Ghost Guns, a local band made up of Adriana DeMeo and Mike Levine, is eager to bring their hauntingly smooth sound to the stage – but while most live performances are on hold, they’re sticking to infusing ghostly energy into their music catalog and expanding their repertoire.
DeMeo and Levine grew up in New Jersey together, where DeMeo still resides, though Levine currently makes his home in Carrboro. Although Levine went to a different high school, they met in their teenage years and have been friends ever since. According to DeMeo, the two have “bounced around from Brooklyn to Los Angeles” and “all over” from there.
“…We were both the weirdos in high school and got to know each other and our group of friends and have kept in touch since,” Levine said with a laugh.
Levine, a grad student in musicology at UNC-Chapel Hill, also teaches music theory at UNC-Chapel Hill, with virtual instruction taking place this semester. Plus, he has taught World Musics twice and is teaching Intro to Jazz next semester.
DeMeo, the other half of Ghost Guns, is an actress — her profession since 2003. Most recently, she worked on a film that’s been hitting a lot of festivals. One of her favorite jobs, she said, would have been “Seven Seconds” on Netflix. Levine described her as “amazing” in the film.
DeMeo will also be doing a reading of a play in the near future, with the goal to put it up in Manhattan, according to her.
“Music is on a pedestal for me. Seeing live shows is my absolute favorite. I would actually say seeing a live show is bigger for me and more of like a body experience then sometimes watching a movie or a live theatre,” said DeMeo. “And so, I’ve always put it on this pedestal and felt like I’m not good enough for it and I’ve kind of just mostly focused on acting. I love Mike because we write, we’re just such a good team of back and forth creativity and so I’ve always felt comfortable with him to explore this side of art.”
Despite their out of state origins, the pair have garnered local attention in their creative endeavors. The band’s EP, ‘The Space You Need’ can be found here.
Additionally, Tracks Music Library picked 10 artists out of about 70 to forge a new song with a known producer and five of the songs are being created with a hip-hop producer, Levine said. The other five are with more of an electronic and folk music producer. Happy fans are imminent as Ghost Guns is releasing a song with him called “6am,” which should come out later this fall with four other bands. “I think going to be our best track actually, I think I can say that,” Levine said with a laugh.
The band is “very excited” to get a real live element going and what Levine referred to as “a visual element” to compliment it. “We’ve played before like live, but we’ve never played before in this group,” Levine said.
The band should have a remix coming out at some point of one of their tracks with a local rapper. It’s of the song “Gone Girl” and probably later this fall, the band will have it ready. “So, we have some things in the oven, I would say, for sure,” Levine said.
Writer and artist Miles Bates became infatuated with the arts at an early age. A former student of The Kubert School, a sequential art school in Dover, N.J., his entertainment loves include television, film, video games, books and comic books. Since having been introduced to Metallica in middle school, music has remained a key conversation starter and puzzle piece in his life. His joy is to expose others to all things art related, particularly music.
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