by Groff, Nick
Lots of people believe in the existence of the paranormal, and especially ghosts, but they’re operating on faith. It’s different once you’ve had that faith rewarded by verifiable proof, and that’s something not everybody gets to experience. I will always consider myself lucky that I did.
Since my Linda Vista experience, my life has accelerated. I’ve grown as a person, I’ve grown spiritually, and my family has grown as well. Veronique and I always knew we wanted to have a family. It was only about six months after Linda Vista that Veronique got pregnant. Once that encounter had soaked into me, I got a healthy reminder of what’s really important: my family, my wife, my friends, and living.
My daughter, Annabelle, was born on December 7, 2010, at seven a.m. I was right there for her birth. It’s nerve-racking to be at your wife’s side when she is in labor, but there’s not much I could do except be supportive. But there was a single moment, just a few seconds after Annabelle was born, that something forced me through a flood of emotions.
Two seconds…
…I heard my daughter’s first cry.
Every single emotion poured out of me at once. Joy, pain, laughter, sorrow at the thought of family members who were no longer around to see this perfect little girl—all of it came out. A switch was thrown inside of me. I’m Annabelle’s dad now. Now I am fully alive and awake.
Putting this into words is so difficult for me. It’s like the paranormal—until you actually experience it, it’s hard to comprehend. Anyone who is a parent can understand. Annabelle’s birth completed my transformation. I understood that part of my place in this world would be to provide for her and love her unconditionally. She’s counting on me, and I will be there for her forever.
I had to leave for the next Ghost Adventures shoot just four days after Annabelle was born. That was really difficult—it was our Jerome, Arizona, episode. It’s ironic that it was there that I could sleep for the first time in four days!
As sleep deprived as I was, I’ve never felt so spiritually strong as I did in the months following Annabelle’s birth.
Although some religious zealots might disagree, the principles of faith that allow some people to believe in ghosts are the same ones that allow others to believe in heaven. It’s all about believing that there’s more to life than just what we experience in this plane of existence, and that there’s something more to death than just a fade to black. It all boils down to the same question: what’s next?
That thought is never too far from my mind. In fact, I thought about it to the point where I started writing some lyrics to a song I was kicking around in my head. It’s called “What’s Next?” Using music, I could explore how I feel after all that I’ve been through. What is next? Do we die and just go into the ground, our consciousness extinguished as our bodies turn to dust? I don’t see how that’s possible, since I know energy doesn’t die. The energy lives on. So does it travel through another dimension, or does it linger in this dimension in which we live our lives? Maybe the Buddhists are right, and energy is reincarnated into a new physical form. But then again, maybe that energy travels through a wormhole into some other, alternate dimension, where our same self is reborn.
Music has been a part of my life since childhood. To be a good filmmaker, I need to understand how music can express emotions that aren’t always said by the people on-screen or expressed in the visuals. Music can make you uncomfortable in a good way at the right moment. If someone is lurking down the hall and you know the killer is just around the corner, some tense string instruments can feel like knuckles running up your spine. Though I put my focus on filmmaking and television, I’ve never forgotten about music.
QUESTIONS FANS ASK
Do you think ghost hunting puts your soul in danger? Do you think doing this kind of work will determine whether you go to heaven or to hell?
I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I don’t know if there is a heaven or hell. But either way I’d like to think I’ll be judged on my actions, not on my investigations.
I’ve always had a higher power in my life. I’ve prayed for guidance when times are hard, and I’ve even reached out to the spirit of my grandmother who passed away years ago. I ask God to help me get through the tough times. After a difficult investigation I often pray for guidance and protection.
Through Facebook, I was able to reconnect with my childhood friend Danny Bedrosian, the musical master now rocking with George Clinton and his band. He and I had been talking for the last couple of years about making music again—it’s been a long time since our band, Dysfunctional Family, played at a school dance. It was fun to reminisce, but then I realized how much I missed having that creative outlet in my life. During the summer of 2011, I was writing tons of lyrics and jotting down song ideas beyond just “What’s Next?” Then, in the fall, the two of us got together in Tallahassee, Florida, to start putting down the tracks.
When I started writing music again, I had no agenda or plan. But when you create something artistic, you have to go with what you know. Looking for ghosts and trekking through haunted places is a huge part of who I am now. I didn’t mean to, but I found myself writing music about the big questions the paranormal brought up inside of me. Death, life, afterlife, what it all means. Evil, good—all those things were swirling around in my head.
I’ve found a lot of meaning in my life through the paranormal, and that came out in my music. Here are the lyrics to one of the songs on my album, The Other Side.
Life
Courtesy of Groff Entertainment, LLC (BMI)/ Bozfonk Moosick (BMI) © 2011. All rights reserved.
You have one life, what will you do with it? This is the only way to express mine:
You ever look death in the eyes, feel the misery pass and watch your loved one die? I have, the worst part has passed, I’m up next, I can feel the wrath approach with a swift taste from his ash.
FUCK THAT, I don’t want to die yet, Annabelle needs a father figure to help her grow, to reach the stars, stars need to form from energy and I’m her heart.
The future is born with one rhythmic beat apart. I’ll take death and strangle him before he takes me.
(CHORUS)
Life is so sudden, Life is so instant. You better take your Life and not get it twisted. Dying is the easy part, Living is the hard part, some are forgotten and some live on…
…on and on till that last song, ears are ringing, as the heart is gone… FLAT-LINE…
I began to drift, with an emotional kiss, Memories evaporate, no more tears as energy escapes, the capsule is lost, time fucking stops, Life is a blink of an eye away, Darkness erupts, motherfuckers clutch, Sin is tough—the route of all evil, you made the most outta being the host, but there’s complications, so swallow your fear on this explanation, to the eternal mark on your God-willing part…
(CHORUS)
Life is so sudden, Life is so instant. You better take your Life and not get it twisted. Dying is the easy part, Living is the hard part, some are forgotten and some live on…
These are the thoughts that go through my head. I am by no means trying to make you buy into one belief or another—what you believe is your own business, and I respect whatever choices you make—but we must remain open-minded to the many possibilities. Science cannot prove or disprove what happens to us after we die. And to be honest, neither can religion. Perhaps the paranormal field is the closest we can get to finding that answer, and even that is a long way off.
The Other Side is all about overcoming obstacles, and I wanted to put in as much positivity as I could. I know some folks will buy the music just because they’re Ghost Adventures fans. That’s cool, but it gives me an opportunity to get a message across too.
I realize my position now is to bring awareness more than anything, rather than manipulate people into buying into any set of beliefs. Follow your own faith; I’m no prophet. Nobody in the paranormal field is. I still can’t figure out why I’m on this earth, why I was born into this life in partic
ular. We all like to think we have some kind of destiny, some greater importance to our existence, but think about it: in the grand scheme of things, just how significant are our lives? We live for a blink in a cosmic eye, where fifty or a hundred years is but a nanosecond.
I want to live my life as an open book. Out on the road I meet so many people who are interested in what I do. Even skeptics, the ones who actually do keep an open mind, have to raise an eyebrow at some of the experiences that I share with them.
Some religions don’t strictly adhere to the heaven-or-hell theory after we die. To some, there’s an in-between. In Catholicism, it’s called purgatory. Purgatory is a place of purification for souls who are destined for heaven but haven’t quite lived up to the purification required to go through the gates. Some feel that ghosts exist in this state of purgatory, still in the process of earning their way into heaven. Others believe that our existence itself may be purgatory, that we’re in between heaven and hell and this is the limbo we’re stuck with.
As for me, ever since I had the experience at Linda Vista, I’ve wondered if maybe this isn’t my own purgatory, my chance at spiritual growth and enlightenment. That one moment—two seconds—woke me up. It made me want to live life in a big way, and that includes connecting with more people in every way.
My paranormal experiences have made me less combative with skeptics, believe it or not. Whenever I do radio interviews or convention appearances, someone inevitably will ask me, “What do you say to skeptics?” The answer is I don’t say anything, really. It’s not my job to make them believe, just as they shouldn’t feel it’s their job to make me not believe. Everyone has their own views; everybody has to live their own life, have their own experiences, and go through their own journey or destiny that will take them to what’s next. This is my life and these are my experiences, and all I can do is talk about them and let people know. If it opens up someone’s mind a little more so that they can perhaps have their own experience, that’s a bonus.
The word “skeptic” is often misused, because so many skeptics—especially those who make their living off it—aren’t skeptical about the existence of the paranormal. They’re outright nonbelievers, and nothing is going to change their mind. They’re out there telling people things that science hasn’t even been able to prove or disprove yet—just as we are—but for some reason they’re sure that they’re right and I’m wrong. It can’t work that way, guys. Too many so-called skeptics are starting to sound like those religious zealots who say that their way is the only way, and anybody who says otherwise is speaking the words of the devil.
Some cry out for empirical proof, data that can be repeated again and again in a laboratory setting. Here’s the problem with that: it’s not the labs that are haunted. For reasons we can’t quite figure out yet, these energies are only able to manifest in certain locations. Once we do, maybe then we can re-create them in the lab. For now, we have to bring the lab to them, which is what we’re trying to do with repeated paranormal investigation of these locations. And even then, we can lay out all the geophysical information, atmospheric readings, and EMF fluctuations in the world, but that still won’t explain why I saw a solid figure of a woman appear right before my very eyes, where a split second before there was nothing but darkness. There’s no meter or detector that’s been created that can measure that… yet. So instead, these skeptics go with the old standby that it’s “just in your mind.”
The mind is an interesting thing. It’s said that we use only 10 or 15 percent of it. The skeptics believe it’s that 10 or 15 percent that is mistaken about what I saw, but what if instead it’s the unknown 85 to 90 percent that might actually perceive it?
That’s why the paranormal is such an interesting frontier, and maybe one of the last left to explore. Nobody can speak hard and fast about it, because nothing is certain or proven. It’s all theory. I’ve been doing this for a while now, and I’ve been to all kinds of haunted locations all over the world. I’ve had tons of experiences in those places, and I’d like to think I can determine when my eyes are playing tricks on me and when I’m seeing something that is real. I have no problem admitting that, sometimes, that just might be the case—hey, it’s dark, and I’m using just a little LCD screen as my light source. It’s easy to mistake shadows out of the corner of your eye for something else.
But I also know that when I turn around and see a freaking person standing there, and it scares the ever living crap out of me and changes my life forever, it’s not my mind playing tricks on me! I would have known the difference even then. And it’s insulting that “skeptics” would think otherwise.
Questions Fans Ask
When are you going to start your own show?
Ghost Adventures is just one piece of who I am and what I do. I’m working on other projects all the time. I recently helped create a new television series for the Travel Channel called Vegas Stripped. I’m not on camera for that show, but I love the idea. Plus, I’m working on other paranormal show ideas where I would be on camera exploring all kinds of strange legends.
I’m not sure exactly what happens when we die, but I like to think that I’m not going to stick around. I’d like to go to a different place, to a different challenge. Whatever is next, I’m ready for it.
Thinking about myself as a ghost also makes me question how I’d feel if I were one of the spirits that we’re investigating for Ghost Adventures. I mean, were I to die and Zak showed up trying to make contact with my spirit, I’d haunt the shit out of him and everyone involved! Zak thinks three scratches down his back at Bobby Mackey’s is something? I’d make his head go all the way around! (Think of the ratings, Zak!)
I look at it like this: if I were wandering through some sort of limbo and unable to communicate with anyone, and then some people showed up and attempted to make contact with me, I don’t think I’d be upset. I don’t know exactly what I would feel, but I don’t think it would be anger.
The paranormal is always at my core, but I’m still a storyteller and sometimes other stories are going to call out to me. In 2011, I got serious about pitching other television series ideas—some paranormal, some not. Because Ghost Adventures has been successful and I’m an executive producer on that show, it’s easy for me to get an audience with television production companies and networks now.
Vegas Stripped is one of my recent projects, and it was picked up by the Travel Channel in November of 2011. Living in Las Vegas for so many years, I got the chance to know some of the casinos and their owners. I have a neighbor who is a real old-school Vegas guy—he used to work in Bugsy Siegel’s hotel when he was young. This neighbor introduced me to the owners of the South Point Casino, one of the newer and very popular casino hotels in town. After speaking with the owners and some of their management, I knew there was a great concept for a show there. The idea was to follow a day in the life of casino security.
The South Point Casino was willing to open up its security cameras to a television series so we could witness the everyday employee work atmosphere, events, and human drama that unfold on a daily basis in a major Vegas casino. How cool is that?
But putting something like this together is tricky. The casino doesn’t want to make itself look bad, and of course we need to show the juicy stuff if people are going to watch. That’s one thing I respected South Point for in a big way. These guys were willing to bare it all. They figured that by showing how well they handled security situations, in the end they’d look even better. I loved the whole process. And the Travel Channel loved it too. The show started airing in February 2012.
Even though I already had a hit show to my name, I still had to do a lot of work to get Vegas Stripped sold. First of all, I’d had to work that connection with my neighbor to make my pitch to the casino. Then I had to develop the idea, invest my own money to get the sizzle reel produced, and shop it around. If the show didn’t sell, I’d be out all that money and time. But I believed in this idea. I knew it would be fun to watc
h and fun to make. I had to see it through.
I’m so fortunate to be in a position to turn my creative ideas into reality. And I’m working on other projects too. I’m drawn to human interest stories where people overcome obstacles. I love cheering for folks in rough situations.
Since working on Ghost Adventures, I also grew into my own sense of style. After I’d made my documentary, I’d realized how dorky I looked in the clothes I wore and made some changes to my wardrobe. So when a clothing designer called Modus Collections approached me about creating my own clothing line, I jumped at the chance.
In the past, Zak and I had sold Ghost Adventures Crew T-shirts and sweatshirts. The problem was, it was difficult to manage the inventory—I had to fulfill the orders and get them to the post office. We did all that ourselves. With traveling and everything else, we couldn’t keep up with it, so we stopped. I was blown away by how supportive our fans were—they even wanted to wear our clothing.
I’ve come to realize that the three of us—Zak, Aaron, and myself—represent a lifestyle and a mood. We’re the guys on television who aren’t afraid to go into the darkest haunts on the planet. Maybe by emulating us just a bit, people get to break out of their daily lives and feel more a part of the Ghost Adventures Crew.
Working with Modus Collections allowed me to reconnect with JoAnne DeOleo, an old friend from high school who helped me put together my Phantom Collection line of clothes. One area that’s been tough for me since the success of Ghost Adventures is trusting people. Working with old friends makes that easier.
My wife knows me better than anyone, and she took the lead on the designs and worked with JoAnne to create exactly what I wanted. Veronique has been there for everything, so she was able to take my ideas and my life and turn them into a look. One of my favorite designs she came up with is a dark hoodie with the song lyrics from my song “Black Death” in the shape of a G. Another design features a ghostly doctor. Another favorite is called “1862.” The artwork was inspired by some of the architecture from Virginia City, and 1862 was the year some of my favorite buildings in town were constructed. I feel such a connection to that town it inspires almost every part of my life.