The Hollow
The Hollow - HeadbangToday.com
Quantcast
Quantcast
*
During our journey in befriending the twisted talent in South Africa, Headbang
Today cornered what we consider to be the most dangerous band we’ve faced to
date. The Hollow is a vicious metal band hailing from Durban South Africa. They
promise to scare the shit out of any non-metal fan and most metal fans alike
with their skull crushing melodies and brain popping screams and growls!
With their members in posession of Honours degrees in music and classical
guitar, The Hollow will be a band that will trample the weak and hurdle the
dead in their run for global metal domination!
Interview by: Scream
The Hollow
Published: 2009-10-10
THE HOLLOW ARE:
Wojtek Starzak – Vocals
Dean Thomson – Lead Guitar
Duncan King – Drums
Catlyn McDonald – Bass
Patrick “Fly” Basson – Rhythm Guitar
The Interview
Headbang Today:
//Scream nervously welcomes The Hollow to Headbang Today,
sweating that none of the members break loose from their chains and shackles to
eat him alive//
Welcome to Headbang Today! So…. If you don’t mind… please tell us
more about your band and your musical influences. I’ve noticed a lot of black
metal elements in your songs, yet you consider yourselves as just metal?
Catlyn: “Wojtek and Fly are the youngest and the most rowdy and out of control. *laughs* The old guys (Dean and Duncan) are the ‘responsible ones’………..”
Duncan: “Yeah, Catlyn changes our colostimey bags and diapers……….Oh yeah by the way we REALLY REALLY LIKE…………Black Label” *clears throat and utters something that sounded like……need sponsors*
Dean: “We all have a lot of different influences ranging from a wide variety of bands, we also don’t just limit ourselves to the metal genre. Each member of The Hollow has their own preferred genre of music as well as metal and we bring all of those influences together to let the music work itself out when we practice. This results in the music as a whole that can’t be classified to any one sub-genre, that’s why we classify ourselves as just metal. For example I’m pretty into Hendrix, Satriani, Steve Vai as well as Children of Bodom, Chimaira and Lamb of God. I think it’s refreshing for the mind and the creative process to step away from your preferred genre for a bit.”
Headbang Today: You dudes have a chick playing bass in your band! As the daily
trend in our modern world suggests, females tend to be more superior and
dominant than their female predecessors in the past. Does Catlyn teach you guys
a thing or two?
Fly: “Catlyn is on her own mission, we’ll get a serious beat down if we argue with her!”
Dean: “Like it says in her bio she’s the pimp of men, she teaches us to shut the F*&$ up and play. Next question”
Headbang Today: Tell us a bit more about the processes involved in writing
songs for The Hollow.
Wojtek: “Fly or Dean usually come up with an idea for a riff and bring it to the band when we practice. We all then put in our own ideas and the music evolves from there. Either myself, Duncan or Catlyn will add lyrics as the song progresses. You can sort of feel the direction the song is going, so usually the lyrics just fall into place”
Fly: “Yeah sometimes you can write a song in one practice other times it can take you a week or even a month to get it out, which can be really frustrating, but nothing a Black Label can’t sort out”
*everybody laughs and takes a swig of Label*
Headbang Today: How did your band name, The Hollow originate?
Fly: “One very drunk night at a usual band party, Duncan was shit-faced drunk. He wandered off to find a place to take a slash and ended up falling off a retaining wall and into a hole. He shouted out something that sounded to us like: “I fell in the hollow!” followed by some very psychotic laughter. Later when we were talking about it the name kinda stuck and as been with us ever since!”
Headbang Today: According to your individual band member bio, Wojtek is a
monster in mosh pits during gigs. Tell us about the craziest mosh and what went
down during that specific gig? (I’m sure you have a story to tell)
Catlyn: “Hahaha yeah we have a couple but I think the best one was when Wojtek dived into the pit and everybody went mental. The speaker fell on stage, somebody was thrown onto a table completely smashing it and I think someone got a concussion from running into a wall. Hahahaha the sound tech was pretty glad when the song was finished.”
Headbang Today: When can we expect an EP or even an album from The Hollow?
Duncan: “We battle to find sponsors to help us out with cash. Recording can be quite a costly exercise especially when you also have other costs to take care of such as petrol, strings, skins, sticks and not to mention merch and marketing. It’s definately a tough market to crack if you don’t have some sort of backing.”
Wojtek: “Yeah but we’re saving up and we are hoping to record a couple more songs in the forthcoming months. Keep checking our myspace, facebook or reverbnation pages for all our up to date news gigs and general info.”
Headbang Today: Do you have any pre-gig rituals that you guys do before hitting
the stage? What do you do to amp yourselves up before a show?
Dean: “Well we usually like to go to a quite corner of the club and cut ourselves with razor blades to get the adrenaline pumping so we’re super pumped on stage……………….. not really! We don’t really have a pre-gig ritual. I suppose we all grab a drink, high five each other and laugh our tits off – then get ready for a brutal show.”
Catlyn: “Hahaha Yeah and after the chaos we slap each other on the ass and say; GOOD GAME!!”
Headbang Today: What are your lyrics and music about in general? Does something specifically have to piss you off before you decide to destroy the subject in a song?
Duncan: ” Yes, significant things have to happen for an emotive response. For example; getting a 5 piece meal from KFC when you pay for a 6 piece…….Fail!. But seriously most of our lyrics usually come from stuff thats happening, or that has happened in our lives as well as everyday shit that just irritates us or that effects us emotionally. Combine that with a sick sense of brutality and a warped reality and you have our lyrics!”
Wojtek: “As for our song names, they’re usually titled before we even have lyrics written for the song, well the majority of the time any way.”
Catlyn: “Yeah like ‘Eat your Pancakes’ and ‘Ja-Ja the Arab Scarab’. We don’t want to come across as a joke or ripping off metal, though. We do it to take the serious edge off a hectic subject. You could also think of it as a marketing ploy, people will usually remember a strange name for it’s absurdity rather than one that sounds generic.”
Headbang Today: Name 3 bands that you ultimately would love to play with at a
festival.
Local:
Warthane, Erebus and Betray the Emissary
International:
Lamb of God, Cradle of Filth and White Chapel
Headbang Today: Is there life after death?
Wojtek: “One night after a good night out I saw a hobo get smashed by a truck……….I decided, no. But if you really really want to know we have ways to help you find out, none that you’ll probably like though!”
Headbang Today: After spreading the darkness in Durban, have you guys toured
and gigged elsewhere in the country yet and if so, what was the response like
from spectators?
Fly: “Yeah, we’ve played up in Joburg a couple of times. The crowds up there are awesome. We’ve seen some insane circle pits and big ass brawls break out.”
Dean: “Yeah, the people up there are seriously on edge haha, makes for some fun moshing though!”
Headbang Today: How do you feel about illegal file sharing – Great Marketing
Strategy For Bands OR Utter Disrespect Towards The Band And Their Hard Work?
(elaborate on your chosen answer)
Dean: “We believe that it’s a great marketing technique, there is no better advertising than word of mouth and the more people that hear our stuff and spread it the better. It does suck at the same time though, when you spend so much money, time, effort practicing, playing, carrying equipment around and so on, to not be able to recover costs. But there is no better feeling than being on stage and jamming for the people and to be honest the pro’s definately outweigh the cons in the end! Also if people really like our stuff they will go and buy an album anyway. I guess you could take that as a measure for how good you are (or how popular you are) as a band, if people buy your stuff even though they can download it for free, that says to me you’re doing something right!”
Headbang Today: Are you going to eat me?
Wojtek: “Are you finger-licking good?”
Headbang Today: Give us your thoughts summarized into two words for the
following:
The metal scene in Durban:
Fucking Brutal!!!
The future of The Hollow:
Liver Tranplants
Sadomasochism:
Family Orientated
The lethal mentality of your fans:
Fucked Up!!!
Quantcast
Quantcast
*
Band Artwork by Garyck Arntzen
INTERVIEW BY:
scream@headbangtoday.com
Dig this band.