By Ed Durocher
Holy Void is a kind of “supergroup” within the Winnipeg music scene, with Danny Hacking and Kyle Loewen (Surprise Party) making up the rhythm section and Grant Trippel & Michael Henderson-Castle (The Catamounts) handling guitar duties. Their debut self-titled EP is full of spacey psychedelic goodness. They would describe it as ‘nightmare pop.’ I got a chance to talk with bassist Danny Hacking about the album, the recording process, and the band.
Stylus: Tell us a little bit about the history of the band. How did you guys all come together?
Danny Hacking: It started out the way most bands start out. Michael and Grant had some songs they had been working on but no backing band to play them with. Kyle and I don’t have a whole lot going on in the fall because other members of Surprise Party are in school, so it seemed like a natural fit to get together and try to make some cool spacey psychedelic music. We’ve all hung out in the same circles for years so we were all pretty familiar with what each member’s influences were and what we each brought to the table.
Stylus: Having just released your debut EP, how does it feel to have that first big step out of the way, and what is next?
DH: I don’t know if getting something out was that big of a deal to us to start off with, so long as we were releasing something that we were all extremely happy with. It could have taken us a couple months to release something or it could have taken us a year. If a chunk of free recording time hadn’t fallen into our laps back in January I’m sure we would still be tracking the EP. We worked hard and took advantage of it and were able to come out with a six-song EP that all four of us are proud of. Now that it’s out of the way though, we are excited to work on new songs. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we’re back in the studio.
Stylus: With every member playing in multiple bands, do you find it hard to juggle everyone’s commitments?
DH: As I mentioned earlier, with Surprise Party it’s pretty easy. Other members have school commitments during fall and winter, and even in the spring and summer we don’t play all that often. We pretty much only need to work around the Catamounts’ schedule which is manageable.
Stylus: Listening to the album I really dug the solo acoustic piece “Interlude.” Who came up with that piece of music?
DH: Michael came up with the acoustic interlude while we were recording the ending section to “Don’t Forget.” When we were listening back to a take of “Don’t Forget,” Michael came in with one of the acoustic guitars lying around the Exchange District Studio and just started finger picking that part. We decided to record it and put it on the album.
Stylus: How was the recording experience? Any major blowups, and how long was the process?
DH: Everything went as well as possible in the four days that we had to track the album. Grant was able to score us a couple of days in a row of free recording time and since we had been practicing the songs on the EP for months, laying it down in the studio felt very relaxed and natural. Spontaneous moments like the interlude you mentioned earlier, and recording guitar tracks through a Leslie speaker were pretty cool.
Stylus: Is the writing process a collaboration, or does one person handle that side of things?
DH: Everything has kind of been a collaboration from the start. Grant and Michael have come up with the song ideas then Kyle and I will lay down what the rhythm will sound like. I think we’d all like to see it remain a collaboration. We’re pretty open to working with anything the four of us have mustered up in our brains.
Check out holyvoidband.bandcamp.com/releases for check out their self-titled EP.