Eastern Hollows release video for "Summer's Dead" and hit the studio!

Eastern Hollows are a great local band who are hopefully poised for gaining more popular and critical attention. It seems to be a busy spring for the Brooklyn-based quintet; we were lucky to have them perform at showcase #12 (3/14/14) and hopefully will get them again for a show in the future. Easter Hollows sounds part shoegaze, part C86, and part post-punk. Imagine a poppy guitar driven British band the 80's and add more washy reverb, and better/more modern guitar pedals. They are familiar, but not stale. Interesting enough, but simple enough to be catchy. Jeremy and Travis were nice enough to exchange some emails with me regarding their newest video, which was released last week.

                                 

Hearts Bleed Radio: This starts out with very muted colors, cuts of the city... I was preparing myself for another "band on a roof" video, but it really takes off and becomes colorful and exciting. Where did the inspiration come from? How did the concept evolve?

Jeremy (drums/percussion): The concept and idea evolved naturally from the aesthetic that we have followed on all of our artwork to date - colorful images always involving flowers. The design and artwork all came from Cassandra Gibbons (she is also the unnnamed hooded figure in the video placing the flowers). She is a great artist and has been responsible for all art direction by offering up different samples and concepts for us to choose from. This video was her idea that she developed along with the director, Julian Kauffmann. "Giant paper flowers that grow and eventually take over the entire city" was the main idea.

HBR: The song is titled "Summer's Dead," which I assumed meant "Summer IS Dead." Upon watching the video, I guess it means, "The Dead belonging to Summer." Correct? What is the song about? (and thanks for inadvertently teaching me a grammar lesson)

Travis (lead singer/rhythm guitar/lyric writer): "Well, it was meant as "summer is dead." Not ownership. I thought it could be either depending on the context. Maybe I need a grammar lesson. It was loosely about a Smith's lyric I had always heard wrong and about the time of writing the song. Summer was just ending, getting sentimental about a great summer and that lyric. [Smith's] lyric is: "I want the freedom and the guile"---I always thought it was guide and not guile. This is in "I Won't Share You" I loved the idea of wanting both freedom and guide because that's how I feel all the time. Wanting freedom but then unsure what to do with it.

HBR: How long did it take you guys to shoot? Any interesting stories from production?

Jeremy: There were a few days of shooting. Cass, Sean, and Julian shot the scenes where she is going around placing the flowers. The scenes of us playing on the rooftop were shot a few weekends later. That footage was shot on the roof of Castlebraid (that apartment building in Bushwick). It was the middle of the summer last year and we wanted to start early - I think we got all of our gear there around 9 am - but we couldn't actually get on the roof for a few hours. We wound up kinda just sneaking up there and setting the gear up and shooting as quickly as we could, but it took most of the day. There were probably like 10 takes of us miming along all edited together by Julian into the final product. Sunburn wound up being pretty brutal, but it was worth it. Julian took all the footage and edited it all together and then animated all the flowers in. It was a lot of work on his part, but he did a truly fantastic job. We are hugely proud and grateful to have had the opportunity to work with someone so talented.

HBR: Nowadays, the industry is different, technology is different... What do you think is the role of the music video these days? More important or less important? 

Travis: I think videos are so accessible today that they can be a really good introduction to a band. You get the visual sensibility of the band's style. It's a chance to give a more complete song idea by adding visuals to the audio.

Jeremy: Definitely a great thing to have supporting a single or release. Everyone is obsessed with content and everything is just kinda flash-in-the-pan, having a cool video like this just helps people care about your song more. 

HBR: What's coming up for the band this spring? Any plans to record, tour? New releases?

Travis: We are recording another EP next week at Galuminum Foil in Brooklyn and then just supporting those releases with shows throughout the spring and summer.

Jeremy: "Summer's Dead" is the lead single off our forthcoming self-titled debut LP. The record will be out on vinyl and digital on May 19th via ClubAC30 records and there will be a limited edition 7" of "Summer's Dead" on electric blue vinyl out May 5th. That actually just went up for pre-order today - get your copy now. Rest of the year will be spent writing and recording new material and playing shows / touring in support of these releases.

To keep up with Eastern Hollows, like them on Facebook ---> here.

Don't forget to RSVP to next week's HBR showcase at Matchless ---> here.

And super don't forget to like HBR on Facebook ---> here.