“Nothing pisses me off more than injustices” – interview with Jesper from Ghost Iris

Hailing from Denmark, Ghost Iris is one of the most uncompromising and promising acts in the metalcore scene. Exploring diverse moods and atmospheres, Ghost Iris provides the listener with an experience that is both hard-hitting and catchy. Their sheer tenacity leaves you a band that takes no prisoners. Since the release of their critically acclaimed album, “Apple of Discord”, the band has made a name for themselves with relentless touring throughout Europe, UK, and Japan – touring with the likes of Dream Theater, Jinjer, After The Burial, and Soen, and playing renowned festivals such as Copenhell, Rockstadt Extreme Fest and Euroblast. Winning over new fans every night with their intense and energetic performance, audiences around the world instantly hunger for the band’s return. Gearing up for the release of their awaited 4th full-length album, Comatose, Ghost Iris are building upon the sound explored on their previous album. Pulverizing instrumentals, bleak lyrics, catchy and hard-hitting – Comatose is no exception to these descriptors, being their most visceral material yet. Check out our interview with Ghost Iris‘ vocalist, Jesper!

Beginnings:

Nicklas and I played in a band together before we were in Ghost Iris. The band was called “Shaped Like Swans” and this band disbanded. We then decided to make a new band with new music and from then on we became “The Monolith”. We quickly realized that name was very cliche and the word “monolith” was a very used word Monolith in itself, so we later on changed it to Ghost Iris. We found a drummer in Sebastian on an online forum for a musician in Denmark and we had him and two other guys in for an audition. Sebastian played super well and we clicked with him immediately. Everything from then on out is history.

Behind the name:

The name Ghost Iris is a play on words. “Ghost” and “Iris”. Do ghosts really have irises? It’s supposed to be very metaphorical and up for interpretation and the fact that this world is full of contradictions and contrasts. Contrasts are also very evident in our music.

Inspiration:

I can of course only speak for myself but what truly inspires me is especially humans that stand up for something. People that really believe what they’re doing and people that fight for the betterment of humanity. Nothing pisses me off more than injustices.
In Ghost Iris, we really dig the “3 M’s” which are: Meshuggah, Misery Signals, and Michael Jackson. That pretty much defines all four of our personal inspirations quite well. Metallica was definitely always a big inspiration for me personally. They were the first rock/heavy metal band that I ever listened to. I remember it was 1997 and there was this Iranian kid in my school. He was always wearing a Metallica or a 2 Pac t-shirt. He got me into both artists and we would listen to them all the time. I was 12 years old and already then there was, as I mentioned in the previous question, contrasts present in my life. It became a big part of my inspiration as I still to this day like so many different kinds of music genres.

Inspiration behind “Comatose”:

Generally, our inspiration is a very dark outlook on the world. I write lyrics to showcase my outlook on this world. Reading my lyrics is like climbing in through a window to a warehouse that is my mind; the lyrics and general theme on “Comatose” are no different. We wrote “comatose” both before Corona hit and during Corona, so it’s definitely a testament of how we saw the world before and after the pandemic.

I’ll give you four: monstrously filthy abstract beauty!
Describe “Comatose” in five words!

Teamwork:

Nicklas writes all the riffs. Sebastian then puts down the beats and then we all kind of come together. Specifically Nicklas and I sit down with the lyrics that I have written and we write melodies, flows and so forth.

Ghost Iris is one of the most uncompromising and promising acts in the metalcore scene – is this fact motivational, or rather a pressure?

The pressure is good. Pressure tests one’s character and pressure makes you push forward and do better when in dire straits. It’s something that everyone should strive for and we’re no exception. We do what we do with pride and we will continue to do it for as long as people want to listen to us.

COVID-19:

Covid-19 has definitely affected us both as a unit but also all of us personally because we cannot play our music live. Playing live is what gives us energy and is kind of what makes life bearable in some sense, so once this is over you’re going to see us touring all over.