Digging A Little Deeper:
The Hollow are without a doubt one of the rising stars currently blazing their way across this city, if you’ve read my review you know just how much I enjoy their album, but a lot of the information about the band is very much shrouded in mystery, I decided to get to the bottom of this and find out more about what is becoming my favorite band out of Toronto, by sitting down with vocalist Landru Von Merrick at their recent show at the Bovine Sex Club.
NoC – Brent Lockman
LVM – Landru Von Merrick
NoC: To those who have yet to experience that which is The Hollow, could you provide a little insight into the band’s origins?
LVM: Our origins were around the turn of the millennium the year 2000, really just 4 individuals who were really determined to push ourselves, and to forget anything we’ve previously done, or wanted to do and push ourselves to create what we would consider to be the ultimate band.
We didn’t want to set any limits on what we were or were not going to play, just wanted everyone to have fun and just push our message, push what we have to say out through the music, not genre specific and just do what we want to do.
NoC: The musical influences are pretty apparent, but are there any musicians or artists that have personally influenced you, that maybe we can’t hear in the music?
LVM: The main thing is we try to get our influences from more ether it be a classical form, we really like the dynamics of that kind of music, or even movie soundtracks, as we’re big on those.
NoC: Ah ok cause “Vita” seemed like more of a composition than anything else.
LVM: We’ve never set any boundaries with what we are, or are not going to do, we’re not going to set out to write a 3 minute song or a 17 minute song, we’re just going to see where it goes and sometimes it’s like “Vita” and sometimes it’s a shorter song. We still have to give people more digestible means to “get” your band, so sometimes we have to sacrifice certain things to get that goal out, but we feel we’re not unhappy with ether one of out cds.
NoC: How were the recording sessions for “Vita”?
LVM: They were pretty grueling, especially on me we spent 5 months which is really nice, we really pushed ourselves and I guess we could have spent 10 months, but overall we’re pretty happy with everything and I feel I had the opportunity to explore everything I wanted to explore, we’re very happy so far.
NoC: Could you run us through your songwriting process? How do you write songs?
LVM: It is a collaboration, and it isn’t it depends on what the song is, we kinda look at it as an album more to get out message across, we believe we are the church of The Hollow and we have things we want people to hear, and we want to push ourselves. We view it more as an album, we really write songs, we write an album.
When we wrote “Vita” we set out right from the beginning what sort of moods, when you wake up in the morning how do you feel, when you go to bed it’s not always the same, we sort of wanted to have that feel like more dynamic, we did right it like an entire piece, you want 180 degree turns, and sometimes you want the expected, or a song like “Vita” which, where do you put the track markers.
NoC: What do you account for Natio and Vita being 2 very different records?
LVM: Natio is the birth, Vita is life, in our birth, in the origins of The Hollow we were in a different space, but after you tour more and you play more, meet more people, play with more bands, and listen to more music, you just feel you can push yourself more, and our label Swarm Theory they were very supportive.
When writing Natio we were a little more confined in our mindset, we had a very dark message and we wanted to get that out, when we met Swarm Theory they were open with whatever we wanted to do.
NoC: Yeah, I was reading recently about the freedom Swarm Theory gives you guys, very cool for a record label.
LVM: Yeah, it was funny because they would come in and listen to some of the stuff, they’re very cool guys but sometimes they would be like, well they never said no, they would be like “ok guys, if that is what you wanna do”, but that was in the studio and you always want to push what the boundaries are, I wish more people would do that in this day and age, don’t be afraid to branch out and try something new, don’t confine yourself so much.
NoC: Do you prefer to be in the studio, or out on the road?
LVM: I prefer being on the road, it’s a lot less critical of an ear, when you are in the studio it’s a lot easier to get picked on I guess, you have to really push yourself, I like both, but I prefer to be on the road.
NoC: Even though I just witnessed it, describe your live show in one sentence?
LVM: You won’t really know what’s going to come next.
NoC: What songs do you feel work best live for the band, and what songs are you favorites?
LVM: Of course the favorite song for me is “Vita”, but I really like performing a lot of the more short pointed songs like Rage, it’s a lot more personal and a lot more of a release for me, “Vita” is amazing to play, anytime we could play it on tour we’d slide it in whether people got it or not, I like the combination of the both, really I just like to get up there and yell.
NoC: How did the recent tour alongside Goat Horn go, any stories you’d like to share?
LVM: Goat Horn are our brothers, and we love them, we had a good tour, no big complaints at all, just a difference of opinion in well we’re very pro technology, very pro download- you can download our entire album off our website, and they are like the opposite just our attitudes in that department were different.
NoC: So late night debates over the virtues of mp3 downloading?
LVM: Nah the only arguments were like what movie to put on, and that was it really.
NoC: Are you satisfied with the reaction to this new album from your fans?
LVM: I am, I believe they got it more, I mean you care about the fans and you have to do what you do, a lot of people maybe haven’t given it as much of a chance, but overall the people who get it, really like it, and we keep converting more to our cause and that’s all we really hope for right?
NoC: How about the media?
LVM: So far it seems to be better than we expected, our band seems to get a very polarized reaction, you ether love it or you don’t, and that’s cool if you don’t like it, that’s fine with us, of people in the media, I was very happy to see their reaction, it was somewhat unexpected.
NoC: What is one thing you’d like a listener away from “Vita”?
LVM: I’d like them to get a sense of spontaneity, let’s dig a little deeper, let’s start thinking different things than what we’re fed daily by the tv, newspaper, and magazine, it’s almost like a giant form of mind control, and I hope the people can really look past that and find it in themselves to live in a different way.
http://www.thehollow.ca
------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Interviews Index