From The Deep: An Interview with The Mariana Hollow

Rebecca Spinks (vocals), Richie Walden (guitars), Scott Chesworth (bass) & Danny Russell (guitars)

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Despite still being a relatively obscure band from the outskirts of London, alternative metal quintet The Mariana Hollow have enjoyed plenty of critical acclaim following on from their debut album Coma Heart, and a series of well received shows mostly in the London area, supporting the likes of To-Mera, Theatre of Tragedy, The Eden House, Lahannya, Pythia and Lacrimas Profundere. Sitting under the shade just outside of Birmingham’s Asylum venue, the band quietly recover from a successful debut performance outside of the South.

“I think it went really, really well,” comments rhythm guitar player Richie Walden; “The crowd were awesome actually.”

To his left, lead singer Rebecca ‘Spinky’ Spinks agrees, elaborating on the gig itself; “I think it’s nice to share the stage with a lot of different bands, get to know other bands that are in our genre. It’s good for us to make connections so we can do more gigs in the future. It’s really good for us to get out of London as well.”

The gig she is referring to is the Femme Metal Festival. The festival pulls together a wide variety of different bands, all with female singers and all from varying different genres. Even on a line up with a wide selection of bands, The Mariana Hollow feel noticeably different, with maybe only one or two acts being in the same ballpark, let alone being similar. This is something the band are pretty aware of, feeling comfortable in their situation.

“I think even when we do female fronted bills, it’s still a lot of bands of different styles of music.” explains Spinky; “They don’t all sound the same, today they all sound different. It takes away from being ‘the female issue’ and being more about just interesting music.”

Richie agrees, and highlights the advantages of such bills; “I think what’s nice about it is it lets people be more open minded, every band today is very different. People are willing to just actually listen and check you out. Obviously it’s because there’s a female singer, but I don’t think any of the bands sound alike.”

“When you’re on bills like today, it really gives you a sense of perspective of how you’re doing.” adds bassist Scott Chesworth; “There’s a lot of good bands on today, and it gives a sense of how high others are setting the bar.”

Scott makes a good point, but in many ways the band have set the bar very high already, especially in how far they have come in such a short time. After all, the band formed only a few years ago. The band’s story starts when lead guitarist Danny Russell, formerly of Hampshire-based band Season’s End, joined Richie’s band at the time.

“ She was incredibly humble, but also what she’d written for the music was absolutely perfect ”
- Richie Walden

“Danny joined and we really clicked on where we wanted to go musically and how we wrote together.” explains Richie; “The other guys in the band didn’t want to play the kind of music we wanted to, so they lost interest and left.”

This didn’t deter the duo though, who quickly set about writing many of the songs that would end up forming the band’s debut. They shortly enlisted both Scott and drummer Adam Stanley, an obvious choice for the band as Richie continues; “He was the first drummer we auditioned. We had twelve lined up, and we had to call everyone and say sorry, cause he was just perfect. His attitude, the way he plays, he’s a very solid drummer and a really good guy.”

Whilst writing and forming the band had been a painless task, finding a singer for the fledgling outfit proved much more difficult. The search went high and low, trying out many, many singers in the process. “Initially we were looking for a female singer.” Richie comments; “We did audition a few male singers, but it never felt right. There’s a certain thing a female voice can bring.”

It took a considerable amount of time to find the right voice. Eventually, a singer was uncovered. Expressing a love of singers such as Aimee Echo of Human Waste Project, Rebecca immediately interested the group; “I remember going to Danny’s after one of our writing sessions, and we just ended up at the pub listening to this demo thinking ‘Oh my god… there’s probably going to be something seriously wrong with this person, psychotic or something’. Her voice was incredible, and she sent a couple of tracks from her old band, and they really didn’t display what she could do very adequately.”

He continues, talking about the band’s first meeting with their future singer; “She was incredibly humble, but also what she’d written for the music was absolutely perfect, it was what we all needed. Her voice was so dynamic, there’s so much you can do with it.”

He isn’t kidding, and the young singer has only gotten stronger as both her and the band have become more comfortable with one another. Despite being a humble, easy-going and friendly person, Rebecca has a voice that can put even some of the most capable divas in their place. There’s influences from many notable alternative and metal singers – both male and female – in her voice, but her deep, soaring delivery that can swing to a high-pitched cry at any minute, should leave any listener wondering how on earth she can do it. Her ability to cover both rocking melodies, dark and brooding dramas and soft, gentle ballads proves to be perfect for the band’s music – itself a delicate interplay between the two guitarists, playing parts that are often deliberately subtle and understated, against the intriguing bass-lines and diverse rhythms. There are plenty of bands who no doubt influenced the band – A Perfect Circle, Alice in Chains, Anathema, Opeth, Madder Mortem, etc. – but at the same time The Mariana Hollow sound separate from everything, and yet also strangely familiar. With the band now complete though, they were able to complete their self-released debut Coma Heart.

“ We’re so proud of it, it sounds leagues beyond Coma Heart in my opinion ”
- Danny Russell

“I’m immensely proud of it.” states Richie; “I love every single song. Its obviously our first album, but there’s not a moment on that album that I’m not proud of. Every song I think has real meaning.”

Despite being met with widespread acclaim, the album did have promotional problems as a result of being self-released, as Scott explains their hardest challenge; “Getting people to know that you’ve actually got something out, on the promotion side of it when there’s only us handling that, that’s a bitch.”

There is some optimism though, and all in all the band are happy with their debut; “What’s particularly nice about Coma Heart, is that being a small band and not having a label to push it, we’ve had a reasonable amount of radio play on it. All the reviews we’ve had of the record have been positive. A lot of that has been people just finding us after seeing us at the shows. It has been really good for us, because I think even though we don’t have the might of a huge label pushing us, people are seeing and getting what we do.”

At this point, The Mariana Hollow are gearing up for album number two. Called Velvet Black Sky (“I think it fits with all the songs on the album, the kind of title that just works with every one.” comments Spinky), the album has already been recorded and produced by Danny, having wide-ranging production experience across the music industry. The album has been mixed by French producer Brett Caldas-Lima, known for his outstanding work with such bands as To-Mera and Whyzdom. Danny comments; “We were looking for that kind of punchy, contemporary sound. He’s done a cool job.”

The band have already previewed several of the tracks from the album, including regular set opener Second To None. The band’s set in Birmingham was dominated with new tracks, showing the bands continued growth. Alongside Second to None are other hard rockers such as Dead Reckoning, as well as very accessible tracks such as Your Halo. Whilst Coma Heart might still be fresh in people’s minds, the band are ready for the next stage.

“A lot of the stuff we wrote on Coma Heart, guitar-wise, was before we had the rest of the band.” comments Danny; “Richey and I had written and arranged these guitar based songs. Everyone else came and put their stuff on top of that. Now we’ve kind of learned to write what works the best for the band.”

Spinky also comments on the new album, comparing it with Coma Heart; “I think on this album we tried to do the things that we thought we could do better. We made it longer. There’s some more songs on it, gets a bit heavier in areas, its a little bit darker.”

Before the album is released, the band intend to record a promo video (“We’re thinking of doing Your Halo” adds Richie), before releasing the album near the end of the summer. The burning question, though, is whether or not this next album will be self-released as well.

“ We’ll never stop because we don’t have lots of people around us, we’ll just keep going ”
- Rebecca Spinks

“At the moment, yeah.” Danny replies, regretfully; “Yeah, its frustrating man. We’re so proud of it, it sounds leagues beyond Coma Heart in my opinion. We’ve refined what we do, the songs are more focused yet sometimes they are the same length as before. They kind of get to the point, to the meat of the song.”

Indeed, it seems like an immense shame that a band so unique and so talented, with both fans and critics united behind the band, are ignored by the struggling recording industry. Perhaps though it is only a matter of time before The Mariana Hollow build enough of a following to acquire the interest of the record labels. In the meantime, it is a relief to find that despite things, the band appear to be very capable of promoting and doing things for themselves. So very few bands can manage what this one has done in their short time together, especially on their own.

What perhaps is the biggest relief though is the knowledge that even if the chips are down, the band are prepared to struggle through hard times, as Spinky concludes; “We’re trying to slowly build up a following. There’s so many bands… we just hope we’re a little bit different, something a bit exciting. We’ll just keep going because we like doing it. We’ll never stop because we don’t have lots of people around us, we’ll just keep going.”

With that kind of attitude, and with their kind of talent, it would be very surprising indeed if the band don’t find the following they’re looking for.

Written by James Donovan
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