During a three-year period of mysterious sickness that left her largely bedridden, Dylan Louise Linehan discovered something otherworldly.
“I would be lying awake, eyes open, totally aware of being in the present moment,” she says, “and I would hear these choirs and orchestrations just blaring in my ears as if I was in the orchestra pit.”
More than a decade later, Linehan—now recovered and performing as Mad Gallica—is preparing to bring her fever dream symphonies to life at Raleigh’s Lincoln Theatre on June 19.
The Wilmington native launched her solo career in late 2023 after spending five years as a touring keyboardist and backing vocalist for Ghost, the Swedish heavy metal band that recently became the first hard rock act to top the Billboard albums chart since AC/DC’s “Power Up” in 2020.
Known for grandiose performances where a frontman with skull makeup is backed by masked musicians, Ghost provided Linehan with what she calls “a master class in performance and building a vision.” Originally, the band required absolute anonymity from its members, known as “Nameless Ghouls.” Those rules have loosened somewhat over the past several years, allowing former members like Linehan to discuss their involvement.
While on tour with Ghost, Linehan was cultivating a dynamic vision of her own. Videos on her Mad Gallica YouTube channel include everything from a one-woman-band cover of “Jolene”—where she cycles through multiple costumes and instruments, at one moment singing demonic harmonies from a theater box before cutting to headbanging on stage with a keytar—to a recorded livestream called “LIVE FROM THE INFINITE VOID!!” where she performs an eclectic set ranging from Etta James to Neil Young to the Appalachian murder ballad “Tom Dooley.”
Throughout her years with Ghost, she tested her solo material—which she generally categorizes as “rock popera”—at small venues and found a different kind of fulfillment in those personal performances.
“It’s such an exciting experience when you’re performing at that level, in front of thousands of people,” Linehan says, of her time with Ghost. “But it’s also a thrilling experience to be performing your own music in front of a hundred people that are five feet away from you.”
She ultimately decided to transition from being a Nameless Ghoul to Mad Gallica, a name inspired by the “Gallica Rose Nebula”—a fantasy realm she had conceived during her illness.
The illness began when Lineman was in college, in what initially seemed like a particularly rough bout with mono. As the illness stretched on, doctors found evidence of multiple viruses but couldn’t identify the underlying cause, leaving Linehan in a prolonged state of being “in between worlds,” she says. Lying in bed during those months, she began composing what would eventually become a concept album about journeying through “the vortex of our mind.”
“When you’re still for a long amount of time, your mind wanders. I created this world I would slip away to,” Linehan says. “It was really important for me to try to bring this music to life in the way that I heard it in the fever dream state.”
The ambitious Enter the Vortex album follows a narrative of characters incarnating from the cosmic realm into the human experience. With dozens of songs written but limited resources, Linehan turned to fans for support. She has so far used crowdsourced funds to record five songs for her debut EP, Enter The Vortex: Act One, with a symphony in Prague.
The EP’s opening track is something of an overture, beginning with an angelic choral chant—“Come with us, conquer your death”—before breaking into a thunderous rock passage where Linehan belts with ferocity about “begging for feeling.” As the EP progresses, the narrative intensifies with questions of agency: “Are you the one who wields the dagger, or the one who lets the dagger wield your hand?” By the fifth track, the celestial protagonist is growing achingly human, wondering: “If life is so precious, how can I know this without dying?”
Linehan envisions her Enter the Vortex project expanding into an animated film someday. She’s already adapted it into an hour-long guided meditation video.
The Lincoln Theatre show will blend the ethereal sounds of Enter the Vortex: Act One with the debut of Act Two material, which Linehan forecasts as having a denser, “more earthly” sonic landscape.
For the show, Linehan has assembled a four-piece band where each member adopts their own “vortex” identity—guitarist Joe Sprunt becomes “Blue Magnolia,” bassist Eric LeRay is “Thorne,” drummer Phil Mulligan becomes “Lotus,” and music director and vocalist Matt Goinz is “Calyx.” Their costumes feature bioluminescent elements.
Linehan says the show will be a “full-on experience where the audience participates.” She envisions something comparable to a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, with interactive elements and a call for audience members to embrace their own personas.
“I really want the audience to, before they come to the show, think about who they are in their most grand, superhero, fantastical form, and come to the show as that,” Linehan says. “What makes you feel empowered, makes you feel excited, makes you feel intergalactic or interdimensional—I hope to cultivate that kind of culture. We get to be weird and wild and explore our madness together.”
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