Holy Fiction

The slow, labored pop songs of Holy Fiction unfold in a much different way than your standard pop fare. Yet the tracks on Hours From It are undeniable in their original pop constructs. The organic melodies slowly make their way into your memory and refuse to let go, even though the catchiness is more of a slow burn than a hipster gimmick. And that’s just the way Evan Lecker and Jordan McCune prefer things.

The same goes for the other members of the Houston band: Matt Giessler, Sally Tawfik, Asher Pudlo and Sam Lee. Here, McCune and Lecker give a bit more insight into the origin of Holy Fiction as well as their brand of “subversive” pop music.

SSv: I know you guys were all in different bands before Holy Fiction, so how does that come together?

Evan Lecker: Those two band were simultaneously on their downward spiral. All three of us were independently writing this new music and we didn’t know where to go with it. It didn’t fit within the confines that we were all respectively in. Then Matt showed me a song that would later become “Two Small Bodies,” and it was real folksy and somber and yet still had this real joy at the same time. I had some lyrics that I was writing, but I didn’t know where to put them because it didn’t fit anything, but it ended up fitting perfectly. Then there was some stuff that Jordan was writing as well.

When both bands broke up, we had this collection of songs and we already had three-fourths of a record already written without even having an official band yet. So when Matt had shown me that song, I’d decided to do that project with Matt. Then we brought Jordan in for the project and the project became the band. We were all going independently in this one direction, which was basically pop music — but it was well-thought out pop music, as much as we could make up at least. That’s really the best answer I can come up with.

Jordan McCune: Another thing is that the songs changed a lot when we brought them to the entire band. When we were writing independently, I think the song might have had some type of feel or direction, but I think the songs really changed as we collaborated. Then they actually became something that exceeded our expectations. There were a lot of songs on there that I would show Evan or that he would show me or Matt or whoever, and we would be skeptical at first. It was almost strange or accidental in some parts when we came together and they would start working.

Evan: Yeah, they came together quite easily. Whether it was the personnel or the music or what everyone was going through at the time or a combination of all of that, it all came together so easily. We were skeptical of it. On “Yes They Were Here,” I had this basic guitar riff and I know Matt and Jordan were like, ‘I don’t know.’ If you hear just the guitar, it is pretty boring. If you listen to the original, you think it’s really long and actually sucks. But when everyone came together and added their fingerprints, it became this giant wall of sound that stays strong even though it’s a fairly long song.

SSv: Did those earlier works make it on the record?

Evan: Yes, everything that we had made it onto the record. We only had eight songs that we had worked on. We had this one mad summer of writing and arranging. I crashed at their apartment for two weeks and we just stayed up late and did the whole record as far as demos. We wrote one song a month after that, “Exit.”

We only had eight songs and some other ideas, but we never got around to exploring them. We just had these songs we felt were so tight and they’re cut from the same cloth and they fit, so we used them. “Two Small Bodies” and “More Than Ever” were the first two and they both made it on.

SSv: There’s an organic yet calculated component to the album. You mentioned the joyful yet sorrowful side earlier…

Evan: That’s what makes music so fun is playing by the rules and then breaking them at the same time. Unless everyone is feeling passionate about it, then we’re not going to do a 25-minute rock opera. We’re not going to do a song at 11 just for the sake of putting a song at 11. An unspoken rule is that it’s pop music at its center. We’re not playing 12 versions of 12 different chords. Most of the songs are in four.

Jordan: Some bands focus on things like that. I like some math rock or different stuff like that, but I think our thing is playing really obscure rhythms or playing obscure melodies… well, we’re all older guys, I guess, so we try to keep things as simple as we can.  I think we can find beauty in other things. It’s the mixture as you mentioned. For some reason it works and it’s cohesive.

Evan: Pop bands can get away with murder. Art rock bands are already way out there and they can do what they want, but it’s funny how subversive that pop bands can be. I think of the bands that I grew up with like The Police and they’re super catchy but then when you go to play what any of those guys played on their instruments, you think, ‘Gosh, these guys are wacky.’ But they could play the weirdest chords or the weirdest combination of chords, but every song had the greatest hook you’ve ever heard. So you didn’t care, and you just went along with it.

One of the things we strive to do is to write a pop song, but if we’re already write a song, what kind of stuff can we do to it to make the song better and yet keep it accessible. If we can’t sing along with the song, then no one else is going to. If we don’t like it, no one else will like it.

SSv: Has the record done what you thought it would? It’s been a bit of time.

Evan: I’m not sure we wanted it to do anything other than to satisfy our curiosity to see if we could do this.

Jordan: I agree. I think it did really well. Obviously, we didn’t sell thousands of albums or anything like that. I think it got a bit of attention from people who noticed it and enjoyed it. For me, that made me happy. Ultimately, I think all of us were really impressed with it. Just thinking about a few summers ago when we recorded the demo, I never thought the record would come out the way that it did. Everyone was just really happy with the way that the record came out.

Evan: Also, we were fortunate enough to have our buddy James Hardeman has a good knack for recording stuff. He put a lot of effort into making it as sonic as it did. We were all a part of other bands and we’re not embarrassed by those at all, but we’re just excited to be on this upward climb as far as every other record we’ve been a part of.

SSv: So what does the rest of summer and fall have going on for you guys?

Jordan: We’re just writing this summer, so we don’t have much more going on. We have an ungodly amount of songs ready for the next record, and I think there will definitely be more of a filtering process than there was for the first record. Like you said earlier, we only had the eight. Now we have a ton of songs to filter through, so I assume we’ll start playing in August.

Evan: Yeah, we have some shows in the works in August and October. Really, this summer I know I’m going to spend some time with Matt and Jordan and make some demos for the new record. And that bigger filtering process, I agree with Jordan. Right now, I can think of 14 songs that are already there and we will whittle it down to 10 to make it a nice 45-minute album. I personally don’t like long records.

Jordan: You want to be left wanting more?

Evan: Yeah, those are my favorite albums. The next record will be a bit longer, since 38 minutes was a bit short, but I think we were originally going to put it on vinyl, but realized that it wouldn’t be worth it. But it will be a longer record, more involved and all of the best elements from this last album will be on the new one along with some new tricks we will pull out.