John Holowach is a filmmaker and samplist from Youngstown, Ohio. His non-traditional approach to songwriting and producing is unlike most artists who are paying their dues in the bars and clubs night after night. Instead, John has embraced sampling and online collaboration to create an interesting and diverse collection of music.
His humble demeanor is refreshing. In what appears to be the polar opposite to the quest for the spotlight, John thrives behind the scenes. Like a scientist in a lab using trial & error, his talent lies in his ability to find the right combination of seemingly unworkable pieces and be able bring something magical to light.
My conversation with John opened a whole new appreciation for his craft, and for his contribution to the music community.
Project Opus: Where is Youngstown?
John Holowach: I've been told it's somewhere in North-Eastern Ohio, a few hours from Cleveland. In reality, it is an alternate dimension where man and and beast commune in a vortex of ancient steel mills.
Tell us a bit about how you got your start and decided that creating music was in your future.
I originally started after hearing Rob Dougan's “I'm Not Driving Anymore” (Instrumental) in the trailer for Matrix: Reloaded. I sought that out for months until his release was eventually put out in the US. Inspired, I worked diligently and remixed his entire album, which Rob very much appreciated. From there, I began a slow build-up of remixes and sampling until I found a groove that I liked. While remixing still holds a place for me, creating something new – whether using samples or original work – is far more fulfilling, especially when the fans tell you that you are their favorite artist. Very gratifying.
What’s your connection to the film industry?
I've been making films since I was in single digits. I was always the one with the camera at parties, get-togethers, reunions, graduations, all of that. I've known that I wanted to be a filmmaker since I first saw Jurassic Park at the theater. Seeing dinosaurs actually brought into existence was amazing to me, and I knew that I had to be a part of anything that could accomplish that.
Today I'm working on several disparate film projects, with the most recent just now completed – a documentary about the war on drugs call HIGH. More info and the trailer can be found at www.truehigh.com.
More than anyone we’ve interviewed to date, your music seems to be created for the web: writing, production, distribution, and how it’s used all seem to more possible today than say 10 years ago. Would you still be writing music the technology wasn’t there?
Hard to say. My first experience with playing music was the piano lessons my mother gave to me when I was about eight. I hated them, and I just never got to where either I or my teacher wanted me to be, so I quit. Live instrumentation just wasn't my thing, and it wasn't until I discovered how to use technology to create and mix music that I started to blossom. So, would I be writing music otherwise? Maybe, but then I probably would have quit that, too.
You bring samples together to create the songs. Do you ever work with any other artists on the songwriting part, too?
The only time I collaborate in a direct way with other artists is through my band Tryad, which is scattered around the globe. All the vocal samples I use in my solo music originally came from acapella sources on ccmixter.org or archive.org. I sort of build the music up around them. Take the sample in “M o t h e r,” for instance: though it sounds like a jazzy woman singing, it is actually a man whose voice I altered to get the right feel. In some ways it’s easier than traditional songwriting, in other ways it’s more difficult.
If I had to pick an artist I'd like to collaborate with on a solo song (outside of my immediate musical circle), it would be Brad Sucks.
Is the discovery of the right sound or vocal line part of the creative process or do you know what you want and go looking for it?
Sampling is a strange musical art form. Essentially, it involves scouring sources for bits and pieces that may be useful to you. Sometimes you strike gold and other times it sounds like a train wreck when you attempt to piece it together. It's less like a process of choosing the right one than trolling for the right Creative Commons sample to use until I find what I'm looking for.
How do you select the right samples and vocals for the songs?
It's not a scientific process. Actually, I imagine it rather works like traditional composition, and, since I've done that as well, I think the comparison is valid. Instead of putting together notes into a pattern, I put loops and one-hits and samples. As for vocals, I usually have no idea where a vocal line might go until I try working it into something, and then it just fits.
Do you bring in other samplists to work on the songs or projects? In this format, how is working on your own different from working with others? Obviously you don’t get to have the long, stressful nights in the studio like a more conventional band does – is there a creative equivalent?
No, I haven't collaborated with other samplists. Part of the charm of being a samplist is that you're a lone wolf, of sorts. Occasionally I'll get a sample directly from a musician, in which case (more likely than not) it would be my good composer friend Steven J. Kukla.
As for the different working conditions, I try to match disparate bits and pieces together to make something new and interesting, as opposed to matching disparate notes together. Though some people just think that's a glorified remixer, I'd have to disagree with that. Different musicians have different talents, and hearing two sounds that might go together from collections of hundreds of thousands is a talent unto itself.
The creative equivalent to the studio, I suppose, is when I can't...quite...get it. When there's something key missing and I don't know what it is.
Where do you find the inspiration for the songs you write? Social Change, Heartbreak, Rebellion, Obscure metaphors?
Depends on the song, really. For instance, “Mesmerize” is a song about a deep depression that a dear friend went through years ago, with me trying to capture the depth of it. “M o t h e r” is a treatise on feeling disconnected from the parents you came from as you get older and start to spread your own wings. It could be just about anything. “Get Down and Be Funky” is about a man I saw grooving to his iPod one day, which looked strange without the music to go with it.
So you pull songs from things you observe in everyday life. Do you start with a full idea, or do you experiment and try to discover things that work together?
Mmm...I suppose my process of creating ideas is much like sampling itself. There's no one way I approach songs. Some songs are just random things that popped into my head for no reason whatsoever. Oftentimes, I just match the title of the song to what I managed to stitch together.
Describe your typical songwriting process. Do you think you will ever play / write / collaborate with a band or other artist full time?
Usually I have a specific bunch of samples in mind that I want to combine together. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The number of aborted projects on my hard drive is about twice that of the final works I put out.
As for collaborating, I already do. My band Tryad formed about two years ago when I remixed a song by rjmarshall, and then vavrek wanted to add vocals. It’s been synergy from thereon in.
Who are you listening to these days?
Everything. I stack them up in the Winamp playlist and shuffle them. Some that stand out are Adam Green and his excellent album “Friends of Mine,” Hayley Westenra's “Pure,” anything by Rob Dougan, Ian Moore's “Luminaria,” Moby, The Secret Machines, UNKLE, DJ Shadow, I Monster, Ella Fitzgerald, The Servant, and a bunch of others.
But if you really want to hear what I'm listening to recently, I do a weekly online radio show on my website, www.narphonax.com/radio.
Do you have a guilty pleasure for something different, like maybe you’re a fan of Elvis or something totally unexpected?
Ella Fitzgerald isn't unexpected? Heh. Well, I do have some Elvis songs on my hard drive. The most unexpected would probably be the mounds of classical music I have, included some of the great atonal composers like Penderecki and Xenakis. I also love those old romantic songs from the 40's and 50's. Other unexpected additions are Tom Waits, X-Japan, Glenn Miller, Bocephus King, Fats Domino, and many more. I'm very eclectic in my tastes, pretty much whatever sounds good to me.
Do you ever play live or plan to?
No, I do not play live. Perhaps one day. I do have many ideas involving audience participation and interaction. If I do a show live, it'll be with Tryad.
Does the pop commercial success of artists like Moby give you hope that your style will be accepted by the masses or do you feel you will always be on the fringes of popular music?
Indeed I do owe a debt of gratitude to Moby for his furtherance of trip-hop and techno styles. As for widespread success, it's hard to say, really. I just make music that I want to hear, and apparently quite a few others do as well. All the rest is peripheral.
Sync licenses (selling songs for use in commercial applications) are a bit of a sore spot for those who consider it a sell out. What is your opinion of this? Is it a good, honest way for a musician to earn a living, or does it compromise the artistic value of the music?
Of course it's good and honest. I'm in the unique position to be seeing this from the angle of a filmmaker as well. Let's examine this one at a time, though:
1. Movies/Television – No shame in there. How many times have you heard something in a movie or television show from an artist that worked perfectly in a thematic way? Even artists that keep their music close to their chest allow its use for quality material. Consider Godspeed You Black Emperor and 28 Days Later.
2. Commercials – More than movies, these tend to pay quite a bit for the privilege of using your work to promote a product or service. If you personally disagree with the quality of that, then obviously stick with your scruples, but if you like it, why not? It's just another way for your music to get out there, and you make money in the process.
You’ve just released a digital album, which is the online equivilant to a CD. Tell us about that experience.
Fallen Angel is a digital album that I'm selling on Project Opus, amongst other places. This is my first foray into non-CC releasing for my music as a sort of experiment. Will it succeed? Who knows. Let the adventure continue.
Many of our readers might be unfamiliar with the true meaning of Creative Commons. What is a CC band?
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that puts out licenses for artists to attach to their works that say what others can do with it. For instance, instead of “All Right Reserved,” it's “Some Rights Reserved.” In the past, my music has been on Attribution-ShareAlike and Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike licenses (meaning that you must attribute me when you use my work, the resulting work must be under the same license, and you can either use it for commercial or noncommercial purposes).
A CC band is one that releases all or most of its work under a Creative Commons license. It could be the most restrictive license (Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives) or the least (Attribution), but the purpose of it is to share your music freely and allow others to listen and possibly use in ways you hadn't expected. It's how Tryad started, and now, of the CC bands, we're one of the best known.
Did you know when you started the recordings that the songs were all going to end up on the same body of work (a virtual CD), or did you just accumulate enough to put it all together? Is there any sort of theme to it all?
The two albums I have up on Project Opus are only a portion of my whole discography. I started in 2005 with A Basement of Broken Dreams on archive.org, where most of my music is posted. After that it's been Sickness in the World, Piano Works, Melodies Of Fear, Shape Of Impact, Elements, Watchtower (all on archive.org), and now Fallen Angel and Lonely Girl.
As for when I know...I don't. I try to keep things together thematically, though. Piano Works is, obviously, my piano-based songs; Watchtower is a collection of ambient and dark electronica works; Melodies Of Fear starts with a very creepy phone call and goes from there. So, yeah, I try to work it all together. My most recent, Lonely Girl, is less structured though. Trip-hop, of course, but also rap, acoustic, and orchestral.
What’s next for you, John?
Well, I'm working diligently on finishing Lonely Girl as well as Tryad's upcoming album Listen (which will also be on Opus). Also, I'm trying to get distribution for the documentary on the drug war, HIGH (www.truehigh.com). Beyond that? I may have a few surprises. Stay tuned.
