Before ghostbells ever stepped into the light, they spent two years creating in the shadows. What emerged was more than a band — it was an immersive world of pulsing electronics, haunting visuals and gothic glamour that took shape behind the scenes before a single song was ever released.

Built by longtime friends Jessica Perry and Jim Finley, ghostbells feels both nostalgic and new, blending ’80s-inspired melodies, EBM and modern production with darkly macabre lyricism. That union comes to life on their newly released debut EP Catacouture, which transports listeners into a dance-filled atmosphere of melancholic romance, wrath and longing. Now, ghostbells‘ once-secret vision is quickly resonating with fans across generations, who describe the listening experience as “religious.”

On the heels of the EP’s release and ahead of their support this spring for Die Krupps’ 45th anniversary tour, PopHorror spoke with Perry and Finley about ghostbells‘ two-year creation process, their instinctive songwriting chemistry and the emotional connection they hope listeners find within the darkness.

PopHorror: Take me back to the beginning. How did this project start between the two of you?

Jessica Perry: We have a shared love of music, for sure. And for many years, we’ve been friends. So we started talking about, “What if we tried doing this kind of project together and see what happens?” We decided to give it a shot. We both love electronic music and, of course, we both love the darker side of things. We combined the two and ghostbells was created. We’ve tried different kinds of music, just jamming and things like that. But then we were like, “Let’s be for real.”

PopHorror: Was ghostbells something that started as a casual jam session and then grew into something larger? Or were you both very serious about it from the beginning?

Jessica Perry: I feel like we were very serious about it. We have so much music that we recorded before we approached any labels. We have about two albums’ worth of music. So we were like, “Let’s do this for real. Let’s try.” And we planned out everything. We had videos for every song, the imagery — everything was talked about and discussed, and then we started implementing it.

PopHorror: Talk to me about the decision to create all of those songs and fully flesh out ghostbells before approaching any labels.

Jessica Perry: Writing is very time consuming, right? It takes a lot of thought and effort. Jim creates a lot of the music part of it and then I go in the studio and I record the vocals. And that’s also a weird process in itself — I don’t preplan anything. I just go in and word vomit, if you will, whatever comes out. We wanted to take our time with this, and that’s why it took so long. We didn’t want to rush anything. Then I feel like as artists, you’re always like, “This could be better, this could be different.” You have to finally get to the point where it’s like, “No, OK, this is it. This is the one.” But that was the thought process about having a finished product to hand over before we actually did it.

Jim Finley: We just decided that upfront, we wanted to have everything done — set the sound, the plan, the social media, shoot the videos. Basically, the whole project was done when we started talking to labels.

PopHorror: Jessica — your process of recording vocals sounds fascinating. Can you speak more on that?

Jessica Perry: Jim will write the music part of it. There’s no actual vocal melodies or anything determined yet. Then we’ll go in the studio, I’ll listen to it and be like, “Alright.” Sometimes it comes super easy, like “The Color.” Within five seconds, I was like, “Let’s do this,” and what you hear recorded is actually either the first or second take of the song. But then sometimes, there are situations where I’m like, “OK, I need to listen to this a few times to really come up with something.” But yeah, I make the melodies and the words, and sometimes it might just be like Simlish or something because you have a melody idea and the words come after. We’ll usually go in, I’ll just do something and then we’ll listen back and be like, “OK, this one really works. These words work,” or, “Let’s change this lyric to this one,” or, “Maybe we should make this line go up in tone instead of down.” Little tweaks and things. But there’s no preconceived idea for melody or vocals or lyrics. It’s kind of just like, “OK…go.”

Jim Finley: Honestly, I think Jessica’s also being modest about this. She’s quite a genius when it comes to the lyrics and to the vocal lines. What you hear on “The Color,” like she said, I think she listened to half of the song, and then she jumped out of the chair and was like, “OK, I got it.” And she literally got on the mic and sang the song. I don’t even know if she wrote the lyrics down. I think she just sang the song.

Jessica Perry: No, I just heard it in my head. That one came really fast. I was like, “Oh, I already know what this is.”

Jim Finley: That’s the magic, really, of the ghostbells sound. The music is done, but things might change. Jessica has ideas about the music as well. There’s no rules — we both sort of do everything. But yeah, she hasn’t heard the music, so she’s reacting to it in a very visceral way. It’s very real. It’s not like she’s been sitting with the song for two weeks or something, overthinking it. And that’s another thing — we don’t sit around and overthink stuff. We do stuff. If there’s a song or video, we set a date and time and it’s done. We don’t mess with stuff. We want to get it done and move on to the next thing. And sometimes if you overthink something, you just make it worse. Sometimes in the mixing process, I will come back and revisit something. But even at those times, if I’m revisiting a mix to finish it, I will say to her on a Sunday, “Hey, I’m sending this to you on Tuesday.” We set a date to get things out the door.

PopHorror: Everything feels so intentional with ghostbells, from the lyrics to the videos, which are so cohesive. They all have that purply, grayish hue to them. In building all of that, was there a moment you realized, “Yes, this is exactly what we’ve been going for?” And what was your hope for ghostbells during this process?

Jessica Perry: We wanted to have, not necessarily a super polished thing, but just something that was presentable and like a package — this is ghostbells. Like you were saying, the color and the imagery — that’s very important to us. And I love that you recall the purply black, white, gray. That’s exactly what we were going for. So I think if we didn’t preplan and have this idea in mind, then it would be all over the place. I like having something that people can recall and be like, “Oh, this is them.” And the goal is to be able to reach as many people as possible because I have a very special relationship with music. I mean, everybody does, but I want to be able to reach out to people who might need to hear the things that I’m talking about in these songs because they can relate. We’re just trying to get into everybody’s ears.

Unleashing the music

PopHorror: Something I thought was incredible, you debuted ghostbells live at the Castle Party Festival in Poland before you had even released anything. What was that like?

Jessica Perry: It was crazy, in a good way.

Jim Finley: Yeah, that was totally nuts!

Jessica Perry: We booked it and then literally flew out a few days later, played it and then flew back. It was insane. And the cool thing was that we really didn’t have much of a presence at that time. We had just gotten signed and had no music out. It was very, very fresh and people were into it. That was really cool, to see people coming to the stage, dancing with us and just being really into the songs before they were even released. And now that we’ve been releasing songs, people are like, “I saw this first at Castle Party!” And I’m like, “Yes, you did!”

PopHorror: Once you started releasing the music, you followed a strict schedule of dropping a new song and accompanying music video every six weeks. What was the response like over that time period? And how does it feel to now have all of those songs in one spot that people can listen to from start to finish?

Jessica Perry: It was really cool because it was like a singles circuit. You release a single and then the video shortly after that, and it was cool to see what people thought about it because we are very much on social media. No one represents us. It’s just us on there. So we see the comments, we see the likes, the posts. And it does feel super good to have everything out. When we had one single on Spotify, it was like, “OK, awesome.” But now there’s at least a handful of songs that you can go and listen to. I feel like it also represents a wider spectrum of what we do because we’re not necessarily strictly one genre. It’s a multitude of different styles and now they’re all pretty much out, all the different kinds of things that we do. It’s a good sampler, if you will. A taste test of everything.

PopHorror: Throughout Catacouture, you have those new-wave influences, EBM. It’s a little ’80s but also extremely modern. When you were building these songs, were there any specific artists or eras that you were influenced by? Any personal favorites?

Jim Finley: For sure. On the music side, I really love Crystal Castles, Pastel Ghost, Sidewalks and Skeletons, Crim3s, all those kinds of bands. That was a lot of the stuff I was listening to during that time.

Jessica Perry: I listen to everything in the world, honestly. Growing up, I loved nu metal. A lot of people hate on nu metal, but I love it. I don’t care. That was a really big inspiration for me, especially bands like Korn and stuff like that. One of my other favorites is Mudvayne. And then on the more electronic side of things, I’m a huge fan of Alice Glass and the things that she does. She’s very cool and I like her style a lot, too. I think you can hear a lot of that reflected in our stuff as well. But then it’s also about finding an original voice amongst all of that, to refine our own sound and something that is very ghostbells, like, “Oh, yeah, that’s ghostbells, I can tell from the voice.” But yeah, there’s definitely a lot of influence from all these different types of bands. I listen to a lot of electronic music like Alison Wonderland, so even further on that spectrum. It’s just kind of everywhere.

PopHorror: These songs and the accompanying videos almost seem to tell a sort of gothic narrative. Was there a specific story you wanted to tell with this EP and videos?

Jessica Perry: In each video, there’s a specific story, but I didn’t really have a master plan when we were talking about video stuff. But my favorite storyline is the video for “Wrath.” There’s this ancient deer God in the forest type vibe. I remember just dreaming about that and I woke up and texted Jim like, “Dude. We need to do this video. I have this idea.” That one was my favorite because it was just so weird, and I love weird and strange.

Jim Finley: Jessica actually texted me that idea and then she was like, “I’m gonna call you.” She tells me the story for that and we just cracked up for five minutes. And so the video as you see it, that’s how it was born.

Behind the scenes antics

PopHorror: Your videos obviously have darker vibes and aesthetics to them. But at the same time, I feel like they were probably so fun to film, especially the scenes where Jessica is eerily dancing around by the water.

Jessica Perry: The most fun for me is that there’s random people around. They look at you like… And I just look at them back, like, “What?” Because we do look a little different. We have the super trad goth makeup and the outfits are crazy most of the time. So it’s a sight to see walking through the woods — just two very strange looking people. But they are really fun. It’s just Jim and I that do everything. We’re friends, so it’s easy to get along and shoot. And then finding locations is fun, too, because it’s different places and the music gets to take you there, which is awesome. But yeah, I think the most fun for me is the looks from the people.

Jim Finley: We were shooting the video for “Wrath” and we had to walk through the woods to get down to this little lake. So we’re walking and about 50-60 yards away was a guy fishing and he was just looking at us terrified. We were full makeup, the whole thing. Then for the video for “Ghosts,” we shot that on a little lake, a little peninsula. We had to walk down this hill to get to it and as we’re walking, apparently on this island, there’s tons of geese that live there. Jessica is terrified of geese! And there’s goose poop all over this peninsula.

Jessica Perry: My poor boots.

Jim Finley: We had to shoot the video in that area the entire day. So now your readers can laugh along with us knowing those two things with the videos.

Jessica Perry: I’m so afraid of birds, honestly. They all like to attack me for some reason. Any other animal, we’re cool. But birds and I don’t get along. One other thing that I remember is when we were shooting “The Color,” we shot that in downtown San Francisco, and we were walking around in our outfits and stuff. San Francisco is a different vibe than these rural, woodsy places, so that was cool. People kept stopping us, taking pictures with us. And this was before anything was out. I was like, “Let’s go!” But they loved the fits. I was like, “Yes, my people.”

Jim Finley: If you watch the video for “The Color,” you can see in one of the shots where Jessica’s walking down an alleyway and there’s two guys watching. They stick their heads out from behind the alleyway and they are just watching, so they’re in the video. It’s a really funny shot when you see it. We have a lot of fun with the videos. They look all serious and stuff because of the makeup and everything. But most of the time, we’re just cracking up and laughing.

Horror Influences

PopHorror: Most of the ghostbells visuals — from the videos to the EP cover art, which features a girl standing at the gates of a graveyard — are very rooted in horror imagery. Were you influenced at all by horror, whether it be specific movies, artists or directors?

Jessica Perry: I love horror. And also not to be a creep, but I love all of your Bride of Chucky stuff behind you.

PopHorror: Ah, thank you!

Jessica Perry: But yeah, I love horror movies and the darkness that comes from it. Some of my favorites are very strange, a lot of A24. They’re so good. Midsommar, Hereditary. And I like some older stuff, like The Crow is one of my favorite movies ever. I don’t know if you can really call that horror, it’s kind of weird. But cult-y type movies and things like that, too. Anything dark and macabre is really up my alley visually. Growing up was tough and so I related to a lot of these alternative figures because they embrace the darker side of things and I appreciate that because I could relate to it. A lot of the imagery and just being a human in general really influenced things.

Jim Finley: I do like some horror things, but a lot of what I like is documentary-type stuff and true crime. I know Jessica’s a big true crime fan also.

Jessica Perry: Love it.

Jim Finley: Serial killer documentaries, all of that kind of stuff. For me, it’s more like the visual and the mind of those sorts of things versus just actually being on the screen and a horror movie. But I’m the same, I like the same imagery, for sure.

The Music Connection

PopHorror: With the entire package that is ghostbells — from the lyrics to the videos and imagery — what do you hope listeners feel and experience when they dive into this world? What do you hope they take away from your music?

Jessica Perry: In my opinion, the lyrics are very dark. It’s crazy because, like I was telling you earlier, I don’t preplan anything. It’s just whatever comes out of my mind, which is a little scary, I guess. But I got a lot of stuff going on up there. They say that music saves lives, and that’s true for a lot of people because it’s so powerful. It happened for me and I want to be able to let it happen for other people if they need it. I have seen some comments actually, where it literally says that. I get emotional because that’s the goal for me — is that people find a place to feel welcome no matter who you are, to be seen and heard, even if they feel like they don’t have that in their daily lives. Somebody to be like, “Hey, we’re here for you,” and I think that’s super important. In my experience, I didn’t have a lot of that growing up, where you can’t relate to mainstream things and it’s like, “This doesn’t feel like it’s for me.” But then finding this more alternative, darker side, I was like, “Oh, these people understand.” I want to be able to do that for other people as well.

Jim Finley: I’ll talk to a lot of people on social media that message us. We made our socials live right before we played Castle Party Festival, so they’ve only been live for maybe six or seven months. And so I’ve been talking to them — I know what’s going on with their family, their kids. It’s just amazing to have that relationship with people. Tons of people every week send us messages, like, “Oh, I was playing your music at 3 a.m. and my neighbor came over and had never heard of you guys.” It’s amazing, the connection. One thing we noticed when we released “Darkness Saves,” that was the first song, we were really surprised that the people who gravitated to the band were very vocal about the band. It wasn’t a passive thing. They were very active in talking to us about the songs, and that has continued with each song. So there’s definitely a connection happening with the music and people, for sure. On the UK tour we just did, we were at the merch booth every night after the show. We just talked to everyone, and the reaction was the same — it was a very active audience with us and with the music.

PopHorror: I love that! And it probably means so much to your listeners to follow an artist with whom they resonate so deeply, and have you be just as excited to interact with them.

Jim Finley: One guy got our symbol tattooed on his arm!

Jessica Perry: That was really cool, oh, my gosh. We were in Bristol and this person came up to me and was like, “I really enjoyed your set and you guys are so kind. Can you please draw your logo on me?” I was like, “Yeah!” He’s like, “I’m gonna get it tattooed!” And I had to be very careful because I didn’t want to mess it up. Then he got it tattooed literally that night and he sent us pictures, and I thought that was so awesome. I want to get one, too! I’m gonna get it on my fingers. But yeah, I think being present is so important.

PopHorror: Is there a certain age range of your fans or are you attracting multiple generations?

Jessica Perry: It’s everybody, honestly. We met people on tour who said they’re 14 or 15 and it was their first concert, which was really awesome. And then we have people that are definitely in the older age range as well. It’s really cool to see such a wide variety of people that enjoy our music, and I think there’s a little bit for everybody because it’s so different. You have the more ’80s influenced stuff that can appeal to a certain age range, and then the newer kind of heavier EBM stuff that appeals to another age range. And I like everything, so I’m open for whatever. That’s what makes it such a wide variety is because we kind of write for everybody.

A “Religious Experience”

PopHorror: ghostbells is going on tour again very soon. How are you feeling before hitting the road?

Jessica Perry: I’m so stoked. We got back from our UK tour and I still have, like, two of my suitcases not unpacked because that’s just who I am. I’m sure Jim already knew that. [laughs] I’m a huge procrastinator when it comes to unpacking. Why unpack when I could just take it next time? It’s already ready! I did wash my clothes though, so I did do that. But usually we’ll start prepping a little bit before the tour, do rehearing. We are getting our merch geared up and ready to go because it’s going to be quite a long tour — this is about a month long that we’ll be gone.

PopHorror: For anyone who might be seeing you on the Die Krupps tour, what is a live ghostbells show like? What do you hope people get out of your set?

Jessica Perry: It’s like a ritual. It’s all this energy — they feed us and we feed them back. I just think it’s such a cool experience to play live, and you’ll get a lot of energy, for sure. Lots of bass. Really loud bump and bass, which I like. And we’ll definitely be at the merch booth to say hi to everybody right after.

Jim Finley: There were some people who came up that I talked to in Manchester when we played, and they said, “Seeing your show, it was like a religious experience.” I was like, “Oh, my God, that’s very serious.”

PopHorror: Looking ahead, what are your hopes for ghostbells? And is there anything that fans can look forward to in the near future?

Jim Finley: Complete world domination. That’s the plan.

PopHorror: Obviously!

Jessica Perry: *laughs evilly* Definitely releasing some new music and then new videos that go along with it. Of course, we’re going to be writing again soon. We have a lot of songs unreleased, but I think it’s always good to continue writing. And then we have some festivals coming up as well. So it’s just touring, writing, thriving.

Jim Finley: We’re discussing it with the label, but we’re trying to figure out if we’re going to continue releasing singles or if we’re going to go into an album cycle. So that’s in the discussion phase right now. And some top secret information for your readers, the ghostbells remix is coming out soon, so everyone should stay tuned on the socials. It’s gonna be quite a big release.

Thanks for speaking with us, Jessica and Jim! Keep up with ghostbells online at ghostbellsofficial.com and on all social media platforms.