Jacob Budziak & Paul Watson met at Central Technical School (Toronto CA) in the fall of 2001. They found in their first encounters with each other that they had much in common. They were lazy, self-medicating art school students, who received great comfort and inspiration from a wide variety of music, art, and film. But the topics that generated the most symbiosis between them were music and counter-culture. In their first weeks as friends, they would heatedly discuss these subjects, and aided each other in the search for unique innovators in these fields. They held in high regard people such as David Cronenberg, Marshal McCluhan, Stanley Kubric, and artists such as the Prodigy, Daft Punk, and Aphex Twin.
Half way through their first year of meeting, they embarked on a school field trip to Ottawa and Montreal. It was there that they began to collaborate musically by Jacob beatboxing and Paul freestyling, as a way of entertaining their classmates on the bus. After they returned, they became increasingly interested in musical creativity, resulting in Jacob attaining various electronic musical instruments. One year would pass and Paul would leave school whereas Jacob would remain. However the two would maintain a strong friendship.
It was during this time that Paul, Jacob, and their close friend Eastern Yoo, went on opening night to see Eminem's loosely auto-biographical film, "8 mile". They were greatly inspired by the film which led Jacob & Eastern to the idea of forming a band with Paul. Over the winter of 2002-2003, Jam sessions were held at Paul's house which featured him on vocals and turntable, Eastern screaming into a microphone, and Jacob performing beats on a Roland MC-303. Over the next month, Paul & Jacob's commitment to this project strengthened, whereas for Eastern, it did not, and it was decided that he leave the band.
Jacob & Paul began to acquire more and more knowledge on song structure and production technique. As time went on, they began preparing to unleash their music on live audiences. For them, it had been a desire from the very beginning to be a live electronic act, because this would set them apart from the majority of electronic artists, who worked exclusively in studio. They began throwing dance parties in numerous clubs in Toronto under the name ROBOT. Their performances would also feature a strong emphasis on interactive multimedia presentation given the members' backgrounds in visual art.
In 2004 they recorded their first EP entitled "Adventures in Inner Space". The record was produced by Jacob, Paul, and Dov Teifenbach. It featured 6 songs with Paul singing and playing guitar, and Jacob on drums, synths, and loops. Now considered rare collectors items, the copies were sold at their performances- each one possessing a unique sleeve that was collogued together by using cutouts from various images, and included a manually written track list. The record had a very moody, soft and hypnotic atmosphere, very similar to 80's synth pop production styles. But their sound would later morph into a hard and edgier disposition, with heavy influence from punk and Industrial music.
A short time after the release of the EP, Paul became more interested and involved in music production/composition, resulting in the aquiring of his own inventory of electronic instruments. Because of this, Paul & Jacob strengthened their syncronicity and discovered new directions in wich to take their music.
In the winter of 2005, they would change their name from ROBOT to GHOST TELEVISION, due to their conclusion that the name was mediocre and also had been taken by numerous other musical acts. But the change of name helped crystallize the philosophies that Paul & Jacob wanted to convey in their project. The most major being that human beings are connected spiritually to their technology and that all media may be viewed as an extension of ourselves. This also gave more clear direction in their musical production, which would be to combine organic sounds with mechanical ones. And yet another invaluable byproduct of their metamorphosis was that it further encouraged the use of live multi media performance in their musical act, and allowed them the added dimension of being and audio/visual band.
And now, Paul and Jacob work tirelessly-prudently applying themselves in the cause to expand artistic consciousness. They have made it their mission to excel the evolution of human creativity, by filtering it through the new found medium of GHOST TELEVISION.