With interests in visual art, fashion, filmmaking, painting, and music, by his own admission, Donegal local George Houston was quite indecisive about what he wanted to do with his life, but he knew that he wanted to be in the creative field. โI found with music,โ he tells Post-Burnout, โthat way I could sing, I could write, I could make videos, I could design outfits, and I could do so many different things when it came to music. It was food for the soul, and I remember around the age of sixteen, I started writing songs and I just loved it so much. I never looked back, really.โ
โI think when Iโm on stage, itโs probably me at my most comfortable,โ adds George. โI love performing. Iโve always responded well. I suppose I started performing in front of my family โ thatโs probably where most people start performing [Laughs] โ as a child. Probably doing fancy dress kind of shows [Laughs] for your parents, and you get notions about yourself, and I donโt know. [Laughs] You start doing school plays, and I donโt know. I never really thought about where it came from; it just developed very organically to sing live and do shows and things like that.โ
With an eclectic music taste (or, in his words, โIโm not picky about the music I listen toโ), George enjoyed writing, recording, and performing a versatile range of tracks. In 2020, George was to sit his Leaving Certificate exam, however, due to the pandemic, he was unable to, and he dedicated this time when he was in isolation to begin his own musical project. Immediate positive reception to his work made him decide to keep going, and he wasted no time in releasing his creations upon the world.
By September of that year, George had already released his debut single, โBoo Fucking Hoo,โ and immediately released his first EP, Class of 2020, by the end of October. By June 2021, he released his first album, Cold Toast, and his second album, Undesired, released in November 2022. โI suppose the last twenty years of music in the industry, I think, is veryโฆitโs so business-oriented and itโs so money-oriented, because the people at the top, theyโre just trying to make the biggest profit,โ George says. โSo, what makes the biggest profit for them is doing singles, singles, singles, and they want cheap thrills. They want to get that kind of minimum effort, maximum reward. Get one song on a playlist and live off that for a couple of months. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
โSoโฆI miss back when artists were encouraged to put our records and they were encouraged to put out full albums and bodies of work, because, I donโt know what it is, I, personally, just love writing songs and it comes quite naturally to me, and Iโd always like to look at myself as an album artist, and kind of going back to before the industry tried to get all of the musicians just doing what was most profitable. Iโd rather have some bodies of work andโฆalbums. Theyโre kind of hand-selected playlists by the artists. [Laughs]โ
Appropriately, on Friday the 13th of this month, George dropped his third record, Vehicular Suicide, a horror-veneered album, taking inspiration from Universal Monster films, Hammer Horror, Italian giallo, โ50s drive-in B-films, Japanese horror, and psychological, Stephen King-esque writings, which (in this authorโs opinion) resulted in George creating one of the most interesting albums of 2023. โI wanted the album to be like a horror film, basically,โ explains George.
โI wanted it to run like a horror film and feel like, as youโre saying, a cheesy, โ70s film thatโฆI say โCheesy,โ but what I really mean is โCharming,โ because I love old horror films, and I love when you can see the craft of practical effects and things like that, and I wanted to bring that through in the production, because this is the first album where Iโve ever got people to come in with real drums and play drums, and real bass. Usually, I was doing synths and loops and things like that. Iโm still learning as a producer; Iโm not promising to be at an amazing standard.
โOn the first two albums, itโs me learning how to do all of these things and I suppose Iโm probably getting better. I still have lots of room to improve, which Iโm willing to do, but I think with this album, I suppose itโs gotten more like a real band and itโs going in a direction that Iโm really proud of. I was inspired kind of by artists like Fleetwood Mac, and The Doors, and Kate Bush, and artists who arenโt afraid to delve into the darker side of things.โ
He adds, โAll of the songs, thereโs kind of a morbid theme about them, where it goes into the theme of a classic Halloween creature or a horror trope, and theyโre all kind of about the destruction of the body and soul, and how theyโre related to each other, and theyโre all within that dark, horror realm. I got my driverโs license this year โ [Laughs] just on another note! โ and I remember listening to the tracks, like the demos, whilst I was producing the album, and thereโs a scene in Thelma & Louiseโฆat the end, where โ spoiler alert! โ they drive straight off this cliff, and itโs like their freedom from it all and I wanted [Laughs] โ this is going to sound very morbid, as well! โ but I wanted each of the songs to kind of have that really dramatic, camp feeling to it, that you just hit the ignition and you go off the cliff and youโre just, like, vibing. [Laughs]
โObviously, in a cinematic, playful way, of course. Iโm not advising people to be driving off cliffs or anything, but I wanted it to have that real, cinematic feel to it, that youโre just following the road and youโre enjoying the music, and youโre feeling it, and itโs melodramatic and silly, but, yeah, I donโt know. Iโm probably describing it in a mad way.โ
This horror theming expands beyond the lyrics and onto the music itself. As George explains, โI wanted the songs to feel like they were horror film tropes, and, instrumentation-wise, I really went in heavy on organs and strings, kind of orchestral kind of feelings. I wanted to add suspense in different parts with swells of strings, as seen in โBleed Me Dry.โ And, again, throughout, I wanted it to feel like there was movement throughout all the album, kind of like a driving playlist, in a way. I did want it to be something to be listened to whilst driving, and with kind of a Kate Bush-y, Fleetwood Mac-y [Imitates galloping drums] drumbeats in the background.
โAnd then, on other songs โ โRedrum,โ which is, as you say, a Shining reference โ I wanted to have this real funk, house-y, remixed kind of feel, but itโs live at the same time, which is perfect for driving, to have this crazy, funk beat in the background, whilst someone is singing about murder! I just think itโs a really bad-ass way to listen to music. [Laughs]โ
Yet, despite embracing the schlock of over-the-top camp horror flicks and their violent drama, the album also serves as a social critique and uses this playfully gruesome coating as an ostentatious juxtaposition to real-world violence and its celebration. The albumโs opening title track directly criticises the sexiness we give to real-life serial killers through our fascination with true crime media and recreations. โThe title track is about how serial killers are romanticised and idolised in our society, and how itโs kind of an ironic case of the victim egging on the murderer,โ says George, with a laugh.
โLike, itโs a well-run motor of vehicular suicide, so to say. Which is a bizarre concept, but itโs very true and it exists, and I think, although it could be seen as morbid, I do think the whole idea in itself is quite funny, just this โ which I wanted to get this across in the music video โ itโs like us stabbing ourselves in the back by egging on these serial killers. Itโs like, โOh, we love you! Keep doing your great jobโ or something. [Laughs] Itโs just bizarre but hilarious at the same time, that itโs so accepted in our society. Like with this Jeffrey Dahmer Netflix series, of course, thereโs going to be young, budding serial killers out there thatโll look at that and go, โOh, yeah, thanks! Thatโs going to be good for my career when Iโm older!โ [Laughs]โ
Yet, despite the hyperbolic and exaggeratedly fictitious nature of the album, for George, it actually helped him. โFor me, the album was an incredibly therapeutic process,โ he says. โI wrote all the songs in the last year. They kind of got me through very difficult times, so, on a personal note, all of the songs are very much real and from real experiences, and Iโm really grateful to have had the songs to help me with mental health and things like that.
โAnd on the more political stance, on songs like โVehicular Suicideโ and singing about serial killers, like, it is real anger that it came from. Like, I remember writing the song, it kind of came out of nowhere. Hearing about the Jeffrey Dahmer incident, the new Netflix series. Although it is me going over-the-top and kind of dramatising it, the way the media has dramatised these serial killers. [Laughs] Itโs coming from a place of real disdain and anger for all of this romanticising of just these disgusting people. Like, it is troubling to think that theyโve been put on this pedestal of fame, and it does trouble me a lot, and I think Iโm one of those people who uses humour as a coping mechanism, which isnโt the worst thing, I suppose. There are worse ways to cope. [Laughs]โ
George Houstonโs latest album, Vehicular Suicide, is out now. George will perform an album launch/fancy dress gig at Sandinos in Derry on October 29th. Tickets are available here. You can find Georgeโs social media links here. You can hear this full interview on todayโs episode of POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviewsโฆ at 14:00 (IST) on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.
Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO,ย Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRDย and more.