GHOSTS OF TRAVEL AND LEISURE (2003)
GHOSTS OF TRAVEL AND LEISURE
GHOSTS OF TRAVEL AND LEISURE is a band project with roots that extend back to my young years during the ‘90s on Long Island. There are a few of us that began together in a little town, friends who have kept creative partnerships alive to this day, in various guises. Since starting in high school we persevered through several lineups, monikers and sounds until our efforts culminated in this record Ghosts of Travel and Leisure. We left it unfinished in 2003 when we were still young.
After college, we energized our musical efforts. Dan Malossi, Dave Siegel, Todd Pascarella and I did a tour under the name Cold Memory. It was a bleakly self-booked months-long nationwide trek from Seattle and back via Detroit, Las Vegas, Omaha, Kalamazoo, Santa Fe, Toledo and many more towns, all to play (mostly) shitty shows that made us tighter despite most performances transpiring in empty incidental rooms. We did play some good ones though, including opening for the Realistics and Motion City Soundtrack and 4 WARPED tour dates.
We worked on our songs. We loved Bruce and GBV, lots of big pop melodies and idealistic exuberance. All the lyrics that Dan sang were by Joe Willie and we hoped that was our ace-in-the-hole since Joe’s words were so vibrant and unique. We self-made one album and found ourselves deep into self-making album number-two when the band fell apart. Despite calling it quits, we still had a strong concept for the new record. My college pal A-Ross was around at the time, contributing some songwriting and doing some great playing. I tried to rally to finish it at the time but it was too hard so I paused it, turned away and pushed into the future.
Fast forward to twenty years later and this abandoned record gets to live a life. We decided we’d just re-name ourselves Ghosts of Travel and Leisure, adopting the album-title as a new band name. Dan finished some final vocals in my studio in summer 2022 and then it was mixed by me and mastered by Jamal Ruhe. Stream it.
GHOSTS OF TRAVEL AND LEISURE: DAN MALOSSI - vocals, guitar, TRAVIS HARRISON - drums, DAVE SIEGEL - guitar, TODD PASCARELLA - bass, A-ROSS - guitar, bass, b-vox, JOE WILLIE - lyrics
