We recently connected with Tanner Hamilton and have shared our conversation below.

Tanner , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’ve been playing drums with The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir (THGTC) for about 3 years now. THGTC is a multi-genre encapsulating metal band that tackles social issues through our music hoping to provide sanctuary to peoples/groups of people that don’t feel like they have community elsewhere. We started a couple months before COVID lockdown and while it stunted us being able to play shows at the time it allowed us to take the time to hone in a sound that we could be proud of. I believe that while it was hard having to watch the way our government institutions handled the pandemic it gave us a place to start and something that we could certainly write about.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As far as music is concerned I started playing drums when I was 6 and guitar when I was 12 but since then I’ve learned how to play more as time went on. I’ve been in multiple groups throughout my career ranging from metal to reggae to indie including Calico MD, Knightsquatch, UniFya, One Lonely Goat (which just released their debut EP “A Cure For Self Worship via Heavy Element Records) as well as Laura Pleasants of Kylesa’s solo project The Discussion and many more. I also dabble in a bit of acting in both film and theater. THGTC released our debut LP last year called Slow Murder with the help of Graveface Records that’s garnered a bit of success in the metal community and we will be touring a lot throughout the rest of this year into the next year hopefully overseas to further support the record. The record features the likes of Pierce from Soul Glo and Logan from Gillian Carter. We recently won best album of 2022 and best metal band of 2022 in Savannah according to Connect Savannah

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

One aspect about the current status of our society we talk about in THGTC is how many of the institutions in the US treated the pandemic. Many people had little to no defense against COVID or the financial situations people were put through at the hight of the pandemic. We were expected to carry on as a country while people left and right were dying of the disease as well as not being able to support themselves without putting themselves within the crosshairs. Many companies took advantage of the situation and made an obscene amount of wealth contributing to an ever growing wealth gap. Humanitarian goals are at the core of what we stand for as a band and we believe this example among many others are ways in which our American systems reap its people for crop and are left to suffer the result.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Funny enough one great resource has been TikTok. As well as being a less biased platform to share information with an audience, it’s also really fun to be able to entertain people while keeping them informed about shows or other things we’re doing through the medium that TikTok provides.    

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/TannerHamilton
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/______tanner______?igshid=MmIzYWVlNDQ5Yg==
• Youtube: @tannerhamilton9761
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@thgtc

Image Credits
Photos provided by David Perez and Christina Pailand