The Wichita band Holding will celebrate the release of its debut album “Grin” on Saturday, Nov. 30, with a performance at Harvester Arts at The Lux.
The show begins at 7 p.m. and is free, although there is a recommended donation of $10. Nothing Special and Hello Morning will also perform at this all-ages concert.
Holding guitarist Cy Rogers and drummer/keyboardist Wakinyan Shrubshall recently visited the KMUW studios to talk about the origins of the material heard on “Grin.”
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When did you know that you wanted to go into the studio and make a full-length release?
Cy Rogers: We started writing songs in July of ’23, and I think we mostly had a full album done by January of ’24. I think at that point we decided, “We like these songs, we like the process that we’re taking, we might as well go in and record.”
You had tested it live.
CR: We had played quite a few live shows at that point. It’s always nice to do that because you know how it feels in a room or how people respond to it better than when you’re just in a practice space. [You’re all] sort of excited about it, but to see other people’s responses is always validating and also helps know where to fix, what to adjust, “That part was boring, that part wasn’t boring.”
Wakinyan Shrubshall: We played maybe half a dozen shows before we went in the studio, and we really hadn’t even been a band that long or anything. But we did take three months off and just rehearse the record. Every week, went in and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed, so that way when we went in the studio, we had tracked eight of the nine songs in one day. We did it live in a room, and then did our nice 11-minute piece the next morning and got it pretty quickly, too.
CR: That’s one of the things that stands out about the four of us is that it’s pretty workmanlike when we show up to practice. Obviously, we enjoy being around each other, and we have a good time, and we crack a bunch of jokes. We’ve all been in bands long enough, we’ve all been doing this long enough, that you have an appreciation for the time that you’re spending together, and we try to put in as much effort as possible because we’re a pretty DIY band. We don’t want to waste time or waste effort, so we really invest as much as possible into that.
Where did you record the album?
WS: We did it at Shocker Studios with Paul DiGiovanni in a [small room]. We did it in February. We did just the live tracking, and it sounded great. We sent Paul some records we liked. I was a little more particular about the drum sound. Soundgarden’s “Superunknown” is kind of my reference. Paul was great. Paul really showed up and the sounds were great right out of the gate, so it sounded great just from pre-mix, pre-anything.
CR: It was almost all live except for some synth that Wakinyan overdubbed and Chris [Mackie, guitars] did some loops but there’s no double tracking guitars, nothing like that. It’s all what we recorded.
WS: Vocals were overdubbed.
CR: Vocals were overdubbed.
WS: We didn’t do those live. All four of us in the room just playing the songs.
I asked about that because one thing I really like about the record is the sound picture. So, it seems like you had a pretty good idea of what you wanted.
WS: I’d say so. Sometimes you don’t know until you listen back and say, “Oh, that’s what we sound like. Cool. It doesn’t sound like the nice concrete room we practice in; it sounds a little clearer than that.”
CR: That goes back to playing live, too. Kirby’s sounds different than Barleycorn’s, which sounds different that an all-ages space or a DIY space or something. [You can say], “I know what works here.” We’re a relatively loud band so being able to live in the volume of it too helps [us understand what it’s going to sound like, too]. Feedback becomes a part of some of the songs, some of the way that it’s supposed to sound is some of that expanse.
Tell me about the epic piece on the record.
CR: [Laughs.]
WS: The last song, “Grave Won’t Dig Itself.” We’ve never played that live. Yet. Yet. It’s a long song. Cy brought the beginning part in. It was this big thing, and we just jammed on it for a while. But even from the beginning, I’d say, I remember hearing that and [saying], “It doesn’t need drums until the end.” The idea was to have a synth part, but we had never really rehearsed it with a synth part. I hashed it out and worked on it for a while and then just showed up when we did overdubs and did the synth part in one take. I practiced it a lot. That song’s 11 minutes so it’s like five hours of practice at a time. It was one [where we realized], “Yeah, this is a last song on the album kind of thing.” It came out really cool. The production on it was really cool. Paul helped put some of it together and kind of made it a really cool piece.
CR: I don’t know if we know how to play it.
WS: Yeah.
CR: We recorded it and then that’s the last time any of us interacted with it! [Laughs.]
WS: It was almost a year ago. Yeah, we’ve never played it live. We’ve talked about it. You play a 70-band bill, and you’ve got 15 minutes. We’ve talked about just doing that song and that’s it. Which we still could do. That one’s a cool one. It came out really cool, and I’m proud of it. That was the first big synth part I’d ever written for something, and I had a lot of fun doing it. I would like to do more of that. So, I’m going to get a keytar soon. That’s what I’m saying.
Nice.
CR: Fully endorsed.
Yeah.
CR: Fully endorsed.
