Eric Whitney (born April 15, 1991),[7] known professionally as Ghostemane or Eric Ghoste,[8] is an American singer, songwriter, rapper and musician. He has released eight solo albums and three collaborative albums under his Ghostemane moniker, primarily merging elements of heavy metal, hip hop and industrial music. Whitney has also released music with a number of additional solo projects, pursuing styles including black metal as Baader-Meinhof, noise music as GASM,[5] and electronic music as Swearr.[9] He began his career in local hardcore punk and doom metal bands around Florida.[10][11] In 2015, he moved to Los Angeles, California, starting a career as a rapper, under the moniker Ill Bizz.[9] Around this same time, he was a member of the hip hop collective Schemaposse.[12]
Ghostemane's merging of trap and metal gained him popularity on SoundCloud. In 2018, Ghostemane released his seventh studio album, N/O/I/S/E, which was highly anticipated in the underground music scene[13] due to its heavy influence from industrial and nu metal.
Early life
Eric Whitney was born on April 15, 1991, in Lake Worth, Florida to parents from New York.[14] Whitney grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. As a teenager, he was mainly interested in hardcore punk music. He learned to play the guitar and performed in several bands,[15] including Nemesis and Seven Serpents.[10][16] He also played football while he was in high school, saying he was practically forced to by his father, who died when Whitney was seventeen.[14]
Whitney was introduced to rap music when he was the guitarist in the hardcore punk band Nemesis and a bandmate introduced him to Memphis rap.[10]
Career
Prior to his musical career, Whitney worked in several B2B sales positions.[14] In 2015, due to not being able to musically thrive in Southern Florida, Whitney moved to Los Angeles, California. He also gave up his employment.[15] Meeting up with JGRXXN, Whitney joined his collective Schemaposse, which included artists such as Craig Xen and Lil Peep.[17]
In April 2016, after just 1 year with the group, Whitney left Schemaposse.[18] He subsequently released his self-produced album "Blackmage" and his first cinematic music video with his single "John Dee". Whitney eventually began to associate with fellow Florida rapper Pouya,[19] who released the video for "1000 Rounds" with Ghostemane in April 2017.[20] The video quickly went viral, and as of May 2021, it had over 29 million views.[21]
In late 2017, Whitney saw greater success when art collective TRASH GANG created and released their 1930s cartoon edit music video for his song "Mercury: Retrograde". The cartoon was a 1933 Betty Boop short, Snow-White, featuring Cab Calloway as Koko the Clown singing St. James Infirmary. The video has since climbed to over 500 million views, making it his most well known single.[22]
In October 2018 he teamed up with Zubin to release a track titled Broken.[23]
Also in 2018, he released his seventh studio album, N/O/I/S/E, in which many of the songs are influenced by industrial metal, nu metal, Slipknot, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails. In May 2020, he unveiled his latest project, a lo-fi black metal band called Baader-Meinhof, of which he is the sole member (credited as Eric Ghoste).[24] Ghostemane was also the sole producer of his former fiancée Poppy's Christmas EP, A Very Poppy Christmas, released in December 2020.
In 2021, Ghostemane's music video "AI", directed by Nick Cinelli, was nominated for Most Bizarre at the Berlin Music Video Awards.[25]
