Reaching Out: An Interview w/Pool Holograph
The first time I saw Pool Holograph they were opening for The Walters at their famed (at least in my tiny Chicago/surrounding suburbs college student music scene) show at Lincoln Hall. As someone who was there specifically for The Walters, to give Luke a sweater that anyone who ever reads this tiny blog already knows about, I was surprised by what a great show they put on. It was artful, chaotic, immersive, and for a first band on a lineup of four, I thought it was quite impressive that they gave it their all, instead of phoning it in like many other openers I’ve seen who are too caught up in the construct of not being the “headliner.” Read more in the interview below and enjoy some of my favorite photos I’ve taken so far to hear about their often entertaining thoughts on art, music, and themselves.
Paul: How was the tall boy?
Zach: I chugged it down as fast as I could. It was not great.
Wyatt: I chugged mine really fast because I was really excited to come over but now I’m kinda drunk right now.
SUB/VERSE: You’ll be more honest!
Paul: Well Wyatt’s a compulsive liar
Wyatt: I’m more like a ridiculous liar. I accidentally tell the truth and overtly falsify everything else.
SUB/VERSE: So how did the band start?
Wyatt: We were just talking about this recently! I feel like us getting together was we had a good little start with me and Zach having a collaborative element, but now its this new band that has stemmed from this little stream that I think ended up flourishing through that kaleidoscope effect when you get more people in the room. Going from there it just elaborates on ideas. We were just saying that you can do your own thing, but you can’t possibly capture what everyone else is doing, I couldn’t manufacture what anyone else does in the band, and i think everyone else feels the same way about themselves in the band. Pool Holograph kind of started with the self titled “Pool Holograph” album I put out, in 2009-10. I just put it on the internet without any plans to perform. That as a project was the first songwriting project I did, which was something about openness and exploring. Its kind of how life goes, it comes in kind of unexpected ways that give you motivation. I like to look at it as the band started when we all decided to get in the same room. When I think about Pool Holograph now I think about all of us. I like to think about it as a state. This artist Philip Guston was asked why he made art, and he was like, I just want to stay in this state. He’s saying that state is about a moment, about getting back to that state, not thinking about all the shit you’ve been through. I don’t know if that’s too long an answer, but I just get really excited about this stuff. Music is crazy!
SUB/VERSE: What do you write most about in the band?
Zach: Thats all Wyatt really. I think the reasons we’re all interested in music, there’s sort of a movement in each release of music. We want to keep exploring different ideas and figuring out what it means to do that.
Wyatt: I think recently its been about more lucid authorship, being more tangible, more direct. I’ve seen songwriting in the past a lot like a diary, just venting and trying to get outside of your head. Being like, this is me! I totally relate! Its the same reason you make art as a kid, like a Avril Lavigne collage or something, like “yeah, sick! I totally get you and you get me!” The artists we really like are ones that are kind of reaching outside themselves, or what they know themselves to be. But more to answer you question, the kind of stuff this album is about is the outside world, and relating to the outside world, and things you don’t understand, and relating to others. With each song, its not a different struggle for each one, its not that concrete like a concept album, but Transparent World is about being able to see through everything in a way, and being able to see into yourself and to… its really tough to describe. On a concrete level, you can be like, this one is about car rides, or a spooky dream, or an argument…
Paul: I feel like there’s a lot of anxiety in the songs, and your relationship with the outside world, and dealing with your inner self.
Wyatt: Anxiety is a word we see in a lot of reviews for the music. I hate the idea of being super cryptic. With this album, I tried to, like, pick a color, like how do you want to describe this? And make some sort of effort to be more specific so people can relate to you.
Jake: I feel like its a constant struggle to describe what the music means to us. You think you have an idea about what it might be, but its not easy to just nail down. Playing wise I think its like an airplane, like you’re on the runway and you speed up and then you’re in the zone and you understand it or you don’t but you’re with all your friends and you know what each other’s doing.
Wyatt: You kind of have a feeling for the parameters and discussion of the song. Talking about a specific song, the first one, Codex Hammer, the way that was written is it was supposed to be very thin and light and see through. Its kind of a precursor to the rest of the album, like here’s your debrief: you’re in this place right now where no one will be able to understand you and you can’t necessarily understand anyone else. Hammer codex, or Hammer lee caster is Leonardo da vinci’s diary. I thought by switching around the words, codex being a book, and hammer being like a forceful objector, a book as a forceful object. Thats kind of how you experience life, you’re constantly barraged. The part of the song where its like, “expecting a hand on your palace gates/ expecting physical contact on your palace gates/but you had a hammer coming” is like, the forces of the world have no regard for your intake. So what you do with it is up to you and within your faculties. Its important that as an individual, what you do is sacred.
Zach: Part of remaining active is staying malleable to whatever facets of your life are hitting you the hardest. Those are the things you have to deal with the fastest.
Wyatt: I think malleable is a good word, because we all like to have fun when we’re writing, and kind of mess with each other. I’m pointing to Jake because I mess with him a lot! I get in his face a lot and climb all over his drums. I don’t really see that as a rock n roll kind of thing anymore. I see myself as a mountain goat, just propping myself up and feeling good. I don’t know why! About two years ago, almost to the day, we played a Halloween show. We were a custoomed band, as the nihilists from the Big Lubowski, all in black, and I had a fake ferret. When I jumped on Jake’s drums, I jumped on him because my shoes were too slippery and while I was jumping I got scared and just jumped on him. Then I kicked out the drum set, and realized it wasn’t our drum set! I had to get on the mic and apologize, which is the most un- rock n roll thing ever! It was fun for other people though. I hate the idea that you have to listen back to this, I just keep rambling!
No its fine! When I called Alex from the Modern Vices the first thing he asked was whether the interview would be published as a podcast because he was nervous about how he’d sound! I was like you’re a singer but okay!
Paul: We had a really painful Chirp interview that I can’t listen back to…
Zach: We were so stressed out.
Wyatt: I started talking about Bob Dylan and i had no idea what I was saying.
SUB/VERSE: Well I hate listening back to these because I sound like a pre pubescent boy on recordings!
Wyatt: You gotta own that! I sound like Peter Pan’s dog, like the character no one wants to hear from.
Jake: I don’t hate my voice.
SUB/VERSE: So I read that some guys in the band went to Saic? When do you think music is art, what makes it not art…?
Wyatt: Thats a good question...its all in tandem, its all the same exact thing. Same process, although they have different limitations with the way society sees it. You can do really socially unacceptable things on stage, and you can do different socially unacceptable things on a page. I didn’t mean for that to rhyme, or sound like a quote or anything! (in gruff Keith Richards type voice) Whether its on a stage or a page, I rock the show! Make sure you include the stogie puff. Anyway I don’t think its dogmatic to say they have to be in the same place, because sometimes you’re in a really sweaty room and you’re coming up with something and coming up with ideas. I mean, the activities are different but their from the same well.
Paul: I think all music is art, whether its a perfectly constructed pop song or an experimental 20 minute track. It can all affect someone.
Wyatt: Thats not to say the trajectories aren’t different. Its really beautiful how music has its own place, like, I’m going to go to a record store and put it on this device and experience it. As a listener, the experiences aren’t the same, but the authorship comes from the same primal place. I think the way we as society antiqaute these things is beautiful. I think its cool that music in some ways is off limits because theres a pull to it. I think art and music have their own worlds and angular relationships, and there are crossovers. But the clarity of those crossovers isnt necessarily for enjoying them. What do you think?
SUB/VERSE: Well I definitely think music is art. I really like thinking about people who don’t write their own music but have an interesting way of performing.
Wyatt: Yeah… there are some Andy Warhol works that he never saw or touched, and I think that was a part of his art.
Zach: I think people like that can be the vehicle for the music, and I think thats an important part of the performance part of music. Music can contextualize a moment and explain how it felt, or the time period it was written. For each person you were doing very specific things when you heard certain songs. I think thats a big part of music as an art form, its community based, and a theatrical thing.
Paul: Its crazy how some of these songs you wrote two years ago still feel weird or uncomfortable when we’re playing, or feel new. Its great when you can get a crowd going, like that Walters show was awesome, because they got everyone going crazy. Being able to strike that emotion in people is the ultimate goal of performing.
SUB/VERSE: I think its crazy when you’re at a show and the performer is directing everything, like someone jumps off a stage at specific moments or whatever.
Wyatt: But the weird part is that the performer is also being provoked by the audience! You see performances fall apart because the crowd is dead. Its bigger than all of us. And i like that. For any performer, no one is a master of it. Its a sort of intangible, unstable…
Paul: Just reacting to everything around you, taking things as they come.
Wyatt: Yeah, I like looking at music all in that same sphere. Sometimes it strikes at the right moment, and thats really cool, but its like any chemical reaction. Like oh there’s a cloud, a group of molecules, and its in the shape of a rabbit, and thats really cool! Thats phenomenal I’m going to take a picture of it!
Paul: We just stand in the formation of a rabbit onstage.
Wyatt: Its basically just us looking like a rabbit for people on nights that it works. I like to look at it like its that surrendipitous. Like Pool Holograph is a mistaken name. Turns out a holograph is a body of text, which is a weird coincidence. But its like the top of the pool, basically, and its this sort of amorphous thing, and its this one thing to look at. And its never the same for everyone, and there’s a lot of depth underneath it that no one sees. Its striking, and its going away. Its about fleeting things and I want to keep in that zone. I never want to be like, nailed it, write it down, put it in the history books! We live in a really great time to play with other great live bands and be a part of this community, and thats all you can really ask for.
INTERVIEW AND PHOTOS BY CHLOE GRAHAM