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I Am Ghost represents Long Beach on national tour

Long Beach's I Am Ghost is currently touring the United States and Canada on the Epitaph Records tour.

When Long Beach’s Steven Juliano resigned from his post as front man of the mildly-popular Orange County band The Silence, he thought he was going back to Hollywood as a storyboard artist permanently. But after attending a few shows as a member of the audience, he realized the passion for music was still pumping through his veins. Stories of angels and demons, heaven and hell, and love and death secreted through his skin, and he had to find an outlet for it before his blood started to boil. He needed one “last hurrah,” and that hurrah is I Am Ghost.

It was the first night of the 2007 Epitaph Tour, and the Glass House in Pomona was packed with hundreds of screaming teens waiting for I Am Ghost to haunt the stage. A dense fog filled the stage along with intro music that sounded like it should be playing in an old Victorian church.

Suddenly, the audience was attacked with crashing guitars and a blood-curling scream that filled the room and sent the crowd into a frenzy. But then an electric violin began playing with the guitars, and a woman’s voice started to sing a harmony along with the screams. The crowd looked unsure what to label it, but they were willing to stick around for further investigation.

The fact is, nobody has really figured out how to classify I Am Ghost since it appeared on the music scene in late 2004. “Epicore” is the term the band coined to describe its sound, Juliano told me in the front lobby of the tour bus while wiping away the remnants of his makeup. The sounds mesh together really well, but how did musicians who are so different come together?

“I created this fake band page on MySpace,” confessed Juliano. “It had music on it, eerie pianos and scary photos and it said I Am Ghost coming 2005. It was all fake. I made it look like we were an entire band.”

After he got more than 2,000 friends on his fake page, Juliano started sending out bulletins saying, “I Am Ghost needs a new guitarist.” Then he would wait a week, and send out another one that said, “I Am Ghost needs a new bassist.” Piece-by-piece he started putting together his dream band.

“I wasn’t like I Am Ghost needs a new guitarist, bassist, drummer and singer,” Juliano said.

“I think that would have turned off everybody. I made it as much as possible to make it look like it was a real band, when in reality it was just me.”

His inbox filled up with requests for auditions. Juliano would have hopefuls come by his apartment studio around the Bellflower Boulevard and Carson Avenue area and participate in jam sessions. When it came time for Gabe Iraheta’s guitarisat audition and he showed up with his best friend Tim Rosales, Juliano was a bit confused. But when he heard them play together, it started to make sense.

“They’ve known each other since the first grade,” Juliano explained. “It’s one of those things where they just know how to play with each other. Tim is the shredder metal head and does all the solos, Gabe is more the three-chords punk rock, but it works really well together. They know how to communicate.”

The theme of bringing a friend to the audition continued when bassist and vocalist and keyboardist Brian Telestai brought his then-girlfriend (and now wife) Kerith, who was teaching elementary school in Santa Barbara at the time, along to play the violin.

“I wasn’t looking for a violinist,” Juliano admitted. “At the time Yellowcard was really big, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near Yellowcard. But she pulled out her violin and started jamming with us and it was amazing. It made the songs sound so much more epic.”

After a few drummer auditions, Juliano chose Ryan Seaman and I Am Ghost had all six pieces in place. The band went to work in Juliano’s studio, recording a six-track demo. Not only did the band put it on its MySpace, but the members of I Am Ghost hit the street with over 4,000 burned copies.

“Bands completely overuse MySpace,” Juliano said. “It’s getting to the point now where bands don’t even have a website. They just use MySpace. It’s so one-dimensional. Kids had no idea who we were when we started. We would go out to shows and hand out CDs and the next day we would get all these e-mails saying, ‘We got your CD at the show last night. Thanks a lot. We’re going to come see you play now.’

I Am Ghost’s first show ever was supposed to be at di Piazza’s off of Pacific Coast Highway and Anaheim Street, but the band’s management wanted to get them started with a bang. They booked the band an opening slot for Tsunami Bomb’s sold-out show at the El Rey in Hollywood. The members of I Am Ghost found themselves playing to more than 1,000 people on their first show.

A bidding war started quickly, and I Am Ghost signed with famous Los Angeles punk label Epitaph Records. Epitaph cleaned up their demo and re-released it while the band went to work on recording a debut album.

The band started writing music and Juliano, who is a huge fan of comic books and horror movies, had a story come to his head: A story of two lovers who died at the same time, but the girl went to heaven and the boy went to hell. The two have to battle good and evil to try and be together again. It turned into a story so epic that Juliano had to storyboard it to help put the album together.

“It’s definitely a concept album,” Juliano said. “I just thought it was overplayed with the whole ‘You broke my heart. I am sad. This song it about you.’ There are a few bands who try to do what we do, but for me, this is who I am. This is how I write. When it comes to writing, this is one of those bands where we can write anything.”

His confidence is backed up by 2006’s “Lovers’ Requiem,” the band’s debut album that landed it one of the coveted spots on the Epitaph Tour. The album showcases the individual talents of the members while fusing together elements of hardcore, punk, metal, emo, indie and classical.

Upbeat tracks like “Our Friend Lazurus Sleeps” and “Killer Likes Candy” sent the crowd into utter chaos, and in between songs Juliano wiped the sweat off his brow and took a moment to tell the crowd where the band is from.

“Long Beach is our home,” Juliano said. “I’m definitely proud to say I live there. It’s an amazing place. It’s beautiful. I’ve had opportunities to move back to L.A. or move to Orange County and I’ve always turned them down because I like Long Beach. I want to live there for as long as I can.”

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