A Q&A with Hollow Zoo
Las Vegas metal outfit blend heavy riffs with melodic craft…
What’s the title of your latest release, and what does it mean to you?
Our latest release is titled ‘T.V. Static and Hate’. It’s 10 songs of rage, despair, resistance, love, pain and death, and it features a guest appearance by Tim Cottage of AHTCK (L.A.) on the track ‘Die Over There’.
Who produced the release – what did they bring to it? If you produced it yourselves what do you enjoy most about producing your own material?
The album was co-produced by Vinnie Castaldo of Tone Factory in Las Vegas and I (Ninefinger Nate). Vinnie brought a unique perspective and a lot of great studio knowledge to the table. I really enjoyed working with him to make this album happen and I look forward to working with him again. I can’t recommend him or his studio enough. Working with Vinnie and recording at The Tone Factory LV was a great experience.
What do you want the listener to take away from listening to your music?
Honestly, just that they had fun and enjoyed it. We aren’t pushing any messages or agendas. That doesn’t mean that our songs don’t have themes or stories, just that we aren’t trying to push our opinions on anyone. Our brand is about making kick ass music that people can jump around to or get all of their emotions out.
How does a track normally come together? Can you tell us something about the process?
Yeah, usually someone comes up with a riff or some lyrics and then we will work from that to get a structure with drums. Once we get a basic structure with the drums we start adding whatever is missing – bass, guitar, vocals – and that usually leads to a demo version of the track.
What band/artists have influenced you the most since you started this project, and why?
We all have pretty varied taste in music so that is hard to answer directly as every member would answer differently. As a group I would say we are more influenced by learning new techniques and ways to use our instruments and then trying to figure out how the hell to make the new thing we learned work in a Hollow Zoo song.
What countries would you like to tour? Are there any standout venues you’d like to play in?
We want to play anywhere and everywhere. We love that music is a universal language and we’d love to play anywhere there are people who want to see us live.
If you could pick one track for our readers to listen to in order to get a taste of your music, what would you pick, and why?
The consensus in the band has been that ‘Filth Box’ is probably the best song to listen to first. However, if someone wants a song that showcases all of the different styles of the other songs in one, it would be the track ‘Nightmare’.
Find out more about Hollow Zoo at hollow-zoo.com
