Cites and Sounds are a New Jersey based rock band, formed out of passion and love for music in the summer of 2020. Attached to artists such Audra McLaughlin, Nalani and Sarina, Boyz 2 Men, The Early November, Lauren Marsh, October Rose, Finding Westerly and many others – these 5 artists with many different influences joined up at the perfect time. Forming, writing and recording a full length album worth of material with Chris Badami (Portrait Recording Studios) all within the year, it will see the light of day later this Fall. We had the honor of speaking with the band regarding the making of their new video “Ghosts,” which you can dive into below.

Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 
It was just three of us that night. We went in the basement, plugged in, turned the PA on and the opening riff just happened to be the first thing I came up with and we went from there. We wrote it in about an hour. I was just mumbling melody ideas while we were writing it. I knew we had that upbeat anthem musically we wanted. So the next day, with the melody in mind, I sat down and wrote the chorus pretty much in real time. Once that chorus was done, we knew it was the first song we wanted everyone to hear from us.

What was the inspiration behind this video(visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

  The band had a great idea to do some throwback covers. It fit the song perfectly. The inspiration for the video of the single, “Ghosts” is one to showcase some of our favorite album covers but to also show creative ways to show your “voice” which is what inspired the track in itself. An anthem about being heard. If you feel people zone you out, don’t take your voice seriously, or don’t even hear you, there is always a way to express yourself to get someone to listen. This is our way.

What was the process of making this video?

Storyboarding the albums like doing a “photo shoot” was pretty fun. We wanted to get some of the details pretty close on these iconic albums. And you have to obviously have some live shots in a video too. We were trying to shoot them in a spot in Philly outside but it just didn’t work out. So we booked a rehearsal spot for the night to get these shots. It was a pretty cool day doing the album shots. We hung out in a basement, got some food and cocktails and played some dress up.