Hollow Head Reworked a Song Until the Music Matched the Sarcasm in Its Lyrics

Jimmy Adame, who makes up one half of Denver folk-rock duo Hollow Head, wrote the band’s latest single, “Porcelain,” while he was in a relationship that needed to end. It’s one of the more personal songs he’s written.

“I still didn’t end the relationship for another two years,” he recalls, chuckling. “The song is basically about that. … I [was] having a lot of things on my mind, but feeling like I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.”

Adame says the chorus of the song, which debuts on all major streaming platforms Thursday, October 20, concerns finding ways to make the most of the sticky situation and get through it by any means possible.

Elliott Miller, the second half of Hollow Head, knows all about it. He was there.

“I didn’t have to hear about it – I just got to sit back and watch,” Miller jokes. “I was around the whole time.”

“Elliott and I would have monthly conferences where he would sit me down and be like, ‘Dude, just fucking get out of this,'” Adame chimes in. “I’d be like, ‘No, I’ve got this and that reason.’ He’d be like, ‘Okay,’ and a month later we’d have the same conversation.”

“We got a good song out of it, though,” Miller says.

“We got one good song out of it.”

“Porcelain” had an earlier life as a song called “Sober,” and Hollow Head had been playing a very stripped-down version of it at gigs around Denver. They perform live as a duo, but “Sober,” which appeared on the full-length album A Spark of Madness, was recorded with a full backing band.

“We wanted to basically do an acoustic version of it when we performed,” Adame says. “We felt really good performing it at that energy level, and we decided to record an acoustic version of it.”

He says that once he and Miller started to record, they added ambient electric guitar elements and Adame rewrote the bridge to add guest vocals from indie-folk singer-songwriter Hannah Wyatt.

“It just started to feel like a different song,” Adame says. “I thought it might be appropriate to just kind of rebrand it as a different song. Even though it’s got the same bones, it does feel a lot different.”

Miller says that “Sober” is one of the more high-energy songs on A Spark of Madness, and they have spent time trying to figure out how to effectively play it live as a duo. When there are only two people on stage, some elements have to be stripped away, and Hollow Head has eschewed using backing tracks to fill out its sound.

“We decided to just change the whole vibe and go minimalist with it because just having less really seems to shine,” Miller says. “We thought about doing some stripped-back band stuff, but we decided to keep it more like a live recording.”

He adds that while the original song is high-energy and sounds happy, the lyrics are sarcastic. He feels like the new version more accurately conveys that spirit.

“The feeling the lyrics convey is more sonically represented in this version,” Miller says. “The instrumentation now matches the lyrics.”

“It does kind of feel like we are taking it a little more seriously with this version,” Adame adds.

Hollow Head teamed up with Wyatt on the song. Adame says he discovered her on social media, but the two have never met. He really liked her songs and wanted to work with her.

“She’s got this dark Americana, slightly country vibe,” he says. “She’s a great lyricist as well as having this dark bluegrassy sound. She’s very interesting and very unique. I’ve been a fan of hers for a while.”

At first she said she had a lot going on and wasn’t sure if she’d be able to, but then tracked a verse and sent it back the same day.

“It added way more to the song than I could have,” Adame says.

Miller says that as his own musical style is evolving, he found Wyatt’s vocals to be a good match for “Porcelain.”

“I kind of like the dark bluegrass,” he says. “I think that’s a pretty good description, and I like that vibe, especially for this song.”

Adame and Miller both came to Denver from Michigan looking for a change of scenery and have been making themselves at home, gigging around town and working with other local bands. They have some new music in the works, and an EP is likely in the near future.

They still travel home to record – they use the Reed Recording Company in Bay City – and they’ve been collaborating with United Kingdom-based animator Jez Pennington on a lyric video set to be released on October 29. They say Pennington has worked with artists such as Brother Bird and Bear’s Den, the latter being one of Hollow Head’s favorites.

“He’s been working with a lot of smaller and medium-sized artists doing really cool animated lyric videos,” Adame says. “We haven’t seen exactly what he has in store for us, but he’s hard at work getting something together.”

Check out hollowheadmusic.com for more music and information.