught himself how to manipulate smaller machines: sampling sequencers, electronic drums and keyboards.

Meanwhile, Behrens moved Dismount to Austin. After only a month in town, he landed a job in the mail room of a law firm. Shortly thereafter, Behrens met drummer Andrew Hamra while standing in line at the post office.

"Andrew took me under his wing and started opening my eyes to a world of music I'd never heard before," Behrens says. The two became friends and formed the instrumental band Waking Helix.

That was when destiny played its hand with Turner and Behrens.

Waking Helix placed an ad to audition keyboard players. Turner wanted to expand his creativity by playing with other musicians. He answered Waking Helix's ad and was brought into the fold by Hamra after one awkward audition.

"Aaron wasn't feeling what I was doing initially," Turner says, laughing. "But Waking Helix was Andrew's baby, and so he pulled his trump card and kept me on."

Eventually, Behrens warmed up to Turner's keyboard parts, especially his jazz-inspired melodies. "From then on, Aaron and I had a small connection," Turner says.

The more Behrens and Turner began to see eye-to-eye musically, the more they grew apart from Waking Helix. While their bandmates left Austin for a vacation in December 2002, Turner and Behrens took advantage of Hamra's empty rehearsal space and wrote 11 songs together. When their buddies returned, they were shocked to discover Turner and Behrens had taken the band in a different direction: Now Behrens was singing and the beats were no longer organic. Turner was using sequencers.

Waking Helix split up shortly thereafter. "Andrew and Jeremy Jenkins (Waking Helix's bassist) went and did their thing, and Aaron and I went and did our thing," Turner says.

•••

But the transformation of Behrens and Turner into a cohesive band took some time. They broke up and reformed a couple of times. They attempted to add a bassist and a drummer, with mixed results. Eventually, the duo christened themselves Ghostland Observatory, a name referring to "ghostly sonatas" and "astral observations" reverberating in Behrens' mind.

"It was a totally different thing when we first began," Turner says. "It was more Beatles-inspired stuff. We were listening to tons of Beatles at that point."

"People think we're lying when we explain it, but early on, we would practice every day from 7 p.m. to 4 in the morning. It was beautiful," Behrens says. "Thomas really pushed me to find my voice. I just got into howling, into that whole '70s vibe . . . Screamin' Jay Hawkins-type, freaky stuff."

Turner recalled the moment when Ghostland's current musical identity came into being: "We did a new, beat-driven song where Aaron just got down, dancing and stuff . . . people really responded to that."

Behrens recalled a performance at the Red Eyed Fly, circa December 2003, "where I started grinding on the microphone stand. And people just freaked out over that . . . I knew we kind of had something then.

"Thomas started getting into his (electronic programming) stuff," Behrens says. "We went with our strong qualities and made a band out of that, instead of trying other things that we weren't so good at."

Both Behrens and Turner noticed that their dance music was receiving a rapt response from the crowd that their poppier, Beatles-inspired music had not received. In Ghostland's current incarnation, Behrens' falsetto-tinged voice keeps the audience dancing while Turner's dastardly electronic beats set the pace.

"My favorite shows are ones I don't even think about. It's all movement, and feeding off whatever energy the crowd has," Behrens says. "How far do I have to go before I can get them to frickin' move? To blow your mind? To blow my mind? I'm really trying to get lost for a little bit in time. I'm really trying to experience God. The whole reason why I do express myself is to achieve some sort of euphoric trance.

"Dance music is always going to be around. The tribe always needs to release," Behrens says. "The people that are going to get (us) the most are the ones that come with open minds, to experience. And we've been known to convert some people that came there to hack us in half. I'm not afraid of those kinds of people. But a lot of Austin people just come with open arms."

•••

What to make of the transformation from two guys experimenting with sound to a breaking phenomenon?

"Thomas really helps me stay grounded and not be in fantasy land," Behrens says. "Our families and our children really keep us grounded, too. When you get home and it's time to water the lawn or cook supper, those things easily help keep us humble and focused."

Focus might be an important commodity for Ghostland Observatory now.

"I think they are poised to do well everywhere," Emo's booker Waldorf says. "They are already rapidly gaining notoriety from performances at a KEXP-sponsored festival (in Seattle), ACL and Lollapalooza. Plus Turner is incredibly savvy . . . pairing a great grasp of business with their amazing live show, and I think Ghostland is poised for really big things."