The Ghost Inside have a standing invitation from Warped Tour when all of the members get healthy enough to return to the stage, but according to guitarist Zach Johnson, while Warped may eventually be a possibility, it won't be their first show back as a band.

The group has been through many ups and downs as a group since the horrific crash in November 2015 that claimed the life of their driver and resulted in multiple injuries for all of the band members. Some of those in the band are still dealing with surgeries relating to the incident a full year-and-a-half later. The Warped invite was initially for this summer, but the health is just not there yet for all of the members so they had to bow out. During a recent appearance on the Pants OFF! Podcast (heard below), Johnson spoke about the idea of their eventual live return.

When asked when they might return, Johnson stated, "It’s really, really hard to tell. We’ve all been trying to set goals or be hopeful about stuff. We’ve all talked about it and we just need to stop doing that, because .. Focus on day by day, the short-term."

He continued, "When Kevin Lyman talked to us about doing Warped Tour this year, he talked to us about it last winter, like a couple months after the accident. And at that point we were like ‘Oh, yeah, by summer of 2017 we’ll be way good to go.' And I mean I’m having surgery coming up soon, our singer just had surgery and has another one coming up. Our merch guy just had surgery, our other guitar player had surgery a few weeks ago. And whenever we do get back to shows, our first show isn’t going to be Warped Tour, it’s gonna be a club show."

The guitarist states, "Not to sound insensitive to Warped Tour, but I mean our first show needs to be about us -- not a 30-minute set outside with 15 other bands playing at the same time. It’s gonna be a club show in Los Angeles so all of our friends and family can be there and we can really focus on playing a good show, first show back, cause it’s gonna be something special."

While Johnson appears keen to play their own show first, he's not ruling out playing Warped Tour, but also tempering his expectations a bit. “We’re optimistic," says the guitarist. "Warped Tour, we’ll have to see about that. Even when you’re in good health Warped Tour is very difficult. It’s a lot of walking around every day and really long days out in the heat. And with our injuries and stuff we don’t know where we’ll be, and our drummer lost his right leg, so stuff will be a lot more difficult."

He adds, "We’ve talked about stuff like, whenever we’re able, maybe we’ll do something like the West Coast shows of Warped Tour. Like do like the five West Coast shows then do like four of the Northeast shows, like New York, Philly, that kind of ... Just split it up, do the bigger shows."

For now, the members of The Ghost Inside continue their recoveries from multiple surgeries and have hopes of returning to the stage at some point. We send our best along to the band on their recovery. Hear more of Zach Johnson's interview on the Pants OFF! Podcast below.