10 09 09 Holler, Wild Rose - the John Mosloskie Interview

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Roy's notes:

I've known John since he was a kid.  He's not a kid today by any means.  His band, Holler, Wild Rose! is a seven-piece outfit that has been touring the USA and Canada for better than two years, and they have a CD and a fanbase wherever they've played.  I'd asked him for an interview last November; Sara, who is much better at these things than I, did the questions; and in June of this year, we had a talk over coffee.

Sara's notes:

John knows that I produced much of Roy's music when we lived in the Paterson warehouse, but I didn't want to make a disturbance by talking with him through Roy, so I sat back and watched and listened.  John is a very rare person - he's open and honest, and at the same time has a formidable strength of character.

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ROY:  What got you into playing musical instruments?

JOHN:  I started learning piano at age eight at parental request, but after three years I stopped.  I tried sports but it left me unfulfilled and with concussions.  But I enjoyed listening to music and I wanted to play, play with others.  It was a choice between concussions, I was starting to stutter!, and pursuing music.

ROY:  I've had three serious concussions.  Maybe it explains some things about me!

JOHN:  Also, I wanted to be more the outsider and sports didn't give me that freedom.  Plus, bass guitar is easy to start with, although I've come to the realization about how subtle and complex it can be.  My parents both had musical interests, but.......life intervened.

ROY:  What does the music of Holler, Wild Rose! do to you emotionally?

JOHN:  It uplifts me.  It paints a lot of landscapes.  (pauses)  And there is a difference between a song we've played for years and a new song.  With a new song, maybe unfinished, there's a certain......raw energy unleashed.  There's one we're working with now called Skein of Yarns: in my mind's eye I see an ocean dock, a ship going out to sea....it has overtones of an apocalypse.


ROY:  (with surprise)  You've just generated another question!  Y'see, music generates visual inagery for me also, sometimes enough to make a narrative, but this doesn't happen with everyone.  But is visualization a consistent part of doing music for you?

JOHN:  Yeah, definitely!  Most of my music is generated by visual imagery!

ROY:  Sounds like a happy feedback loop - music generating visuals, visuals generating music!

JOHN:  Oh yeah!  (laughs)

ROY:  Sara wants to know a bit about how one of your songs is created, from the initial inspiration to what you play on stage.

JOHN:  (looking thoughtful)  Sometimes I'll get a chord progression and a melody comes from that, or I'll have a melody and work out a chord structure.  (pauses)  When I bring new stuff to the band and we go for it, everyone works out their own parts unless I have something specific in mind.  And recently, our bassist (Scott van Genderen) gave me a CD of small things he's done; he's very creative.  He asked me to listen to the "good stuff."  I did and we will be working with some of that!

ROY:  How do new audiences react to a Holler, Wild Rose! show?

JOHN:  Eh, a lot of people go to their local clubs not really knowing who or what they'll hear.


ROY:  How do they respond?

JOHN:  It depends upon the crowd.  Manhattan?  Disaffected, to me.  They come to hear one band and then they go.  But we just played Toronto, with a demographic of 11 to 23, and they were GOING along with the music, like, we had seven people dancing with us on stage.  They were all new to us!  One person told us after, "We hate sitting through opener bands, but you all were a pleasant surprise." 

ROY:  Your music has been called "dark," "industrial," "psychedelic."  To me, it's none of these, you're unique.  The band does create something of a "wall of sound," most notably with your signature song "Holler, Wild Rose!;" and I find that delightfully overwhelming.   You all generate an energy, or energy field.  But as a Christian, you have a spiritual life.  In broad terms, does your spiritual life affect your music, or does your music affect your spiritual life?

JOHN:  (long thoughtful pause)  Well.....I'm often struck by sunrises, by natural beauty.  Sometimes I reflect on the One that made these things.  (pauses)  Lately due to personal circumstances I've written songs that MIGHT be called "prayers for help and guidance."  But our music is more about life, its joys and pains, and I must point out, most every one of them is NOT geared to be a song of praise or testimony.  My music, our music, is an affirmation that what I believe is real.  Music can and does transport us beyond ourselves, beyond our physical lives.

ROY:  Oh, does it ever!  (smiles)  You know, the first well-known Christian artist, Larry Norman -

JOHN:  Who?

ROY:  Larry Norman, he wrote "I Wish We'd All Been Ready."

JOHN:  Oh, that guy!  Yeah!

ROY:  (I hadn't known that Larry Norman had died on February 24 2008 when we were discussing this)  He early on made it a point to write, umm, "songs all kinds," not just praise and testimony.  But this seems a natural segue to the next question Sara has.  There is a broad, somewhat nasty segment of fundamentalist Christianity that says, "All rock music is of the Devil!"  (She was thinking of evangelist Bob Larson) and she wondered whether you have had any personal experiences with them?  And what would be your response?

JOHN:  (smiles)  Probably when I was in grade school, you know I attended a Christian school as a kid.  (smiles more broadly)  And, if anyone said anything today, well, you're entitled to your opinion!  (laughs)

ROY:  I'm aware that some of the band members, such as keyboardist/flautist Morgan Mosloskie, have had classical training.  Tell us about the others!

JOHN:  Our guitarist Ryan Cheresnick is largely self-taught ,Ryan Smyth is a drummer from a family of gopsel drummers, Scott van Genderen is self-taught on bass, Steve Oyola was taught by his dad on drums, keyboards and guitar and Lou D'Elia learned guitar with "lessons-sort-of!" Actually, I learned the basics of guitar from Lou when we played in a high school punk rock band called Giving Way.


ROY:  (stares for a moment)  Seven people, yeah, that's everyone!  Okay then, umm, what size audience do you like best?

JOHN:  Small crowds - as long as they're not in bars! (laughs)  We had an acoustic set in front of 25 people and I was actually more nervous than playing in front of 1000 people on the same tour!  (smiling)  Buuuut, there's NOTHING like playing for 1000 people!  (grins)

ROY:  Oh, been dare done dat, yeah, man!  (laughs)  Heh....most "indie bands' develop a group of hardcore fans or 'cult follwers.  This often begins with family and friends of the band members,and I know you folks are no exception to this, but this "circle" expands with time as the group performs, tours and releases music and videos.  Does Holler, Wild Rose! have a decent hard core following?

JOHN:  It's different than it was two years ago.  A short while ago I got a PM on our Myspace from a Japanese fan.  He said he liked our music and badly wanted to see us.  Just a little while later we were playing in Brooklyn and he was there with his wife!  And our families have all been very supportive of us, none of us have had the family opposition that some musicians face, not at all.  However, our oldest fans have heard our older material quite a number of times, so understandably, they'd like to hear some new stuff!


ROY:  Every band has its "nightmare performance" stories: equipment blowing, hostile audiences, shady managers and promoters.  Tell us some stories!

JOHN:  My personal nightmare is singing into a microphone without a foam shock-cover in a basement club with electrical grounding issues. (winces)  And we've had amps cut out for no reason in front of a packed house. We had a gig at the Euphoria Lounge in Bloomfield New Jersey on Goosey Night in 2004, and at 1:30 in the morning we hadn't even been on stage.  We couldn't get a straight answer from the promoter, so we walked, but we went screaming and kicking garbage cans as we left.  But the one that sticks out was this place in Lynchburg, Virginia.


ROY:  (eyes wide)  Jerry Falwell's Lynchburg?

JOHN:  Yup!  Well, the venue was the Drowsy Poet- it's a cafe and outdoor patio in a strip mall.  It was filled with trash and debris, so we bought some brooms and dustpans and cleaned it up before the show.......in front of the 15 or 20 people who eventually showed up! It was Earth Day to boot.

ROY:  Wowza!  Ahhh....one of the beauties of being indie is that there is no outside producer involved with your music.  Sometimes a person like that can totally remake a band over into something it most definitely is not.  Have you been approached by people like that?  What is your response?

JOHN:  (firmly)  NO!!!  We have a VERY specific program, an agenda on playing and mixing our music.  We have our own very strong opinions about our music and we would not do well with such a person.  (pauses thoughtfully)  At the same time, there are people whom we listen to when it comes to our stuff, that give honest and helpful comments.


ROY:  What do you see for the band over the next two years?

JOHN:  Definitely another album to follow up "Our Little Hymnal."  We have the basic material, half of it is orchestrated.  You know that cost is a factor there, when it comes to doing studio time! (smiles)  But touring, well, that remains to be seen......I hope to see for us, investing more time to the music, like, our REAL jobs.

ROY:  Have your YouTube and MySpace helped you to gain a larger audience?

JOHN:  (excitedly) Oh, yeah!  FaceBook too!  We got new fans on FaceBook after our Toronto tour.  Also, we're on last FM.

ROY:  Not exactly unknown! (smiling) Do you know of any bands which have been influenced by Holler, Wild Rose! ?

JOHN:  Umm, I've seen other bands on MySpace list us as influences....

ROY:  You've already mentioned playing "unplugged" or acoustic sets.  What do you like and dislike about them?

JOHN:  What I like about them, well, I like the intimacy, the attention paid to the music, the lyrics, there's something really beautiful about that.  But some of our older stuff doesn't pare down well, I'm not happy about that.  In those days everything that we did was electric, but now we have a more acoustic......base.

ROY:  How do audiences take to them?

JOHN:  They do!  People want that kind of variety as much as I do.  And it's a great challenge as a musician to go from a load of effects down to your basic instrument.  Everything is audible in an acoustic set.

ROY:  We've managed to avoid "guy" questions about what instruments you all play, who influenced you and the like.  And I know that you use Cubase for digital music editing.  There is one question I have in this vein, though.  How much of the music as it appears on your CD is based upon live playing as opposed to digital creation and manipulation?


JOHN:  On the album everything was live with some overdubbing.  But working with digital, it's EASY to get lost in all of the things that can be done.  And when I hear it I go perfectionist (scowls), it so easy to get lost there.  But I prefer our live playing be well-reflected in our studio work.

ROY:  Make a statement!

JOHN:  I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't love it!

ROY:  With what band would you like to tour - and why?

JOHN:  Yeah, with a band called the Avett Brothers.  They started out as acoustic, banjo,  and upright bass;  there's something about their energy and craftsmanship as songwriters that I feel personally connected with. If we shared a tour, it would be a totally uplifting experience for people.   Another band that's from Minnesota is LOW; their minimalism influenced me, yet there is SO much energy and power to their music- I love that.


ROY:  Who among you have solo or other projects going on?

JOHN:  Morgan has been working on piano-based material with the band.....Scott is working on some dance music.......hmm......and Steve works with a band called Wind Hover.   Me, I think about doing an album based upon my dreams.

ROY:  To me, you've created your own niche, defined your own genre.  What would you call it?

JOHN:   (smiles broadly)  No, I don't even think about it!  Ryan Smyth (drums) describes it as "urban country!"   If I were forced to describe our music I'd call it landscape music, because it evokes such mental imagery.  (pauses)  You know, I've two friends who run a mission in Uganda, and they've told me of feeling transported while listening to our music, on the long ride between the capital Kampala and the former internment camps of Gulu.   Let me close with this: stories like that reinforce my conviction that this is what I should be doing.
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