The Best Medicine: Somehow Hollow Makes ‘Em Laugh….and Rock

Refinancing a mortgage, getting stuck in traffic, having our names not at the door, waiting in a slightly chilly breeze hoping to catch a band member or tour manager, and hearing the band we were looking for playing their set. That is how the night started out when we first intended to photograph and interview Somehow Hollow, Canada’s newest set of rockers. Thankfully we ran into Drew Clark unloading his equipment and Kent Abbott trying to avoid it. With a quick explanation and some sneaky moves they smuggled us into the back of the venue.
With that behind us, we found a room and Kent negotiated with his band mates to do the interview, “That way I don’t have to load up”, he told us later. Sporting some jagged nerves, I settled down and as Recover played overhead I checked my surroundings. I had my typed list of questions in front of me, a recorder, Clark by my side for support, and our interviewee bouncing in his seat, still beaming on a flawless performance.

I didn’t know what I had gotten myself into when I had agreed to do this interview but all in all, it turned out to be as good as their music. The following is the frank, honest, fun, and heartfelt conversation that ensued:

Interview conducted in person by Michelle Ornelas-Clark.

Names: Kent Abbott (guitar, backing vocals)
Band: Somehow Hollow

BettaWreckonize: Could you tell us your name and what instrument you play?
Kent: My name is Kent, I play guitar and sing back up vocals.

BW: How long have you been on tour?
K: We’ve been on tour since our record came out, for a week of so but we to leave pretty soon to fly to Europe. This whole run is gonna be five weeks long.

BW: So far, like the last week, has it gone pretty well?
K: Last week has been amazing. I mean it’s not only been music and big shows, that’s obviously a plus, but it’s just because we are such good friends with Taking Back Sunday and to see our friends and we haven’t seen in like…like they were in our video when we shot in Long Island. They are just good friends of our and to actually play with them and tour with them and hang out every single day, that hasn’t happened in a year. So really stoked, it’s just fun, a great time.

BW: That’s cool. On the tour, I’ve read the listing for when you go to Europe; you guys are going to playing with a lot of great bands.
K: Yeah.

BW: Are there any like favorites or stand outs for the next five weeks?
K: Honestly to just be in Europe is so overwhelming. We were there once before but with this band, Mike and me started it from scratch. Mike and I came up with the band name and we wrote the first song. So, for this band to even do like a two week tour across Canada, just be our best friends in a band together, you know what I mean, it’s just fucking rad! We’re playing music and touring for the past 3 years, like other bands and stuff, it’s really…there is so much respect for what you do and what bands you love and stuff like that…. you can’t single out favorites anymore. You respect everyone for what they do.

BW: Yeah, that’s cool. So all of you are born and raised in Canada, right?
K: Yeah.

BW: Are there any major differences between touring here in the States and back home?
K: Yeah, you can play a show every hour here. You can drive and there are, not so much major cities but, cities everywhere. Where Canada, there’s a lot of widespread open plains. You know what I mean, it’s like you drive 12 hours to the next major city and that’s where you’re lucky if 300 kids can come out. With Canada it’s different because it’s less dense in population.

BW: So the new full length that just came out, Busted Wings and Broken Halos, how has the response been for that?
K: So far in Canada, I don’t understand why but Victory, they don’t sound scan Canada or anywhere else but the States and in Canada, where we are from, we are doing fucking awesome. We are doing amazing but we can’t really prove it! (laughter) We can by the attendance of shows. We’re playing shows where it was a year ago there was maybe 150 kids and now there’s like 600, 700 kids a half hour from our house! That’s rad to us, it’s overwhelming, and we’re like, “Holy shit.” We’re getting treated really well and stuff. Then our first actual video shoot, we played in Long Island, we played a free show and there were a lot of kids there. It was probably because it was free and there were other wicked local bands that they knew. Where as we are just kinda breaking the States. It’s our first three American dates but we’re mostly playing in Canada and we’re going over to Europe. Europe, there has been a great response. We’ve got a lot of wicked interviews and radio play. In the States college radio, like in New Jersey we were number one for three weeks and have been on bigger radio stations for like a couple few weeks in a row top fifty and that’s cool; But we’ve never really, and we’re not going to for the next year, go on a headlining tour in the States. We’re not going to sacrifice that and we’d rather hang out with friends in bands we know. So far case in point, (Kent points to the ground) sounds all right. I mean seems all right so far!

BW: I know there is an older Somehow Hollow release, the self-titled one.
K: Yeah.

BW: I think there are multiple differences between the two albums. What do you think are the major differences from that album that you guys released and to this one now?
K: Um, I think there are three big differences. One, maturity as songwriters and musicians. We’ve just been playing everyday and practicing. We’ve just grown and progressed. Another thing is time with recording and the thirds is budget. Seriously, so much when you go into the recording studio and you have a thousand dollars Canadian, you want to put 10 songs on a record. You’re fucking up consistently because you feel so much pressure. You are like, “I got to get this part right on, right on.” Right? But when you can relax in the studio for a month and the environment is so chill and relaxed, you don’t even think about it and you’re playing it perfect. You know what I mean?
BW: Yeah.
K: So that helps ya know, that’s a big difference. The first one is rushed and I had only been playing guitar for a year with the first one so…(laughter)

BW: Now I’m just gonna touch on this but, the comparisons are drawn a lot between Grade and Somehow Hollow because of the relationships between band members and the history of Grade. How do you think that has affected Somehow Hollow?
K: I honestly think its caused a lot of our fans, to tell you the honest truth. People talk shit every single day about that kind of deal. We have this guest book that people can sign in on, on our website, and it was all talking about Grade shit, and we pulled it off. We started this band before we were in Grade.
BW: You toured with them.
K: Yeah! I got asked to join and I respect the fact that band was starting and gave me an opportunity to see the world when I was 19, 20 years old and go to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and I got paid for it. Paid for it, to play my guitar. But I’m a songwriter and not an actor. I didn’t write those songs. So I couldn’t do it, it was fake to put the emotion in. So what we’re about is real life shit, its emotional shit, and we write about ourselves. To me, I would come home after a month of tour and be jet lagged to shit but I would die to go for a weekend in Canada to play two shows with Somehow Hollow. This is the shit we started; it’s like our baby. To be related to (Grade) there’s no relation. There really isn’t and if anybody knew the background and history, they’d know that. But I think it’s done nothing but good. Any publicity, bad or good, is publicity, it’s our band name out there so it’s good.

BW: That’s good, how you deal with it. Are your band mates able to deal with that comparison?
K: I think some of our band mates, like our one; we just got a new guitar player. Our other guitar player just got engaged and he wanted to kinda settle down. He’s 27 and like five years older than the rest of us, he’s kinda at a different stage in his life. He felt he was more or less holding us back from touring as much as we wanted to. That’s cool, we’re still friends, best friends. We got a new guitar player and he’s the only one that hasn’t played with Grade but um, I don’t know, I think. It’s hard to say. I’m totally forgetting the question! (lots of laughing)

BW: That’s all right man. Let’s go ahead to the next one.
K: No it’s cool, I want to answer that one.

BW: It’s just that if …… the way you handled the comparisons between the two bands, you know from people, how do your band mates-
K: Yeah! Wait a minute; I got my thought track back! Okay, with some of our other members that have played with Grade, the only thing is we get slandered and people don’t understand that it’s not up to us if it says on the sticker of our CD in the store “Featuring Ex-members of Grade.” We can’t control that. That is like the only thing that is kind like “Okay man, quit affiliating us with that.” We played with Grade for like a year and a half, cool, but you got to understand where we come from. It’s like an opportunity to play shows that are bigger. We didn’t think, “Yeah man, I’m going to go there cuz I want money!” No! Man, the only luxuries we’re missing out on now are hotels and fucking food buyouts everyday. Seriously, that is it. We are still grocery shopping and eating spaghetti out of the can and sleeping in the van. That’s what it is, we earn our stripes and Grade was still earning their stripes, it’s just they were around for longer and going on a downward spiral. I dunno, I have more for fun with this.

BW: All of you have been out playing for a bit of time, are you guys able to make a living off of music?
K: We don’t have time to have jobs. With consistently important interviews like with bigger zines, shows, and trying to tour your album and get out there; You can’t come home and apply for a job, work for two weeks, then quit it and keep doing that cuz you have no references. My resume is null and void now because its like, “So you haven’t worked since, ’99?” and then (say) “Yeah uh, four years ago I started playing in a band.” Honestly the thing you can do is be a temp worker. We come home, they know when our tour dates are, and they might have an odd job for us to do, just to get us by to put food on the table. That’s how much we love this shit. That’s what people don’t understand. It’s fucking hard, man, it’s hard. Like getting sick, I mean I’m almost losing my voice already. It’s been five days on tour and I leave for another four weeks tomorrow.

BW: Do you have any other non-music related interests?
K: Yeah, I love cutting hair. I’m the tour barber; I kinda cut everybody’s hair on my own. It’s weird, my claim to fame is cutting Russ Rankin’s from Good Riddance’s hair when we toured with them, so that’s fucking rad.

BW: That’s pretty awesome.
K: Yeah, sitting there just cutting Russ’s hair and I’m like going, “Man I covered your songs when I was 14!!!!!”

BW: Yeah, I don’t know a lot of people that have “normal” jobs that can say they did that.
K: Mike, our singer, he’s been my best friend for like 8 years. We’ve always played together and stuff, growing up, he’s an amazing artist. He actually went to college, music made him drop out but he’s super talented. Kinda cartoony, kind of comic book artist, like anime. Our drummer is half retarded, but he likes painting model cars. Then our other guitar player, he doesn’t do anything but smoke pot because his dad was a guitar player for Janis Joplin. So his dad played Woodstock and like recorded the Pearl album. So he just smokes weed and sleeps. He’s been our friend for years too so that’s kind why he got the opportunity to play with us. Not only is he a child prodigy, he learned all of our stuff in a week, but we have known him forever and he’s just one of our buddies we played with in bands before when we were younger.

BW: You guys have been to a lot of different place, with other than Somehow Hollow, Are there any place you would like to tour that you haven’t been to yet?
K: Oh actually we’re doing that coming up. Last two months of Europe we play in Spain. So I’m really excited to see that. I want to tour Eastern Canada, I’ve only been to Quebec and I live there! I want to see New Brunswick, and some other towns. Yeah, aside that, I’ve seen all the states but I’d like to go to Hawaii. I want to get married there but I can’t find a girlfriend yet who can put up with touring! (more laughter)

BW: Okay, let’s say that some sweet deal is in the work that would allow you to play music that you enjoyed, live comfortably, and tour where and with whom you liked but you are only allowed to take on of your band mates. Who would you choose?
K: I’d take my best friend Mike who sings and plays bass.

BW: Would that piss off anyone else in the band?
K: No because they understand that this shit was started from day one with us. It is not only that, it’s just like, hanging out. We lived together for two and half years and sat down, wrote songs for those two and a half years straight. Everybody understands that, that we’ve always been close. Basically, “Brothers from different mothers”!

BW: Okay, well let us say that super sweet deal falls through but Somehow Hollow becomes a huge hit and has constant rotation on TRL and the like. To become more marketable for your TRL fan base, all of you are going to be given a title. You know, like “The Heart Throb”, “The Nice Guy”, etc.. Who would be who?
K: Drew would “The Super Nice Guy”, Mike would the “Older Brother” type, I would be the “Heart Throb” and our other guitar player? Hmm, what is another one? He’d probably be like “The Grandma”! (laughter)

BW: The Grandma?
K: Yeah, like the retarded senile member or the weird lazy dude, like the guy that is always sleeping on the couch! Kind of like that older brother that just out of jail and moved home, he’d be that guy. (lots more laughing)
K: Oh, and the only reason why I say I’d be “The Heart Throb”, just for the record, is because my other band mates are always fucking with me about it. For some reason it’s always like (in a girl’s voice) “Hey give me a call, blah, blah, blah!” and I’m just like, “Okay.” See what I mean.
(Kent show’s us the inside of his forearm which of course is where some girls have scrawled their names and numbers.)
K: I don’t ever act on it but the guys still say stuff like, “Whatever you’re the heart throb and you want to be.” I’m just like, whatever.

BW: That is pretty funny. Now that you guys have been given titles to make you more marketable, what merchandise would you have?
K: How would you market “The Heart Throb”?

BW: Yeah. Kind of how there are trading cards, shots in Teen Beat. What would you guys do?
K: Uh?

BW: You have a budget to do whatever you want.
K: Oh shit, that is a tough one. It’s making these wheels turn. Um, we’d probably market lingerie.

BW: Lingerie!????
K: Yeah, like "Rocky Horror Picture Show" costumes, weird transvestite shit. Like “The Heart Throb” outfit would be just a leather jacket. (everyone is laughing now)

BW: See now you have this all down for prosperity and if you guys ever get that big, you can write me for a copy.
K: Yeah, that would be the day.

BW: Would you ever really like to be that big?
K: You know what, I’ve always said this from day one when I started. One of my good friend’s younger sister passed away a year to two years ago and in his grieving period he told me that he listened to one track on our new record and kinda listened to it so he could get through that grieving period. To me, combined with our records being in stores all across the world, I don’t give a fuck about how many records we sell. I don’t care. That’s the connection that is the reason why we started playing. We could vent to it, it was a place for us to go, at a show, to get through shit and have a good time. To get away from everything, to go and sing along to a band and feel they were singing about you, no matter if were singing about something totally different. You caught that and how you portrayed that song is the way that it is, the way the song was, that’s the way it was meant. Yeah, I don’t care how big we are. Just care if we can help kids out.

BW: Is everyone pretty comfortable with where the band is?
K: Yeah everybody in our band never thought we’d be where we are right now. We never thought we’d be having our record in stores everywhere. We never thought we’d be able to have a tour and survive on tour. Sometimes I feel almost like we are being too greedy but at the same point I realize how many nights I sat in my fucking room practicing my guitar. So it goes hand in hand.

BW: Is there anything else you would like people to know about Somehow Hollow?
K: Yeah that we don’t give a fuck what you look like, we don’t give a fuck what you try to wear. If you wear certain fucking outfits, you know, being scenster and fitting into the fucking crowd, being like “Oh I know what kind of music that kids listens to.” I want everyone to fucking listen to our records because we’re regular dudes. It just seems like things are. The way music was, like when you were growing up; sure you had your metal heads, you had your rappers, and all that jazz, but honestly man, it’s just to fucking cliquey these days. What we want you to know is that we’re not about scenes. We don’t want a certain clique to like our band. We want everybody to relate to it. For everybody to just give it a chance. Don’t judge a book by its cover, that’s basically it. Like you look at me and you’d never guess that my favorite song right now is R. Kelly “Ignition”, that track fucking rips!!!!! I have the title of a Morrissey song on the back of my neck, its called “Sing Your Life” and the whole lyrical content is any fool can write words that rhyme, that is what we mean. Don’t fucking create something just because you want to sell, sing for yourself. That is what it is. Don’t get a tattoo when you’re 14 years old cuz you want to fit into that scene, get shit that means something to you.

BW: That is awesome. I don’t really have a lot left, any last comments?
K: Keep on keeping on. (laughter)
BW: Good luck on the tour and thanks.
K: Thank you so much for the interview, that was great.

High fives were given all around and then Somehow Hollow jumped into their van and drove straight through to Toronto. The next morning they flew to Amsterdam for the rest of the rock. Big thanks go out to Somehow Hollow for making my first interview such a fun one and to Heather at Victory that is a warrior of rock.