Los Angeles power trio The Happy Hollows has mastered the art of YouTube mockumentaries.
In one video straight outta Wayne’s World, singer, vocalist and YouTube comedienne Sarah Negahdari is interviewed in an invented online show called Carol’s Long Island Minute.
LISTEN: “Tambourine” by The Happy Hollows
“I get very bored with myself, so I sometimes dress up as other people for a day or two and write from their perspective,” Negahdari told Wired.com in an e-mail interview. “Sometimes I dress up as Carol, who’s a real loony. She doesn’t write songs, thank god, but some of my other characters do, especially the guys.”
Neghadari and her outgoing bandmates, drummer Chris Hernandez and bassist Charles Mahoney (pictured), have cleverly capitalized on the power of viral video with their Spinal Tap-like spoofs on YouTube. Another Happy Hollows clip finds the whole band, including a naked Hernandez, in a bizarro Behind the Music moment, trying to ascertain what, exactly, is wrong with a seemingly unhinged Neghadari, for whom digital video is a perfect vehicle for artistic exorcism.
Now the group’s full-length debut Spells and supporting tour have arrived just in time for a horrific Halloween starring a zombie music industry.
“The digital music revolution prevents record labels and terrestrial radio from being the sole gatekeepers to music, and that’s a great thing,” said Negahdari, whose band begins its U.S. tour Friday in Washington, D.C. “The only people in music who are getting hurt by the internet are large labels that sign subpar artists that have too much money as it is. Even if the music business is hurting, the quality of music is better than ever.”
From Happy Hollows’ YouTube goofs to its free downloads and digital distribution, Neghadari and crew are proving that a sense of humor and the internet, as well as serious rock chops, can take you far in a cratering music industry.
“The Happy Hollows honestly could not be a functioning band without the internet,” Neghadari said. “We use TuneCore for digital distribution, FanBridge for e-mail lists, and of course Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm and even MySpace to promote and connect with people and other bands.”
The same goes for personal technology. Neghadari may not be a huge gadget freak, but she does dream up most of The Happy Hollows’ demos on a Mac laptop, composing them on GarageBand and listening to them on an iPod.
All of the aforementioned gear, sites and software come in handy when crafting the arch indie-rock of the band’s self-assured debut Spells, which comes off as a skillful merge of like-minded talents like The Breeders, Deerhoof and Metric, with a bit of Talking Heads and Marnie Stern thrown in as a chaser.
The Happy Hollows Likes:
Sci-Fi: “Our bassist Charlie, who loves Star Trek: The Next Generation and Back to the Future, wrote ‘DeLorean,’ which is a lament about how aliens never abduct him,” Neghadari said. “He wants to be abducted so badly. My favorite sci-fi flick at the moment is Primer. It cost them less to make that movie than to make our album.”
Harold and Maude: I love Cat Stevens’ soundtrack, the quirky characters, the outrageous love story and the eccentric old lady, Maude, who is so me in 60 years,” Neghadari said.
Bill Murray: “Whenever I write a song I think, ‘Would Bill Murray write this, if he wrote music?’ or ‘Would Bill Murray hang out with this idiot?’ If the answer is yes,” she said, “I go for it. If not, I decline.
Throughout it all, Negadhari’s jagged fretwork — inspired by guitar greats like Pete Townshend and Eddie Van Halen — punches through.
“I wrote the majority of these songs in 2007, the year I isolated and immersed myself in writing,” said Negadhari. “My goal was to create an album that was very melodic but still had different song and guitar styles — finger-picking and tapping, fast strums and slow rhythms — and somehow make it all cohesive.”
It worked. For a beneath-the-radar debut, Spells is a rough but seductive mash of noise, pop and adrenaline. The Happy Hollows’ tunes vary from cerebral goofs on sci-fi and palindromes (“DeLorean,” “A Man, a Plan, a Canal”) to raw anthems about surreal horror (“Silver,” “Monster Room”) and sex with Republicans who look like Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan (“Tambourine”).
Even the ax god Van Halen gets a love letter in the song “Lieutenant.”
LISTEN: “Lieutenant” by The Happy Hollows
“Eddie Van Halen came to our rehearsal space once and was jamming with the person in the room next to us,” Neghadari said. “Hearing him next door inspired me to write that song. We met him for a couple of minutes, and he was hilarious and wasted, but for some reason he was really upset that we all wore earplugs when we practiced.”
Photo courtesy The Happy Hollows
