Full Names: Christopher Bollman (bass), Greg Fasolino (guitars), Hayden Millsteed (drums), Nick Niles (vocals, synth, guitar).

Ages: Christopher is 37, Greg is 41, Hayden and Nick are both 31.

Currently Residing: Greg lives in Huntington, Long Island; the other three in Brooklyn.

Currently Listening to:
Christopher: Lowlife.
Greg: Old Crow Medicine Show, The Rifles, Lowlife, Rhino’s “Have a Nice Day: New Wave Hits of the Eighties” compilations, and at this very moment, a Fela Kuti box set.
Hayden: I’m listening to Mastodon cos I just got their new CD. Sick. (Me too!)
Nick: Serge Gainsbourg.

Label: Five03 Records

Current Recording: Sons of the Burgess Shale

After receiving this interview and reading it...I'm at a loss for words. Here is the part where I'm suppose to shine with this engaging introduction, but alas my counterparts here seem to have most eloquently shadowed me. I'm proud to say that I have found a band which has not only enraptured me with song but with words as well.

I did not know what to expect when I went to see Bell Hollow as I went to the show to meet and obtain a press kit from them. I don't really go out much during the week due to the intensely aggravating ride which leads me home, but I really was interested in hearing what these guys sounded like live. I have to say I was impressed all around. Beautifully delayed guitars reminiscent of a certain Mr. Smith, shining drums really caught my ear (as usual), and a heavenly voice radiated from the stage. I had found my childhood again! I shan't compare this band or put them in a genre as I think that would insult them, but I will say they brought back the nostalgia that was The Chameleons, The Smiths, and The Mission UK for me. It is very difficult to discover a band in the midst of many which encompasses worthiness, so when I heard how great they were I was smitten. I strongly suggest checking these guys out no matter what musical "scene" you're in as they will make you...sway. I'll let them take over now as they can explain themselves WAY better than I ever could.

What are the origins of Bell Hollow and how did you choose this name?

Greg: Christopher and I have been playing together on and off since we were teenagers. We put this band together in early 2003, after the reunion of our ‘80s band The Naked and the Dead fell apart. We had already recruited Hayden to man the drum kit, but filling the crucial front man position proved a harder nut to crack. The three of us spent over two years wandering in the soul-destroying desert of endless, fruitless auditions and we almost gave up before Nick and his golden voice dropped in our laps, completing the puzzle almost effortlessly.
As for the name, when we began three years ago, we spent a week going back-and-forth in an email frenzy, throwing out these ridiculous lists of band names. Bell Hollow was one of Christopher’s creations.
Christopher: I had a list of words that I liked the sound of for one reason or another and I just started combining them. “Bell” and “Hollow” were on that list and together had an evocative feel which seemed to resonate for us. Is it a thing or an enchanted place? I don't know, you tell me.

When did you discover you were musically enhanced?

Nick: I knew I had something special to offer the world when I was asked to sing "La Bamba" in the spring musical in sixth grade.
Christopher: What does that mean? If you mean musically inclined, I guess I knew it at an early age. I played the trumpet in elementary school for a little while but never really cared for it. I got my first guitar when I was 12 and switched to the bass about a year later and loved it.
Greg: I’m a late bloomer. I knew I wanted to be a musician the day in late 1976 when I first saw KISS on television and jumped on my bed pretending to play along on a broomstick, but to be honest, despite years of lessons, conversion to punk rock, and a dizzying array of college bands, I never thought I was a particularly good guitarist. I didn’t play music at all for much of the ‘90s, and when I did start strumming again, it was acoustic guitar and mandolin. If chance and the internet hadn’t intervened and brought Christopher and I back together for our old band’s reunion in 2002, I might never have played electric guitar again. To my surprise and delight, at my relatively advanced age, I’ve finally discovered the muse I never totally nailed before. Being in this band, with these particular – and very intuitive and brilliant – musicians, has enabled me to create the guitar sound I always dreamed of. So the answer is: now!

How would you classify your music? What's one word to describe your music?

Christopher: Dark stuff that makes girls' insides wiggle.
Nick: It's a dark, sexy rain dance.
Greg: As a former music journalist, I am not one to talk in generalities about this kinda stuff, and I believe genres are useful descriptors. That said, I usually classify us as post-punk with significant shoegaze and new wave facets. I think we’re definitely part of the so-called Post-Punk Revival, which is basically alternative rock that clearly references the original ‘80s stuff. In the wake of Franz Ferdinand, most recent neo-post-punk bands, especially in England, gravitate to a more danceable, angular, poppy Gang of Four/Jam/Blur melange. We’re more in the dark and atmospheric wing of the movement, of which Interpol would be the big success story, as well as to a lesser extent Editors, The Prids, and I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness. Some of us are old enough to have experienced post-punk the first time around, so to a real extent I see this stuff as our formative “roots” music, as opposed to a hot trend we’re jumping on.
If I had to describe our music in just one word, it would probably be “bittersweet.”

Do you feel it's difficult attracting an audience, because although you tend to lean towards the "goth" genre, I don't feel that you are a "goth" band.

Christopher: Not really. It would seem that so far we appeal to a broad range of listeners. Much broader than I would have originally anticipated.
Nick: We're NOT a goth band. We have goth inklings, but we're much too optimistic and obsessed with sex to veer far into goth land!
About attracting audiences, I think the only thing standing in our way is exposure. People who see us usually like us.
Greg: I agree with Nick. We tend to win over anyone who catches us live. The hard thing is getting noticed in the first place, amidst the vast ocean of bands vying for attention.
And yeah, we are not even remotely a goth band, though I think we can and do appeal to goths who love the classic Cure and Joy Division records, but the same could be said of Interpol and no one deems them a goth band. While I have great affection for the old-school gothic scene of the ‘80s (Bauhaus were a huge touchstone), and Christopher and I enjoyed our time in that scene back in the day, the Hot Topic/cyber/industrialized “goth” of today often tends to mean something quite a bit different. Besides, we don’t dress spooky, sing about vampires, or use drum machines, and our singer has a high, clear voice, so we don’t fulfill the clichés of the genre. Bell Hollow’s music definitely does have a dark, melancholy element, but it has an equally strong uplifting sense of joy, sensuality, and adventure. It’s something like what Simon Reynolds termed “Big Music” in his recent “Rip It Up” history of post-punk, when he sought to explain the epic quality of early '80s bands like Echo and the Bunnymen, U2, The Chameleons, Psychedelic Furs, The Sound, and The Church.

What's the writing process like? Do you all contribute to the songwriting?

Christopher: Usually one of us will start a song by introducing a riff that was conceived at home, or even a more developed arrangement, and then we'll jam on it for awhile to see if it works. Other times it can be more spontaneous, where one of us will just be fiddling around with a bit and we'll all jump in and hash it out. “Sons of the Burgess Shale” was like that. Nick started with this tasty keyboard part that caught our attention and we just dove in.
Nick: We work like a team of anthropological reconstruction artists. The best work happens when one of us brings a piece of song "bones." Greg, for example, will bring some foot bones. I'll sometimes bring a toothless jaw. Then the four of us work together to put the ligaments, muscles, nerves, and veins onto the skeleton which we're also building as we go. We have to be prepared for the arms to stretch past the knees, or for some such abnormality. But we usually become friends with our finished product.

How do you make your live show interesting? What do you feel makes you stand out in your performance?

Nick: Currently what's most interesting about our live performance is our sheer musical brutality, or brute musicality - both apply - and that we don't necessarily look the way we sound. As we get more comfortable onstage, I think we'll make some decisions about how to turn the "set" into an "act." It will no doubt be very evocative and mysterious.
Greg: I’ve seen bands whose records are filled with great songs, and they play them fine onstage, but there’s no obvious passion. On the other hand, there are acts that are fun to see live whose records I probably would never buy, since their songs by themselves are mediocre. Whereas the most memorable live bands - like Radiohead or the Bunnymen - deliver something elemental and soul-stirring that becomes bigger than the sum of the individual members, and you feel like the songs are somehow deeply enriched in concert. I’d like to think we aspire to that. We have distinctive songs, and we play them – without any props, costumes, or jumping around like maniacs– with definite intensity and presence.

Have you guys toured? What do you feel are the biggest challenges as musicians?

Christopher: Not yet, but we will. I think the biggest challenge may be getting all four of us in the same place at the same time...or getting people to buy our stuff. Actually, it's the latter. I don't think most people consider that there is a direct connection between the bands' survival and their purchasing the music.
Nick: We're still quite new. Only been gigging for a year now. We haven't done anything like an official tour yet. But that's on the horizon. My biggest challenges as a musician have mainly to do with my own self-criticism. If I just let myself finish writing half the songs I started, I'd probably be able to perform all morning at my local church's annual pancake breakfast.
Greg: As they said, we definitely want to do some touring, but it will be a challenge to coordinate everyone’s work and home schedules. As you get older, there’s less free time, and sometimes even organizing rehearsals can be difficult. Creating and playing the music is relatively effortless by comparison. The biggest challenge though is breaking through to the point where we have a real fanbase and don’t have to rely so much on friends to attend our shows and buy our CDs.

Influences?

Christopher: There are so many. Hmm, I guess the bedrock for me would be Cocteau Twins, The Cure, and The Smiths. I really like snow.
Greg: The Chameleons are tops for me. Other undeniable influences on my guitar sound and songwriting would be Will Sergeant of the Bunnymen, Steve Fellows of Comsat Angels, John McGeoch of Magazine/Banshees, Johnny Marr, and the early work of The Edge. From a general band standpoint, we tend to be extremely diverse and broad in our listening habits – you should hear what gets played in the van on road trips! Influences mostly are from a narrower pool. In addition to the artists Chris just mentioned, we collectively admire and take creative inspiration from Slowdive, Radiohead, Joy Division, Jeff Buckley, Wire, The Verve, The Sound, Sonic Youth, and the 4AD label ethos in general. We also listen to a lot of dub and reggae, which isn’t blatantly obvious in our sound at all, but perhaps contributes to the overall haunting “liquid” feel of our music.
Nick: Literally anything I hear will influence me. Lately it's the fog horns in Red Hook. They gave me an idea for a musical I'm going to write and film as soon as I can raise $2 million.

What would you like to see change in the music atmosphere at this moment? What do you find exciting about the current "scene?"

Nick: I'm woefully under-qualified to discuss "the scene." I don't see or hear enough new stuff. I would like to see musical acts that are more theatrical and willing to take risks. I'd ask that of myself as well.
Greg: I actually like the way things are going. For a band, with MySpace and the like, it has never been easier to reach potential fans with your music, to book gigs, to befriend similar bands in distant cities that one can network and do shows with. Is there a “scene” anymore? Things seem too fractioned and diffuse to me to qualify as a scene, but the positive side to that is that with the vast volume of music of all kinds - from all eras and genres – circulating like never before, people perhaps no longer feel as strong a need to confine themselves to a “scene” or to just listen to certain kinds of music. And that’s good for the culture.

Favorite dinosaur?

Greg: You still can’t get any cooler than Tyrannosaurus Rex (the animal or the band!). I also dig Baryonyx and Spinosaurus. Pterosaurs, mosasaurs, and giant pliosaurs are even more exciting to me, but they’re not actually dinosaurs. Can you tell yet that I’m a paleontology geek?
Christopher: Grundalosaurus.
Nick: Barney.

For more info on Bell Hollow visit their website at: www.bellhollow.com or be a friend on My Space.