Former SOLITUDE AETURNUS Bassist Explains Decision To Reactivate GHOULTOWN

In a recent interview with Black Order, former SOLITUDE AETURNUS bassist Lyle Steadham (a.k.a. Count Lyle) spoke about his decision to reactivate his Dallas, Texas-based "hellbilly" band GHOULTOWN a year after the group played their "farewell show" at the annual Dragon*Con convention.

"It's true that GHOULTOWN hasn't played live since August of 2004," he said. "Basically, we decided to stop playing live and take a break from GHOULTOWN altogether. While most people assumed that a 'last show' meant we were breaking up, this was never the case. We posted news on our site explaining that after five years of literally doing everything ourselves… running our own label, booking the tours, filling online orders, writing, recording, negotiating deals for comic books, movie soundtrack appearances, and on and on, we were nearly half-dead, which despite our spooky overtone isn't the goal. The business demands of the band had more or less surpassed our time and ability to handle and it was becoming a huge problem, affecting our moral and creativity. Being DYI and independent is great, but the downside is that in between writing and recording material, you have to book tours, run the label and find a way to pay the rent. We didn't take up music to become label reps or businessmen, so we finally took a break to get back to the thing we love the most, music. Plus, I had to go through surgery to correct some problems that the doctors said may have been caused by singing all these years. I'm not sure if I believe that, but basically after ending up in the emergency room because I could no longer swallow, I had to take a break for the surgery. I've never been so close to dying and it was an eye-opener. We sing a lot about horror, but you really never know true horror until you are lying on the floor in your bedroom choking to death. All I kept thinking was, 'Please don't let me die like the singer of THE MAMAS AND THE PAPAS.' It didn't seem fitting for 'Count Lyle.' But anyway, to get back to the story, after the surgery, the members of GHOULTOWN and I formed a side-project called MALTORO and just played gigs mostly for the hell of it. Not to promote a CD, not to try and tour the world, just simply to rock. We did one small tour with THE INDEPENDENTS, but other than that, we kept the gigs local to Texas. . . But here's where the story gets weird. By concept, MALTORO was meant to be a different sounding band than GHOULTOWN. Being that we had nearly the same line up as GHOULTOWN — four out of the five members — of course there would be similar elements, but overall we wanted to branch out and do something new with it. However, when it was all said and done and I listened to the finished MALTORO rough tracks, it sounded just like GHOULTOWN. At that point, I realized that it would be ridiculous to release this material under the name MALTORO. It just didn't feel right. So I decided that instead, those songs should rightfully be the next GHOULTOWN CD. In other words, I just write songs and if they sound like GHOULTOWN, then out of respect to the band and the fans, I'm gonna call it GHOULTOWN. At this point, I don’t know where the hell MALTORO stands, but I can stay for sure that a new GHOULTOWN CD with seven new songs will be released later this year or as soon as we can get this thing produced. It's gonna be called 'Bury Them Deep'."

Read the entire interview at BlackOrder.com.