Premiere: Caught a Ghost, ‘House on Fire’

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Caught a Ghost

It’s been five years since Caught a Ghost stormed the gates with their album “Human Nature,” a modernized take on retro-soul that had crowds belting songs out with main man Jesse Nolan and the band’s background singer (actress Tessa Thompson in those days) and hungering for the next sax or guitar solo.

Since then, singer-songwriter-producer Nolan has released but a trickle of singles, the last in 2017, occasionally regrouping Caught a Ghost for local festivals (Echo Park Rising, Tarfest, Chinatown Summer Nights, Playhouse District, Culture Collide, for instance) just to take the pulse of their hot-blooded faithful. Suffice to say their hearts are still beating.

They’re liable to beat a little faster after hearing Caught a Ghost’s new single “House on Fire,” a foot-stomping fable that makes a case for there being more at stake that just a structure in flames.

“The backdrop of ‘House on Fire’ is a 2019 America that feels like it’s about to break apart,” Nolan says. “The two sides of our country are so at odds that they appear trapped in a worsening cycle of endless blame and antipathy. The song reminds us that we are going to destroy ourselves if we don’t find a way to come together.

“Humans are designed by evolution to be tribal animals, so it’s tempting to think in binary terms: Us vs. Them, In Group vs. Out Group. But this left/right polarity is an illusion. We are interdependent and we need each other to survive,” the songwriter continues. “Fire and water, which both are necessary for survival, both have the capability to destroy. Right now American culture is like a crucible, burning white hot. We have the opportunity to melt away the past and emerge stronger than steel, or to incinerate ourselves completely. It all depends on whether we can find our common humanity.”

Yes, Nolan seeks a more humane place. “You wanna fight / You think you’re strong / That ain’t the hill I’m dying on / They wanna riot, the lines are drawn / But they’ll all be washed / away with the storm / Rivers on fire, which side you on? / I’m trying to sing a sweeter song,” he croons, concluding in the chorus: “We’re all buried on the same battleground.”

It’s not the first time a band has preached the gospel of unity with the energy of a tent revival, and it won’t be the last. But this comes at the right time.

||| Stream: “House on Fire”

||| Previously: “If You Only Knew”