Holy Fawn: Interdimensional Connection
“It’s been surreal.” That’s the understatement that HOLY FAWN bassist Alex Rieth describes their recent UK tour with, as we’re sat together in the green room before their sold-out show at London’s 229. The upstairs room holds about 500 people and is packed out for their set, combining blissful shoegaze, moments of tempestuous blackened metal and dreamy waves of sound. They’re selling out venues that they’ve never set foot in on this tour, something they never expected to be doing as a band whose sound is so wilfully esoteric. “Surely they can’t have hired all these people to like us,” vocalist/guitarist Ryan Osterman laughs.
Humble is the first word that jumps to mind as we chat, as well as friendly. They’re a band that started out of the ashes of former projects, without expectation, only a desire to create music together – and even then, it started off far less serious. “It all came together organically with the four of us in a room,” Alex explains. “We did a three-hour post-rock instrumental jam session and there was something so special about the way we played and felt together. Nothing felt forced or planned.” Ryan expands on this that “it quickly became a weekly thing, then we decided to play some original stuff – and from there we knew we needed a band name. All of us were coming out of projects not sure what to do, and this started off as fun.”
Ryan explains they often find themselves continuing this tradition during soundchecks if they have some time. “Our manager, Chris, records it all too, just so we have it to go back to. It’s nice for those to just exist,” he volunteers. That extends to the way they write songs, or come up with ideas for them, but by no means are they laissez-faire with those ideas. Admitting there’s a perfectionist streak to them, their debut album Death Spells took them three years to create, tracking everything, admits Alex, “in our living rooms and kitchens, not knowing what it would become.”
“We were all so wrung out on it,” Ryan confesses. “Once Austin [Reinholz, drummer] mastered it, we could finally put it to bed. But then it was the question of, do people care? We poured every bit of our creativity and sanity into this and it could fall on deaf ears.”
It didn’t. Death Spells quickly garnered a cult following behind HOLY FAWN, its blackened, shoegazing majesty drawing on the wonders of nature in its themes and soundscapes and people flocked to it. “It’s weird,” Ryan confesses. “We spent so long on it we wondered if maybe we were just too close to it, but we’re so grateful.” With its follow-up, the magnificent Dimensional Bleed, they expanded even further on their sonic borders and tried (somewhat) to not have fans waiting too long for new music. “We still spent years on it,” they both laugh. “It was a respite from losing my mind during the lockdowns,” Alex admits of its creation. “Everything else is shit and everything else sucks, but I have this.”
But writing a record takes a lot of work – that goes again for perfectionists like the four of them. The musical kinship they felt from so early in their journey meant that songs – “even little skeletons” were sometimes put aside because the others weren’t feeling it. On the other hand, Ryan found himself posting snippets to Instagram occasionally only to get texts from bandmates asking why he’d been hoarding something they wanted to turn into a song. “We understand how each other works, and the direction we want to go in,” Ryan muses, “and we just want it to be HOLY FAWN, and know what that is. There’s moments where the other guys will do something I would never have thought of, but we’re always moving forward, wherever that might take us.”
Where that takes them with Dimensional Bleed, is into new sonic worlds that build on the old in new and interesting ways. Delving into the world of tape loops and expanding their use of synths, for one, such as on the arresting title track or stunningly-wrought opener Hexsewn. The latter builds gradually, layers of synths and atmosphere before a guitar flutters in with Ryan’s vocals. It sounds like the open countryside, snowy mountains ahead or perhaps a glacier, flying over thick forests. As it erupts on Death Is A Relief, there’s a level of emotional catharsis that’s fast become their calling card from even their earlier EPs but especially Death Spells and now Dimensional Bleed. As we remark that it sounds very escapist, Ryan agrees. “It probably is, at least for me. I can’t speak for anyone else, but when we’re playing together, it does become a form of escaping and healing.” He then confides, “sometimes I get lost while we’re playing and I’ve definitely accidentally hit, or not hit, pedals or forgotten words,” with a wan smile.
It’s an introspective album, one whose lyrics and themes look at the idea of different timelines and dimensions bleeding into one another, while still echoing some of that natural reverence and examination of the self. “It’s a lot of things,” he says of the themes. “There’s a lot of introspection about timelines colliding or experiencing them simultaneously. It’s a morose acceptance of everything around you.” While that may sound bleak, it isn’t mean to be. “Even in the sad and the depressing and the dark, there’s beauty and happiness. It serves a purpose,” opines Alex.
The fans that have flocked to them over the years agree with that sentiment; we ask them what one of their most striking memories of playing together has been given their strong emotional connection with fans through their music. As Ryan recalls, “we were talking to someone who was listening to the new album during their chemo sessions. That really tugged our heartstrings, because this is someone going through the hardest time of their life and I can’t believe that something we created and worked on together is helping them.” Alex remembers another, one that’s on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum for them. “We had a couple in Albuquerque a while ago that came while the wife was pregnant. Their whole goal was to bring their child to their very first concert while she was pregnant. It’s so incredible to us, to go from people taking comfort in their hardest time to someone creating memories for their own family.”
As we wrap up our conversation before the band do their final soundchecks and head onstage, we ask if that’s what keeps them going and what they strive for. With an active Discord community server, a host of fans that hang on their every note and more than a few tears shed later that night, it becomes abundantly clear that’s exactly why they do this, outside of creating together. It lets them meet people all over the world who have resonated with the work they’ve poured their sanity, their hearts and their creativity into and gives those people a community that welcomes them without any judgement, brought together through HOLY FAWN. As Alex says, “it’s pure human connection, and that’s happiness.”
Dimensional Bleed is out now via Wax Bodega.
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