Daniel James of The Daniel James Gang walks us through ‘Ghosts Of The Past’

It’s been a few years since Milwaukee glam-punk stalwart Daniel James retired his long-running Indonesian Junk band and revived his long-dormant solo project, The Daniel James Gang. Twenty-twenty-four’s Darkness Over This Town found James and his Gang turning in four hooky-as-hell power-pop tunes filled with bright and chiming guitars, sneering vocals, and plenty of “whoa-whoa-whoa”s.

<a href="https://danieljamesgang.bandcamp.com/album/darkness-over-this-town">Darkness Over This Town by The Daniel James Gang</a>

Now, James is back with four new songs of heartbreak, hard living, and, well, artificial intelligence. Behold Ghosts Of The Past, due October 21, and streaming exclusively today on Milwaukee Record. It’s classic James, and yeah, it’s hooky-as-hell, too.

milwaukeerecord · Daniel James Gang – Ghosts Of The Past

This time around, James is joined by bassist Mary Joy (Sex Scenes, former Fox Face) and drummer Pauly Hollywood (Rocket Bureau). Geoff Palmer, Jackie Lemaire, and Justin Telephone contribute backing vocals. Engineering and mixing is handled by Ian Olvera, and mastering is handled by Justin Perkins at Mystery Room Mastering.

The songwriting, however, isn’t just James. Below, he walks us through the stories behind the four tracks of Ghosts Of The Past: “(Breakin’) What Hearts Are Made For,” “Artificial Romance,” “Insanity,” and a cover of “Drunk Like Me” by The Dogs D’Amour. James and company will celebrate the release of the record at Sabbatic on November 5. You can pre-order digital or CD versions of the album HERE.

(BREAKIN’) WHAT HEARTS ARE MADE FOR (James/Palmer/Lemaire)
“I had this goal when I started working on a new Gang record that I wasn’t going to write any love songs and try to tackle real subjects, but then this hook got stuck in my head and refused to leave, so I guess I had to turn it into a song. I spent Christmas over at Geoff Palmer’s house, where he and his girlfriend Jackie helped me finish the lyrics in between Muppet movies, and we ended up making a demo. Geoff had his Ray Bans sitting on his console while I was recording the vocals, which caused me to impromptu steal a lyric from his song ‘Everything Is Cool’ which ended up making its way on to the final version of the song. He was already getting a co-write on the track anyway, so I figured it was fair. Justin from Chinese Telephones came down to the studio and did some backups on this song and on ‘Artificial Romance.'”

ARTIFICIAL ROMANCE (James)
“This song was mostly written about how weird I think the whole concept of AI art and music is. I always viewed music as a conversation and a way to communicate with other people. The idea of trying to communicate and form an emotional bond with lines of code and algorithms through music just seems real bizarre to me. I kind of equated it to forming friendships, or romantic relationships with AI, which lo and behold is a real thing in and of itself. The whole thing just feels completely dystopian to me. I guess this song is my declaration that I’m officially old and out of touch or whatever.”

INSANITY (James/Joy/Hollywood)
“I really like how this one came together with Mary and Pauly and it really feels like a band effort as opposed to like a solo project or whatever. I ended up being kind of rushed and never recorded a bassline when I did the original demo, so I gave Mary full reign to bring whatever she wanted to do into the studio, and she busted out this amazing bass line so I had to give her songwriting credit. Same with Pauly. I just had a pretty basic drum beat on the original demo and I feel like he took it to a new place. I’m really hash tag blessed to be working with such good musicians.”

DRUNK LIKE ME (Pallas)
“This is a cover by one of my favorite bands ever, The Dogs D’Amour. I’ve been wanting to record a Dogs song forever. (We were actually planning to do ‘Last Bandit’ on the Spiderbites album, but it didn’t turn out to hot so we abandoned the idea). I’d been doing this song and ‘Billy Too Rivers’ in my solo sets for years, and ended up bringing this one to the Gang when I resurrected the project a couple years ago. I love songwriting, but I’m really trying to record at least one cover song for every DJG release going forward. (We did a New Model Army song on the last EP.) Tyla’s always been a huge influence in my songwriting and the more we play the song live, the more I run into people that haven’t even heard of this band before. Everyone should listen to The Dogs D’Amour and go out and buy their whole discography.”