Holy Wave interview
‘Interloper’ by Holy Wave is due July 3, 2020 via Reverberation Appreciation Society!
Holy Wave is an experimental dream-pop band originally from El Paso, Texas. Their latest release ‘Interloper’, was written about the duality between life at home and life on the road, it sees the band expanding on their most esoteric and thought-provoking themes.
You have a brand new album ready! ‘Interloper’ is due July 3rd via Reverberation Appreciation Society. One of your songs is called “Escapism”, which might be the right word for the current world situation.
Yeah it seems like we are all each finding our own daily way of escaping the doom that is all around us. We think the song takes a less “doom” approach though, and tries to make it a more beautiful practice. Something more timeless, like an escape from anything in any time or any place.
Your hometown of Austin has been impacted by the cancellation of SXSW Festival. It’s really difficult for all the musicians, labels and concert promoters.
It is going to be dramatic. How dramatic? That’s a damn good question. Only time will tell but I think that this will be effecting Austin for years to come. Hopefully we can keep the venues from going under. I think for most of us, musicians, promoters, labels, fans, if we can help keep all of our favorite local spots afloat then we will equally stay afloat, it’s really all about our spots. At least I feel like there is some logic there….
So let’s move to your latest album. Can you share some further details how your latest album was recorded?
Pretty much from the beginning we decided that we wanted to record this album song by song, instead of tracking all the drums and rhythm instruments in one or two days and then doing overdubs the rest of the time. So basically we would go in every day and pick a song that we had and we would track all the drums, bass, and maybe guitars and some keys. Our Engineer/Producer/Homie/ Charles “Patch Bae” Godfrey is a bad dude, and would basically make whatever whim we had possible. If we wanted the drums to sound like they were done in a Motown studio he knew how to do it, and do it well. Anything we asked. After that we would work on the rest of the song. One some songs we had a lot of the concepts already fleshed out. On some songs we kinda went in blind and just wrote as we recorded. It kept us on our toes, it made for a much different experience and it normally worked really well, sometimes it didn’t but I would say over all it really worked well. We were able to make really honest music that was very much of that moment. Also I forgot to mention that we recorded at Scary American Studios in ATX. It’s our buddy Charles’ spot. He’s legit AF.
How do you usually approach music-making?
We pretty much all write music, and we pretty much all bring things to the table. So it’s kind of hard to really pin point how we all individually do it. We each have our own way of shaping our desires into songs. I will say that sometimes in the practice space we just fuck around and out of those sessions songs are born that I feel are true representations of our particular cohesion. Songs that none of us knew existed before we started warming up or winding down together. Those songs always have a different feel too. I think they feel the most “Holy Wave.”
“Each album is telling a story about us”
Is there a certain concept behind it?
We had been toying around with “concepts” for a while and we made songs with particular angles but in the end I think we made this record like we make most of our records, as reflections of us at that moment in time. I think as a group we had similar things we wanted to talk about, things that could be put together to make a larger concept, but I don’t think it was our goal to do that, I think we just wrote songs that were commentaries on things relevant to us.
I really love the dreamy, multi-layered atmosphere on your album.
First of all thank you. We spent 14 days recording, and 14 more days mixing the album, all and all it took us around a month from beginning to end, and a lot of those were 12+ hour days. So we spend a lot of time. As far as gear goes we used all Fender amps, a Bassman, a Deluxe reverb, a super reverb, and a hot rod deluxe. We used Telecasters, Stratocasters, Mustangs, a Coronado Bass, an Epiphone Casino, an SG, a Silvertone 1420, a P-Bass, a beautiful Martin, and an Eastwood 12 string. We used a Teisco Checkmate, a Nord electro 3, A Hohner String Performer, a Yamaha CS-10, a Roland Juno 60, a Korg Poly-800, a Moog Sub Phatty, a Yamaha CP-80, and a Fender Rhodes Mark 1. And a ton of pedals and other cool things.
What kind of process do you have at mastering material for the release?
Honestly, Charles had a guy, and he was a good guy.
How would you compare your upcoming album to your previous releases?
Those albums were made by those dudes, and this one is made by us. Each album is telling a story about us at that time and this one stays true to who we are right now. As far as the music, it has changed with us, but at the end of the day it’s still us making this music, and we will always write songs the way that we write songs.
“From losers for losers”
Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?
At the current moment none of us have any side projects that I know of. We have all had little side projects here or there but we are all really trying to use our favorite material for Holy Wave, and we are not afraid to write songs outside of our comfort zone. I think we all feel like we are game to try anything out, so if one of us wants to make drastically different music, we might have a song that sounds drastically different. And we do have those songs. Sometimes they don’t make the album, but hopefully we can keep making more albums and we can see where our songs take us.
Let’s end this interview with some of your favorite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?
Peel Dream Magazine has an e.p. called ‘Up and Up’ that is really great. They have an album coming out real soon too, that should be very nice.
I’m a big fan of White Poppy‘s album ‘The Pink Haze of Love’, and she also has a new album coming out that should be great. Part Time‘s latest collection of b-sides and unreleased material “Modern History” is great as is ‘Spell #6.’
Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.
We hope you like this next Holy Wave record. It’s another one from losers for losers.
– Klemen Breznikar
Pre-order Interloper by Holy Wave!
Holy Wave Facebook
Holy Wave Instagram
Holy Wave Twitter
Holy Wave Bandcamp
Reverberation Appreciation Society Official Website
