my mom would tell you that i’m the sweetest boy. she’s dead now but i agree…with my dead mother. my dad is not dead yet and he recently told me “godamnit lynn, i mean eric when are ya gonna stop tripping over your own dick!? jesus mary and joseph” (lynn is my dead mother)

Only for a few and a few beautiful people!

In a way only true and humbling hindsight could provide, after Van Ghost's nearly decade long run as a musical project concluded, the band and singer/ songwriter Michael Harrison Berg found themselves at a crossroads. Over the next few years the band scaled back on touring to only a handful of special festival-based performances per year ranging from Costa Rica to Chicago, and from Mexico to Florida. 

Recognizing inspiration comes in waves, Berg wrote a series of new songs and assessed old ones that never got recorded, but fit the current version of the band’s vibe. And for a week before New Year’s of 2015, Van Ghost co-founder, Jennifer Hartswick, got the band invited to a fabled studio in her home state of Vermont, known as The Barn, which is owned by the band Phish. 

For years, the line up has served as a rotating cast of Berg and Hartswick's musician friends, who fans and the band started referring to as The Ghost Unit, a nickname for the extended family participating in recordings and live shows in support of Van Ghost. 

Hartswick and Berg have served as the primary voices and organizers of Van Ghost activity since the early days. And their devoted friendship comes through in the music as clearly as it does in real life. When they started brainstorming ideas regarding the brand new, third Van Ghost record, they reminisced on members of the Ghost Unit who could fit a certain vibe they were striving for. This led to the most balanced and unified vision of the band that has ever existed. 

Van Ghost's main songwriter and founding member is singer Michael Harrison Berg. Other members consist of Jennifer Hartiswick on vocals & trumpet, with her band mate from Trey Anastasio Band, Natalie Cressman on vocals & trombone. The two headed lead guitar tandem is made up of The Nth Power's, Nick Cassarino and Grant Tye, who hails from Sonia Dada and Robbie Fulks Band. A rhythm section that any band would dream of has bassist Chris Chew of The North Mississippi All Stars & The Word plus drummer John Staten, a player with gospel roots who has served tenures in Karl Denson's Tiny Universe and currently plays with Pimps of Joytime. Hailing from Nashville, by way of Chicago, the multi instrumentalist & prolific songwriter, Chris Gelbuda has had a huge presence with Van Ghost both historically and musically on this record. Recently writing and producing songs for stars like Meghan Trainor, John Legend, & Billy Currington, Gelbuda's co-written songs for Van Ghost have served as both educational and influential on Berg's songwriting style. On key's, the band was thrilled to have Rob Marscher who has played with Addison Groove Project and Matisyahu over the years. Finally joining the party as a cherry on top, a few saxophone solo's we're later laid down by very special guest and friend, Dominic Lalli of Big Gigantic. 



Scott Whittenburg scotty(TREES), is a musician who has been studying theory, composition, and performance, since the age of 9. Starting out as a drummer, who's major influences ranged from Travis Barker, to Danny Carrey, to Neil Pert, and The Rev (Avenged Sevenfold). As a drummer who was professionally trained to read and write music, and performed in many ensembles through out his youth, he found himself being sucked into the boundary-less realm of the electronic music culture. Taking motivation of his extremely articulate influences, Scotty(TREES) started djing dubstep. After being given some amazing opportunities from some local promoters, he found himself experimenting with the more funky dubs, and experimental bass sounds which eventually turned into what is now known as midtempo breaks and trap. After realizing that there was a need for some diversity in the local scene, scotty(TREES) started breaking away from the typical genre popular sets, and started delivering sounds from artists such as Mr Bill, Griz, Love and Light, Manic Focus, and a long time favorite, AMB. With the new intention and goal to deliver music that makes people think, and open their minds to new sounds, while having the ability to allow the music to take control and get the funk down! Scotty(TREES) delivers a wide variety of extremely bass heavy, funkadellic, and exciting flavor of music for all audiophiles alike.

New Beats, New Tunes, New Sound, Same Dude....

Followers of VAN GHOST