Today we’d like to introduce you to Garrett Hollowell of Dead Words.
Garrett, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
We started back in 2011/2012 intending to take the show on the road and tour heavily, we dropped a full length, played a few local shows and then hit the road. Not long into our adventures, we started losing members and cycling through fill-ins and new prospects, eventually, JP became a full-time fixture behind the kit. After our long-time guitarist left, I told JP and Clayton I was going to write songs and play guitar and that’s just what I did. We got home from that run, I wrote a handful of songs and we booked studio time to record “Hey Rockers!”, we dropped that, played some shows at home and hit the road. A year or two later, Blake joined us to play Pouzza Fest in Montreal and became a permanent part of our DNA. So 8ish years, 1 LP, 3 EPs, a handful of singles and like 30 something tours across the US and Canada later, here we are!! The world’s dirtiest pop band.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all. We’ve slept in our van on top of our gear in Wal Mart parking lots, we even had a fill-in sleep out in the parking lot using a pizza box as a pillow – woke up covered in ants. We’ve had shows fall through on both coasts, got ripped off, played to nobody, cycled through several members and fill-ins, and sat in parking lots fighting about how we are going to pay for gas or if we were even going to be a band when we got home. We’ve hit more than a few bumps in the road.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
We specialize in what we like to call “Dirty Pop”, which is basically a combination of punk, surf, pop, power pop, rock n roll, whatever we want it to be. We tried to be “punk” for a while and realized we kept putting ourselves in a box with what we could write and what shows we could play, so we created our own sound because we do what we want.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Persistence and patience. The music industry sucks, it’s easy to want to give up. Touring can be one of the most fun and rewarding things ever but it’s also a ton of hard work and you are in a van with the same dudes for 3+ hours every day for weeks at a time. Also, just being yourself and doing what you want to do. Paving your own path or whatever, ya know?
Contact Info:
- Email: dwpoppunk@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/deadwordstx
- Facebook: facebook.com/deadwordstx
- Twitter: twitter.com/deadwordstx
- Other: youtube.com/deadwordspoppunk
Image Credit:
Jessie Addleman
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