Steve Gonsalves on the TAPS Team’s New ‘Ghost Hunters’ Investigations

What better way to ring in 2022 than with the TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) and Ghost Hunters. The long-running series settles into its new home January 1 on discovery+ as original crew Jason Hawes, Steve Gonsalves, and Dave Tango join Shari DeBenedetti for a series of new spooky investigations. 

They’ll bring in familiar faces from the supernatural world for many of the 12 episodes to help them uncover the haunts and activity lurking in the shadows of these locales. Here, Gonsalves gives us some of the chilling details in the season to come. 

How would you explain your working dynamic now compared to when you first started together? How much has changed?

Steve Gonsalves: That’s a good question. TAPS has always been a large team. When you have a team that big, you need some structure. In the early days, you had Jason and Grant [Wilson] with me leading the tech side. That was awesome and worked for quite some time. Now we are all hands on deck where we put all of our heads together to get a resolution for our clients. It’s a different dynamic, but everything is exactly the same. Now we focus on the history and getting those facts straight. We always did historical research. We dive so thoroughly it really helps. We ended up finding in some of the investigations coming up that we’re fixing the history for some of the places. 

Is there a particular episode you’re looking forward to viewers checking out most?

There are a few cases I went in thinking we’re going to go in one direction, and quite honestly, they go in the exact opposite. That is quite exciting. In the world of the paranormal, you don’t know when or if something is going to happen. I remember at White Hill Mansion, initially there was really not much happening. Then at the end of the night, everything starts happening. It’s chaos around us. Some of it was actually quite frightening. That’s a place I’m happy we were able to go to. I believe we were the first team to go in with this thorough and professional level to do an investigation there. 

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Rock legend Meat Loaf joins you on the House on Haunted Hill episode. How was having him on the scene again?

I was at a meet-and-greet not too long ago in Las Vegas, and someone said to me that they like how we invited all these guests to the show. They said, “It’s kind of like the old Scooby-Doo episodes in that you never know who is going to pop up on an episode.”  They were right. Meat Loaf is certainly one of our favorites. He has become family. He legitimately loves this stuff. Just having downtime with him and listening to his stories. He’ll tell you all these amazing things that have gone on in his life and everyone he met and worked with. He actually taught me how to play the pipe organ in that case, which was pretty awesome. And if you know him, you get to call him Meat, so that is a lot of fun. 

You also collaborate with other teams, including the Destination Fear gang and even the Ghost Brothers. 

The Destination Fear gang have become very close friends. We worked out of Old Joliet Prison. Bringing their vibe and energy combined with what we did was honestly a one-two punch. We drew out all kinds of stuff. The Ghost Brothers like to think outside the box, which is really cool. To see their eagerness and learn the deeper techniques. We had some amazing things happen. Some of the communications at the [Cresson Sanitorium] were pretty dark. There was a murder there where someone got bludgeoned with a sledgehammer. A lot of awful things. We’re pretty sure we cracked that code. That was one of those episodes we were able to get the history straight. 

Are we ever going to see the Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters crew work together?

I would love that. We’ve all met each other. I’ve hung out with Zak [Bagans] and those guys a few different times. They are really awesome. Whenever you bring two different techniques and protocols and investigation styles, you’re going to be able to really draw a lot out. For whatever reasons, people create this Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters or TAPS where it’s one or the other. We get together and have drinks. They are all really nice and super cool. I’m down to work with them. 

It’s never too early to think about a Halloween special. Any destination you’ve always wanted to explore?

We have tossed around a few different ideas. Maybe going back to Waverly Hills, the Disney World of the paranormal. Always things happening. We’ve been there quite enough though. Villisca Axe Murder House is a place that has always intrigued me. The macabre nature of it. We’ve been focusing on private residences and helping people. That has been quite rewarding at this phase of our investigations. In terms of Halloween, a private residence might be a little stale. One of the larger places outdoors like Lake Shawnee would be cool for us to do. 

Ghost Hunters, Season Premiere, Saturday, January 1, Discovery+