Richmond hardcore band Holy Land, formerly known as Spirit Animal, are a bit of an anomaly. They formed in 2012, released an EP called Real the same year (which featured Justice Tripp of Trapped Under Ice on one track), and got signed to Six Feet Under Records in 2013.
Richmond hardcore band Holy Land, formerly known as Spirit Animal, are a bit of an anomaly. They formed in 2012, released an EP called Real the same year (which featured Justice Tripp of Trapped Under Ice on one track), and got signed to Six Feet Under Records in 2013. That much activity within such a short period of time may scream “flash-in-the-pan,” or just that the guys in Holy Land have a lot of connections. But, upon listening to Real, or seeing the band live, one can clearly see and hear a work ethic and musicianship that legitimizes their near-overnight success story. Holy Land is currently finishing up a ten-date tour, the latter half of which will be with New York hardcore mainstays Backtrack, dark hardcore squad Homewrecker, and the very heavy, straight-edge band Discourse. Before they left for tour, I sat down with vocalist Parker Black and guitarist Tyler Wall to discuss being inspired by jazz, the surreal nature of success, and the ever-evolving process of songwriting.
What do you think the crowd reception is going to be like when you’re playing with Discourse, Homewrecker, and Backtrack? Do you think you’ll gain any new fans?
Tyler Wall: The reason I’m stoked is that all the bands are really energetic live bands. Discourse is super hype, Backtrack is really hype when they play. I haven’t seen Homewrecker live yet, but I feel I like we have a pretty positive feel when we play. I enjoy the sort of mutuality of the vibe, per se. [laughs]
Parker Black: Ultimately at the roots we’re still at a hardcore band. We all play hardcore, and are playing hardcore shows with hardcore bands. That makes us a hardcore band I guess. I don’t know; most people will like it, some people won’t. It’s just the nature of the direction we take. We’ve never been on a tour like this, so I have no idea. But from the way people are… Twitter is really chill to follow [laughs] …people from random parts of the country are like “Yo, you need to come to this show in Milwaukee.” It’s so weird to me, but it’s chill.
I guess that’s just how hardcore works in the United States. People just want to be connected to each other, kind of the family vibe.
Tyler: I’m not sure that it’s any different from any other style of music. The premise is still the same, it’s just a lot more socially visible. I’m not really worried about whether or not people will be into us when we play, because people intend to… you can go to a hardcore shows and want to listen to hardcore bands, but at the same time there’s always going to be some sort of performance that blows you away, that’s not related to anything else that you’re interested in. And for me, my premise is to try to play the best live show possible, always, and try to play as emotionally as you can. Because in that sense, that’s what separates you from a band that wants to play music to sound like something else.
So are you guys taking any new material on tour, or will you mainly be playing songs from the first EP, Real?
Tyler: Half and half.
Parker: We’re going to try to push the new stuff as much as possible, but also not throw away the old stuff. Because we haven’t even toured on it before, so this is like half touring on that, half promoting new stuff.
So is the new material in the same vein as Real? Musically, lyrically?
Parker: Well, I don’t know. All of the band has definitely talked about this extensively. I guess in life right now, we’re all in a state of uncertainty, just as people, so I think naturally the lyrical style of the album is a little bit more serious, and I guess a little darker, but still has sort of a mystical feel to it, in a way. It’s just generally darker and a little more emotional.
Tyler: I think people interpret the music as being thrash, or darkened… whatever, or hardcore or whatever. I retain an interest in hardcore, but I’m interested in so many other things musically. Audially there are so many hardcore bands that sounds alike, and there are so many metal bands that sound alike, on the basis of sharing similar equipment, similar tuning. There are only so many things that you can do in 4/4. As a result, so many bands that become popular in the heavy realm, it’s usually on the basis of their style, or the influence of their actual performance and the feel that they have. So, for me, I’ve been taking aspects that I really enjoy in other emotional, energetic styles of music, trying to take what I think is positive from that, and implement it into my own style of writing, just to make it more a holistic experience. A huge problem within hardcore is that people don’t want to listen to something if it’s not under the label of being “hardcore.” And for me, I’d rather be very subversive, and slowly sort of feed people things that they may not listen to within hardcore, just for the sake of what we’re into musically.
So where are you coming from in terms of outside influences?
Tyler: Parker and I are a lot more into jazz and live bands, live funk music. I enjoy the energy within hardcore, but I enjoy what a live band can do to you physically a lot more.
Parker: And talking about that kind of subversion too, within hardcore, lyrically I want to make sure it’s relevant. Generally, hardcore lyrics are centered around a first-person view of negative aspects of the world. It’s really hard to scream about being happy–and I don’t really want to do that. But I don’t want to do it in the same language. I really like to play with language in such a way that in some aspects, makes the listener really have to think about what they just heard. Like say it a few times, and maybe it still doesn’t make sense as a sentence, but maybe creates more a picture or an image, like a dialogue I guess?
I definitely noticed the lyrics on Real are not very typical of hardcore, but it somehow fits. The whole “real” thing, where you’re talking about being sincere and honest, is a cool positive message that I feel is not presented very often in heavy music.
Parker: I guess that could be taken as positive. That mention of sincerity was talking more about the art world.
Not being super ironic about literally everything you do?
Parker: Yeah. Not talking about things that have to do with hardcore, or the general attitude in in hardcore. I am a vocalist now, but before this, I have never written lyrics, never performed as vocalist on stage, so to be honest I don’t know where a lot of the shit that I write comes from. I do, but ultimately I am still kind of figuring that out. The difference between sitting in your room and writing some shit on your phone and what I’m doing is that people are not only going to be listening to it a lot, but they’re going to be saying it back to me.
That’s a huge thing.
Parker: It’s a really strange thing.
Tyler: It’s vicarious for people too.
Parker: They’re gonna be saying these things that I write, so there’s a little weight to it. So I really want to make sure the things that I’m saying are more appropriate to my generation, rather than just a certain group.
General enough to draw people in, but specific enough to actually say something original. That’s what I get from Holy Land’s music. There are certain things that are very catchy about parts of Real, but it’s not like…
Parker: Not generic. I think for me it’d be harder to write something sounded generic or like someone else, than just to write it myself and not worry about it.
Tyler: The new stuff is definitely going in a different direction than Real. I don’t like being associated with thrash or metal music, because it’s such a hyper-specific style of music to play. To me, playing metal music is just technical, or progressive rock. I view us a lot more as a rock band than I feel like we’re trying to play metal and stuff. But I feel like people could look at me, and be like “Yeah, well…”
It can also just be a very reductive tag to have on your music, so I can see where you’re coming from as far as wanting to branch out from being under that label or under the hardcore label.
Tyler: A lot of artists that people like in the first place tend to be people that are refreshing the genre. I’m not saying that we’re necessarily someone that is like that, but that’s something that I definitely aspire to try to do within our music, really look at what the general musical language at the time is, and try to make it into something new.
While I understand that you guys are more influenced by other styles of music, how do you feel about the sort of 90’s hardcore revival that going on right now? Do you take much influence from bands like Unbroken and others?
Parker: Honestly, I don’t draw very much from it.
You don’t listen to it?
Parker: Not really. Not enough to say yes. But, at the same time, Connor [McCormick, bass guitar], and Eric [Hoyt, guitar], and to some extent Ian [Hurdle, drums] definitely do.
Tyler: Everyone just likes so much different stuff. For me, the only 90’s rock that I like is Rage Against The Machine. I think that’s sort of commonality for people in our band.
Parker: But also, the 90’s had some really cool shit, that kind of still makes sense now. For example, a few days ago, we were trying to figure out this new tune and Tyler was playing some Alice In Chains. So it’s not necessarily 90’s hardcore…
Tyler: It’s no different from music now. There are bands from the 90’s that suck, there are bands that are around now that suck. For me, I can enjoy bands like Slayer and stuff like that, but at the same time I’m also drawn toward Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam and stuff like that. The fact that bands like Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam were radio bands, by today’s standards, is honestly kind of crazy.
It is a little crazy.
Tyler: The thing is that there’s such a wide genre of people that enjoy aggressive rock, that are now taught by popular music “You shouldn’t like that,” because if you like that, that’s dangerous and that’s bad. [laughs] So the only popularized style of rock music, of heavy rock music is metalcore, that’s the only sort current universal style of music, from a rock perspective. So for me, I’m not into a lot of stuff like that.
Parker: But also… I really like Life Of Agony. [both laugh]
As for 90’s music in general, people are trying to pick up those influences again, and it’s pretty obvious when they do, so I can kind of see why people would draw comparisons between Holy Land and 90’s hardcore bands.
Tyler: I think it’s cool if they do. I’m not gonna be bummed if someone’s like “That sounds like something else.”
Parker: If somebody was like “Damn, you guys are like a 90’s hardcore band.” Yeah… if that’s what they want to think.
You can’t really control what people think. Everything about music is just so subjective.
Tyler: For me, the way that music sounds at a given time isn’t just relative to the genre, it’s relative to everything else ovulating in music [ovulating? -ed]. As stupid as it sounds, after almost any horrible fifteen-minutes-of-fame pop song, those sorts of things become within the audial registry for people. So for me, when you have an artist like Kanye West, or someone who has a common knowledge of what his music sounds like at a given time, that affects how they listen to every other style of music. So when someone’s like, “You sound like 90’s hardcore,” for me I feel like, no, I just like music from the 90’s. I just like music from other decades.
Parker: You just like music. That’s part of music. It happened. [laughs]
So you guys are still on Six Feet Under Records?
Tyler: We’re putting out our next record on Six Feet Under.
So how did that come about?
Parker: The hardcore world, in a sense, is its own kind of entity, at least right now, so… people know people. Our drummer has played with Tough Luck, he’s played with a good amount of bands, and has happened to come to know a lot of people. I think Dave just came across the music, I think somebody showed it to him, and just dug it.
Tyler: I mean, it just got passed through hands. We were trying to pass our music through the hands of as many people as possible. Not even necessarily trying to force people to listen to it, but more so tried to really focus on the music. Really have the songs that we have taken very seriously. Record it, make it as good as possible, and just sort of see what happens. Because for me, if we just do our best, do our best as we possibly can to make a solid recording that we think is good, then there’s nothing else that we can really do, at that point, there’s really nothing else. So for us at the time, we tried to do our best to make this style of music, really just put ourselves out there, and do something we hadn’t done before, and as a result just put it in as many people’s hands, just get feedback. You know, it’s very normal for a musician to want to hear what the audience hears, in that sense. Six Feet Under has put out probably three of my top ten, favorite heavy rock records ever, period. So for Dave to be like “Yeah, I want to put out the record…” I’m so happy.
Parker: But it’s been crazy. There’s just been a lot of surreal things that have happened through the release of Real, that three years ago we wouldn’t have thought about. Just to see these good reactions… it’s good. It’s good to help the generative process of making music. We’ve definitely been fortunate to see pretty immediate successes in that regard. Like having the first EP with Six Feet Under. Like damn, I couldn’t ask for more than that. At this point, I’m going to be happy with whatever happens.
Tyler: We’re still trying to do our best, just be better musicians, be a better band. For me, that’s what the direction always is, us trying to better ourselves and become more progressive. So in a way, doing the next recording with Six Feet Under, even being picked up by Six Feet Under is just a huge honor, because I look at some of the artists that have put out records on their label. Like, a band like Nails, who put out Unsilent Death on Six Feet Under, and now, I would argue, are one of the more pinnacle heavy bands of this period of time. There’s no other band that would be able to touch them, but they draw influence from so many other styles of music. Not to compare ourselves, but for me, I’m just so happy. I’m happy because all this other music that I think is significant to contemporary hard rock has been released by this artist.
So how do songs come together for you guys? How has the writing process for the new stuff compared to Real?
Tyler: It could be anything. Sometimes Parker and I will just get an idea just from playing. Just from playing it enough, we’ll start to put it into a structure, and show it to other people, and we build a structure out of it. We’re still building a lot of our new songs for the recording that we’re doing, at least for Parker, building them vocally, because that’s such a crux part of the music.
Parker: We have a little bit of singing on the new stuff. More textural stuff.
Tyler: For us as a group, it can go a lot of different ways. For me, sometimes I’ll write something that I can hear further on down the line, like a form, or holistically what I want, but other times, it’ll just be a part. We’ll just play through a part, really feel it out. See what sorts of things do work, don’t work, and analyze it from there.
So do you guys jam much, or is that sort of incongruous with the style of music you make?
Tyler: I think that’s something that we’re striving to make, with our sort of style, because it’s not in the first place! [laughs] A lot of hardcore bands aren’t necessarily good live bands. There are some hardcore bands that are incredible. Really, really incredible at what they do. But then there are other hardcore bands that the level of musicianship is just that, in which that you can play the set and that’s it. For us, Parker and I come from drumming backgrounds and playing a lot of other styles of music, and everyone else is into really different stuff. So we’re trying to be able to push in that direction, become a band that can improvise, and be able to better express ourselves, and not be as restricted and feel the need to match everyone else and just be able to play the songs.
Parker: I feel like with this newer music we’re realizing that we can’t really be precious with the songs. For example, we had a whole song written, I had vocals done and everything, and we realized, it’s just not fun. Cut it. Just cut it and replace it, or figure it out. It’s more important to not release it, or write something better, than to release kind of a half-assed song, or just a song that doesn’t vibe the way that we want it to. A lot of the ideas come from Tyler and I jamming, him on guitar and me on drums, or Ian and Tyler, or whoever’s present. As far as trying to get everyone, all five people to jam together…
It’s a little bit harder.
Parker: Well, in the the realm of hardcore, where songs are shorter, quicker…
Tyler: It’s easier to write for a feel than it is for the music, in a way, so you can just show someone an idea, and explain it. And the way we’ll work on it from there is just like, “Man, what do I with this?” It’s almost like a weird telephone conversation process. It’s kind of cool in that way, because sometimes I’ll have an idea, I’m playing it, and I’m like “I wonder how this would sound?” [I] show it to whoever, and then from there, someone will be like “Nah, but what if we try it like this?” For us, that’s what makes it so different. For every single individual player, there’s a lot of liberty in that sense, because instead of necessarily always having something structured to play, it’s just having to come up with… what would be the best feel for this?
Cutting a song is always hard.
Tyler: I think it’s great. I think it’s great, just because once you sort of get to this point where you’re like “There’s nothing else I can do with it, and I hate it,” I think that’s so cool, because you’re sort of seeing, these are all of the tools and trades I’m trying to use in this, and this isn’t working. So you’re kind of forcing yourself to adapt in one way or another. So for me it’ll be really frustrating, because I’ll be working on song on my computer, for months, and I’ll get to the end of it, and be like “Wow, I don’t like how this sounds. After all this time.” And sometimes there’s nothing to do, but sometimes you have to take it back and try to re-approach it. And for us, we’ve always been a band that if we’re not feeling it, we’re not going to show it. That’s why I enjoy the roadblock process sometimes. It can be extremely frustrating sometimes.
Photo by Chris Spivey
It can be a little tense when you’re trying to push something, and it just does not work.
Parker: Like that one song, we were calling it “Monster Truck,” for some reason. I wrote, erased it, wrote it again, erased it. For some reason it just wasn’t coming out right. I think unfortunately it took… because I’m trying to figure out how to write lyrics, how my process works, it usually works when I’m alone, and I can’t listen to it over and over again. Unfortunately we didn’t see that it was bunk until I was writing the lyrics, kind of late in the process, but I think it was kind of important to just snip it.
Tyler: I think we could release it and people could be like “Oh, this is kind of… interesting.” but it’s something that we’re not… you know, there’s a difference from something that you feel proud of playing, and that fits like a glove, from something that feels forced and doesn’t really fit. If you’re going to be playing something a million times, I don’t really want to do the forced thing. I’d rather just play something that feels a lot more natural. And that definitely shows.
Parker: It shows in all of our stuff. Lyrics, fat-ass guitar riffs, drum riffs, bass, everything really. I feel like we all just end up playing shit we want to be playing, and fortunately it all sounds good together.
How do you feel about people making love to your music?
Tyler: I’ve always been interested in what context people listen to our music. [A friend’s] dad made a driving video where he put all the songs from Real on it. For me I’m stoked because for him driving is a high-adrenaline process and he just wants to put this music to it.
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Holy Land’s debut EP is currently sold out on vinyl but is still available from Six Feet Under Records as a digital release through iTunes and Bandcamp. Keep up with what the band has going on by following them on Facebook.
