Ruth Lloyd Photo
Chris Gheran meets up for a few words and a drink in Kensington’s Lido Cafe. Chris and The Graveyard Gang are playing at The Gate on Oct. 16 opening for Young Rival.
Gheran brings Graveyard Gang to campus haunt
By Ruth Lloyd, Entertainment Editor
Sitting in a booth at the Lido Café in Kensington, Chris Gheran is twitching with nervous energy.
Hanging out with Gheran is like chillin’ with a hilarious cousin you haven’t seen in years, one who makes you laugh ridiculously at anything and everything.
“I make a lot of jokes, that’s the way I deal with my nervousness,” he says. “It’s kind of like the best defence is a good offence.”
And while Gheran’s jokes might be hard to express on the page, in person his creative genius shines through. You can’t help but be thoroughly entertained in his presence.
Within his music, Gheran’s lyrics express some bizarre themes, beginning with his obsession with monsters and ghosts.
“I really like emotional, thoughtful songwriting (pause) −about monsters,” he says.
This interest manifests itself in the title track of his new album. Monster is a fun and enthusiastically upbeat song embodying Gheran’s self-described style of “hard folk.”
In his earlier solo work, Gheran did a lot more “soft, sweet songs” that can still be found on MySpace. But with the band, “things get a little out of control,” hence the slightly harder folk on the new album.
His manager (and mom) Jackie Bourgaize says while Gheran has difficulty focusing sometimes due to his attention deficit disorder (ADD), for some reason this was never a problem with singing and songwriting.
“When it comes to music –oh my god– he writes these intense lyrics, verse after verse after verse and remembers every word,” says Bourgaize.
“That was what he was born to do.”
Gheran attributes his ability to overcome his ADD to the nature of music itself. “Within music, it’s like a whole other world,” he says. “You can focus on so many different things, my style of writing and playing is very conducive to a rapidly shifting focus.”
Gheran expresses his unique perspective in his tour stories as well.
During a recent tour to Revelstoke and Kelowna, B.C., Gheran stayed in a budget hotel room he describes as being “like watching a Tarantino movie on a tiny screen.”
In the morning, he says he felt as though he had “inhaled mold spores.” But instead of being worried about his health, Gheran hopes the spores will lead to a “symbiotic relationship” like the one between Spiderman and spider venom.
“I can only imagine it would go one way –superpowers,” he says, and then laughs.
And this is the fabulous vision one can expect from Gheran on stage.
He appears as a young man given super powers to overcome whatever obstacles have been thrown at him, and to not only play some great music, but also to have the crowd laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
“I just think that the world is too hilarious in all its stupidity,” he says. “The world’s out of control, and I’m wondering if everybody else is noticing that, or if like am I the only one?”
Chris Gheran and The Graveyard Gang are playing before Young Rival at The Gateway on Oct. 16. Tickets are available in advance for $7 through Student Services, The Gateway or Ticketmaster, $10 at the door. Doors at 8 p.m.