Hollow Hand Talk Recording Their Latest Album Live & Brighton Influences

Hollow Hand’s creative driving force Max Klinghorn-Mills discusses the importance of playing music live and the mysticism of Lewes

‘Wish Road South’, released last week, marks an exciting new direction for Brighton-based Hollow Hand. The album was recorded live with bandmates and friends in one room in a recording studio in Lewes, a departure from previous albums recorded in bedrooms and wherever they could.

I caught up with Max Klinghorn-Mills, the driving force behind Hollow Hand, virtually whilst he was in a campsite in The Netherlands between shows playing with singer-songwriter Carson McHone.

‘Wish Road South’ is largely rooted in folk, pulling from traditional folk music and sixties and seventies influences too, such as Fairport Convention and Nick Drake but Max perhaps pulls from some more contemporary artists too, such as Frank Black and Kurt Vile. Max’s surroundings also have a bearing on his music too, including his relationship with the historical, and slightly mystical, market town of Lewes.

We discuss the process of starting the album again and eventually recording it live, following tours with Erin Rae, MJ Lenderman and Spencer Cullum. The result is an album that exudes togetherness, is incredibly well-paced, and has become one of my albums of the year.

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For ‘Wish Road South’ I know you have drawn on your experiences from touring with a number of different bands and artists prior to forming the album. But, talking about that change in approach, what was the kicker for that change?

I like to play music with friends and I’ve played in a number of different bands. But if there’s a band I love, who are friends and ask me to play, then I always will. So getting to go out there with people like Aoife Nessa Frances, Erin Rae and Spencer Cullum and playing with them opened up me up to realising there is more to just sitting at home and recording in a bedroom, and a lot of it has been like that for me, due to circumstances, as I mentioned before.

A big part of the inspiration for this album was really getting to go and play music live more and trying our songs out on the road, which we’d never really had the opportunity to do before to the extent that we have more recently. It’s the old school way of doing it and I liked that.

When we did the MJ Lenderman tour we did get to play some of the newer ones. But when I came back from those tours it did seem important to try to capture more of a live feel. Everything I’ve done before has been so considered. Thinking about The Beatles as the example, they would have been playing together on the road forever, which is something I’d always really wanted to do but never had access to, and then when they went into the studio where precision would come into play. And I think you can get a bit stuck on that. But all the albums I have done before have probably been around the second part of that method.

In terms of musical change, it’s quite fun to play guitars louder on this one and I think that comes through. But it was mainly just being around other people and them doing their thing so well that when I came back I realised that the stuff we had recorded up until that point wasn’t quite right. Maybe in the past I would have been OK with it, but something about those experiences became a nice challenge. From watching loads of bands at festivals we were at, I realised I wanted more live energy.

On the name ‘Wish Road South’, that’s a name of a street in Brighton isn’t it? And what is the name’s significance to you?

I have lived in about six different parts of Brighton now, there’s only one region I’ve not stayed in. In one of the flats I lived in, I was there with a band called Holiday Ghosts, a great Brighton-based band. I would get the bus over to Portslade to go to the studio, when not in part time work, and I would spend as many days in the studio as possible. Me and the drummer Ollie shared the rent in there, so I would go in there about three days at a time.

But the bus goes down to the coast and then across the seafront, then into Portslade. The whole journey is about half an hour, but the stop we would get off at was Wish Road South. I remember seeing that name years ago too and I wrote it down and I just stuck in my mind. It felt like some kind of ritual then seeing it every day. There is a Wish Road North but it doesn’t sound as good. But you get to Wish Road South and you’re in the happy place making music.

Landscape seems to come through quite a lot in your music – do you have a broader connection to Sussex? And if that’s the case, when you’re putting tracks together, is it set and setting or melody and idea first?

I love places like Lewes. Shirley Collins lives there. I think Lewes even have their local currency where you can buy coins. It just seems quite a magical and strange place and whenever I’ve been there, they’ve done the fireworks. It almost feels a bit dangerous and otherworldly when you watch those fireworks there.

But all the parts around there, just under the surface of everything you’ll find a really cool heritage that’s underneath everything. I’ve been in Lewes before and found a really cool traditional folk song book in a charity shop and it’s just the kind of thing that you’d not normally find where I’m from. I love walking in the Sussex downs too. They are something I think about a lot so I guess it’s inevitable that that kind of setting would come out in my music.

One of the things that strikes me about the album is how remarkably well-paced it is. How much did the track ordering play into your mind, to give the listener space to step back and soak the whole album in?

Whenever I make an album I don’t tend to think too much about that. However, I suppose there is always an awareness of a type of song that’s missing, subconsciously. I listen to a lot and I want to make so many different types of music, it’s difficult to say, ‘the whole album is going to be like this’. But, I’ll try to find the song that’s missing, maybe chuck away a few as well, which, bizarrely, is a good feeling if you can do that because you know you’ve been a bit more discerning.

The opening tracks are always the ones where if I feel there’s a song that would work for that then that kind of dictates the pace. The opening track on this one ‘Flowers In The Garden’ with the harmonium it felt obvious. It was actually one of the last tracks I did for the album. Someone had left this harmonium out and I had a little play on it and I realised this has to be intro. I like albums with big intros, they’re almost cinematic.

There are also so many great bands that have had the confidence just to start with a vocal alone. I like to listen to groups like The Watersons. They made me realise I’ve never done something like that. But on this tour, I might do a track solo because linking back to when I was touring before, in places like Ireland, there’s loads of bands taking that approach and find the power to do it.

John Francis Flynn is a master at it. He can stop a whole room playing one of the quietest instruments. It can bring people up the same way loads of noise can bring you up at a metal gig. Yet it’s just John playing a tiny instrument, channelling something different to the loudest band who light up the stage.

The artwork for the album is beautiful too. Where did that come from?

I’m glad you asked because I’ve not really been asked about the album’s artwork yet! The filmmaker Tarchovsky he has this whole collection of polaroids. I got into his films around ten years ago and the polaroids he took just have always stuck in my mind. So if you were to look at them, you’d hopefully see a thread kind of through to this album’s artwork.

My idea was that it would be an altar piece. In fact, at one point, there was going to be an actual altar. All of those items on there are items from my family. Things like a driver’s licence from my grandma from years ago; an old book; an embroidered horse that my girlfriend Josie made; my mum made a sculpture of the woman on the front and a driftwood fish and my dad’s boat in the back. So there just a collection of things that were shot on my friend’s medium-format camera.

Some of the dappled light was so beautiful but some of it was so much that you couldn’t see any of it. Some of the versions of the cover we have look great but the dynamics aren’t as good. But maybe I could do a different pressing with a different cover. I’m thinking about doing a demos version which would be fun!

It’s there to make people wonder, ‘What is that?’, I suppose. Or ‘What the hell is this?’ when people see it on the shelves, because it’s not entirely obvious.

In terms of the final track, ‘A Gentle Place’, what do you hope people take from ‘Wish Road South’ when the final song on the album rolls around?

I’ve never had a string arrangement before on an album before. A friend suggested we do it and I was hesitant because my records have been humble and DIY and small. But, when I tuned into the session and got to watch it, it was crazy hearing people make all of those sounds on a song that you’ve written. All the chords and harmonies being brought out is amazing. Even hearing someone play one of my songs on piano I’m always like, ‘Wow, I wish I could do that!’. So, hearing the cello leading the way was so cool.

There’s something about bringing it down quietly like that which makes things a lot smaller and introspective. I always want the different parts and personality in there, I feel like a magpie always looking at these different things because I love so many different genres of music and they find their way in. But, it should always, hopefully, be a journey when people listen to it and this is kind of a nice goodnight.

If you could add a non-Hollow Hand track into either this album or a Hollow Hand set, what would it be and why?

Well, when you play live it’s always nice to have something exciting to play. So we’ve been discussing some Neil Young stuff. But I’m a big Syd Barrett guy so we were going to try to do ‘See Emily Play.’ I’ve never had a cover in an album and I’ve always wanted to do one just to see it and have it in there. So I think it will be an early Pink Floyd song because Syd’s a spirit animal for me.

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Listen to ‘Wish Road South‘ here:

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