The Happy Hollows

1.       What do you aim to transmit with your music?

I don’t aim to transmit anything too deep. I just hope the energy of love and creation comes through when we play!

2.       What’s been the most rewarding moment for you as a band?

There have been many for me. It’s hard to pick one. In fact, this very moment, right now, feels like the most rewarding moment. We have a new drummer, and we are all writing new songs together. We are experimenting with new ways of making music and love just making music together. Of all the adventures and shows and events, this feels the best: just creating together.

Revolve’s favorite songs: LIEUTENANT  | TAMBOURINE | HIGH WIRE

3.       What are your current projects/pieces about?

My solo project is called Pisces, and it is a group of songs that have folk elements to them. It is slightly softer music that just does not fit in with the music of Happy Hollows. Charlie helped out a lot, he played bass and helped produce the songs, and Chris, our original drummer, played drums. The album is much more feminine. Pisces is like the moon, where Happy Hollows is like the sun. My album is entirely female in feel, which I needed after all these years of making music with boys! ha! I just let the songs be about love, and mystical things like sex, and the moon, and the earth, and spirituality. All the things that sometimes Charlie would be uncomfortable with me singing about in Happy Hollows I got to do in Pisces. So, it is the other half of me, like the moon is half and the sun is half, and together, they share their time with the earth!

4.       Is the Happy Hollows next album also different from your previous work?

Our next album is very different in feel, mostly because we are incorporating the use of synthesizers a lot more. It was always part of the plan though. When I met Charlie, he had been mostly an electronic musician, but at that time he said he wanted to just focus on the bass for a while. But now he has returned to his electronic roots. I thought that sounded like a fun idea.

5.       Sarah, as lead singer and guitarist, of Iranian-American roots, are you open to exploring more ‘Oriental’ style music?

Yes, my father is Persian and lived his entire life in Iran until moving to the U.S. in the late 1970s. I’m always open to different styles! I grew up with Persian music all around me, so I think it seeped in. Check out my solo song “Flower Toes”! About a minute and a half in it gets very Middle Eastern in feel, which I really dig! I hope that one makes my daddy proud!

6.       Have you established contacts with local musicians in Iran?

I communicate with my family in Iran, and they are most definitely not musicians. I would love to meet artists from Iran though!

7.       Richie, you’re the new drummer since early 2011, how has this been for you joining the Happy Hollows after their great first album Spells? How excited are you? What else do you do in life?

Joining the Happy Hollows has been great! Sarah and Charlie are the coolest and both are extremely talented musicians. They have made my transition into the band quite easy.

Spells is a really great album, I knew right when I first heard it that I should audition for the band and I am glad I did. We are very excited about the new songs! The new record will be a bit of a change from Spells, but it is always good to keep things new and fresh as an artist.

When I am not playing drums, I love to skateboard and to hang out with my friends and family.

8.       Charles Mahoney, the bassist and electronic ‘brain’ of the band, what’s your favorite moment on stage?

My favorite moment on stage is getting to the point where you don’t have to think about what you are doing musically. At that point, when you’ve played the songs so much that it is second nature, it’s possible to really enjoy the experience.

Sarah’s exuberance is what keeps us all going. If it weren’t for that, we’d be cooped up in an office somewhere and making sure that all the figures were correct on this quarter’s financial statements. If we could bottle Sarah’s exuberance, it would sell faster than Coca-Cola.

9.       Sarah, where do you find this energy? Where do you find such inspiration?

I don’t know where my energy comes from, it just flows through me. It is joy. It is really that simple. I love to perform and I love to play music and I love having a team of supporters and I love being creative. Human beings inspire me. I love people. I’m in awe of people. For instance, I just saw this documentary about Robert Moog, the man who created Moog synthesizers. He was so whacky and adorable and inspiring, I will probably write a song about him. Everything inspires me. Life is so amazing! So inspiring! All these different people all so unique and precious. Every single person. Everything is being held up by gravity and somehow it’s all working. Life!

10.   Sarah, as the song writer – what are some of your favorite lyrics? Where do they come from?

Lyrics mostly come when I first write the song. Otherwise, they come at totally random hours of the day or night. It is a really a bizarre experience because it’s like I’m trying to hear the song speak to me. I try to hear what the song is saying the lyrics are. It never feels like they are my lyrics, or even my song. It’s as if I’m translating something that is already made and it’s coming through me.

Some of my favorite lyrics are on my Pisces album. I like the lyrics from my song “Flower Toes” I showed you:

All of a sudden the answers are coming to my head

I’m one and the same with you and we were never divided

An infinitesimal dot, or as big as the sun is

It’s everywhere all the time, all of us, everything, nothing.

11.   How do you find inner peace with all the noise? Is there a special ‘place’ you go to where your thoughts no longer belong to you?

These are fun questions to answer, thank you! Yes, there is a blissful, internal place I go to and it’s so easy to reach, but the mind will say it is complicated. There is a still quiet place inside everyone. It is where creativity and original thought really come from in my experience. It is simple to get there. Here is the trick: “don’t believe your thoughts.” Just have a thought.  Observe that thought. Have space between you and that thought. Inquire into that thought. Realize that the mind is always thinking, and when you believe every thought, you will have no space. It is noisy up there in your mind. I sometimes say:

“All of these thoughts in my head. None of them are mine.”

It’s almost like a visual – a stream of thoughts going by me appears. They are of course my thoughts, but there is space there. I’m not attached to any of them, and I don’t believe any of them. There is space where I can inquire into the validity of any of them. There is just for me. Being. No thought. Just observing. What happens after a while of this is a state of absolute bliss. I no longer feel like “Sarah Negahdari.” Me – separate from you. From that tree a knowingness of being somehow one with everything happens, and it feels very blissful. Very connected to everything, and everything is good. It’s like, “wow,” I could die and I could just turn into dirt that could be the dirt for new grass and that is just absolutely divine because it is part of this oneness of everything. And it would be now whenever that is so it IS. That is truly how it feels. Try it. I would like to know about your experience. Maybe you will have a new insight different from mine. That would be so great!

For more details on The Happy Hollows shows, t-shirts, posters, lyrics, videos:

www.myspace.com/thehappyhollows | www.facebook.com/happyhollows | thehappyhollows.blogspot.com

Photography: Haystack – Ben Irwin – Pinpoint Music | Photography: Rehearsal – Zoe Ruth-Erwin