The Ghost Is Dancing Can't Believe How They've Grown

When we first approached Toronto's The Ghost Is Dancing last year, vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Jamie Matechuk claimed that he never thought that they'd be in Chart. It still comes to him as a surprise.

"I never expected to have a second interview. We never expected anything like this. We're very honest that we started this band on a lark, for fun. And it's such a thrill to be able to make music together... we never knew that we could."

After sitting on a batch of songs for more than a year, the indie rock collective are finally gearing up for the release of their debut full-length, The Darkest Spark. The collection of 10 songs, about moving away from home and discovering a new life with friends, is slated to hit store shelves on June 19 via Sonic Unyon.

The Ghost Is Dancing recorded the LP with Dale Morningstar at Gas Station Studios on Toronto Island. Matechuk says that the producer/artist was highly regarded, and that recording at an island beachfront studio was nothing short of paradise.

"Dale's one of the most interesting people I have ever met in my life. He's extremely laid-back, and that worked out very well for us because there's a lot of us and we get pretty rambunctious. He definitely was the perfect guy to control that and harness us."

There's definitely no exaggerating the size of The Ghost Is Dancing. A group who began with a few childhood friends has ballooned into a nine-person — and counting — stage show. With intentions to expand the lineup further, touring takes careful planning and a flexible schedule. When the band hit the road this summer for the first of three planned tours, you can guarantee to see at least seven of them on stage. The band will play a warm-up show at Clinton's in Toronto on Thursday.

"We've all been preparing for this for a while, so whenever we have long jaunts to go on, we schedule far enough in advance and we know we have to be flexible with one another," Matechuk says. "That's the trick of being part of such a large band, especially when we are just starting out."

It's kind of tough. It's even tough to arrange practice because we're all working full-time. But it seems to be working so far."

The band's size and sound have evoked comparisons to fellow indie-rock conglomerates Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire, which is fine with Matechuk.

"We'll never get tired of those comparisons. They're two of my favourite bands. It's really nice when people say stuff like that. We love that type of music, and in some ways that type of energy is what we are going for. We'd like to think that, especially with this record, we're definitely doing something that's our own. And we're hoping people see that."