Andy Black on his wrestling influences, WWE, Chris Jericho and The Ghost of Ohio (Exclusive)

Modified Jul 08, 2019 15:53 GMT

You're most recent album is called The Ghost of Ohio, there's a song on it called The Ghost of Ohio and the graphic novel you released also shares that moniker. Did you always plan to release both under the same title, or did one lead on from the other?

Yeah, the song came first! Conceptually, I had the idea of doing a comic book, but I didn't necessarily know what it was going to be, and then I wrote a song with John Feldmann, we were all in a room together and we came up with this concept - and it was just the idea that there was somebody who exists in their past. It was more based on the idea of... Oftentimes, writers tend to romanticise their experiences, so it was more about that.

THE GHOST OF OHIO - OUT NOW https://t.co/qAhbdEzUy6
— Andy Biersack (@andyblack) April 12, 2019

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I went home with that and I thought, "Wow, I really like the conception of what this is," so I drew a bunch of pictures of this character and I put The Ghost of Ohio over it and, serendipitously, I was contacted by a buddy of mine who works in conjunction with Z2, which is the publisher. He said, "Hey! We'd really like to do a comic book with you. Do you have any ideas?" I said, "Well, just yesterday, I was drawing characters up," so it came together really quickly. The story started to come together then, so they were done really around the same time.

RIP AEW Rampage

(I ramble about how much I loved the comic because it's so unexpectedly dark)

Thanks, man! That's one of the things is, it's not really a superhero story and, for me, that's one of the things I wanted to avoid. A lot of times, when people write a comic book, they tend to make themselves a superhero, and that's not something I wanted to do. I wanted to create a character that is influenced by me and my experiences, but isn't necessarily me. He's conflicted and deals with personal issues, which those are things that are relatable and we all go through, just in different ways.

.@andyblack joins @Comic_Con for ‘The Ghost Of Ohio’ signing https://t.co/ajGFKxFbm7
— Alternative Press (@AltPress) June 26, 2019

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Now, obviously, you've drawn influence from the likes of Billy Idol, Motley Crue and KISS - but do you think watching wrestling from a young age might have influenced the man we see on stage at all? Or are there any wrestlers you ever thought, "Man that would be a great character to see on stage?"

Yeah, actually, in the States, our intro song is the Crow-era Sting theme, so we're doing Disrupt Festival and it goes from the Sting entrance music into our first song, and literally nobody catches it and it makes me so mad. I'm like, "How is nobody mentioning this?!"

You should come out to see everyone looking at the rafters for you carrying a baseball bat!

Yeah! That character was just as influential to me as KISS or anything else for that matter. To me, I saw that era of Sting and KISS, and WASP, and all that as the same thing, he just didn't have a guitar or play songs - but it was just influential to me aesthetically. Obviously the Undertaker is great because he's really gothic but, to me, Sting was my hero growing up.