Almost Famous: Crazy Tour And Killer Album Put Loveable Hollerado On The Brink

Menno Versteeg calls me direct from the road to figure out a meeting time.

He’s driving to Hamilton from Lacolle, Quebec on a snowy Wednesday night – crammed in a van with his three best friends who combine to form a band called Hollerado.

From Montreal by way of Manotick, Ont., the foursome is in the midst of a monstrous February tour schedule, one in which they take up nightly residence in seven different towns, one each night of the week. For an entire month. The Residency Tour, they call it.

Every Sunday at TT’s the Bear in Boston, Monday’s at Piano’s in NYC, Tuesdays at Lacolle’s Pipeline Gas Bar, Wednesdays at The Casbah in Hamilton and Thursdays at Sneaky Dee’s before visiting Café Dekcuf in Ottawa and Barfly in Montreal. Then it’s back to Beantown to do it all again.

On this night they’re heading for show three of four in Steel City and the first two weeks sound like they’re taking a toll on everything but the shaggy blond-haired 29-year-old’s good nature.

We agree on 8pm after they finish sound check and wrap an interview.

“Maybe we can head downstairs and eat some nachos or something,” Menno says, hinting at the Sneaky Dee’s specialty.

Having listened to their debut album Record In A Bag – 12 soulful, melodic and wonderfully irreverent guitar-driven rock tracks with folk and pop nods that conjure Supergrass and Stephen Malkmus – I hope to find the rest of the band is as lighthearted as its front man (top left).

And when I sit down to a King’s Crown plate with 23-year-old Nixon Boyd (bottom left, guitar), his 20-year-old brother Jake (bottom right, drums), and 20-year-old Dean Baxter (top right, bass) – there’s no disappointment.

Everyone except Dean is battling sickness, but they gush over another Thursday at the corner of College and Bathurst. There’s been a fair amount of press, most of it here or in Montreal where the majority of their fan base resides, but the slow notice the industry is taking to this tour and the album it’s supporting is ultimately just that – slow.

Broke and exhausted the food is devoured (nachos is the group’s dish of choice because, they decide, of the community aspect inherent in a shared plate), but they also graciously talk about their record and how much fun they’re having.

“In spirit we’re great,” Menno says. “But we’re literally sick and tired.”

I ask about where the idea for the rather ambitious tour came from.

“It was just something we came up with, I always liked the idea of doing a residency,” Jake explains.

“It took us a long time to get it booked, to explain to people what we wanted to do,” Nixon continues. “And then when we booked it we were like, ‘Man, we’ve got to do this now?”

There was never any real hesitation. It’s all part of the plan.

“All we want is for this to be our job,” Jake says. “We just don’t want to have to do anything else.”

—

That night the roughly 1,700-mile circuit shows its many ticks.

The band trudges forth admirably, but the crowd is small and the bodies only human. Menno jumps off the bass drum a couple of times and they try to bounce around and keep up with a growing reputation as an energetic live act by inviting a smattering of dancing followers on stage for the final song.

“Dean’s the only one who’s not sick,” Menno tells the 50-some-odd people on hand, “so if you want to make out with somebody he’s your guy.”

After the set they greet a few fans – the band is starting to collect ones it doesn’t already count as friends. Menno informs me its straight to bed and we agree to meet during their next stop in TO.

“We’ve been saving up our energy as much as possible,” he says. “Next week we’re going to let it go.”

—

A Thursday later Hollerado is a new band. In the wake of a dozen or so listens their album is still holding up on my end and with March so near the band’s right back where they want to be.

On this last night of residency in Toronto they do a couple of on-camera interviews with young blogger types who seem impressed, and then humbly say hello.

It’s Nixon’s 23rd birthday, destined to be a night of celebration. We snap some shots next to the van on College. Menno inexplicably wanders over and plucks a pinecone from a restaurant display to include in the pose.

Like the heart in their songs, a love for each other and the task at hand is perceptible in every interaction.

“That’s stealing Menno!” Dean shouts.

The show is another world. Buoyed by a birthday party, returned health and a much larger crowd thanks in part to a caravan of friends along for the final week, the lights seem brighter, the songs stronger.

Booze flows and Menno descends from the stage to riff with the dancing throng, some of which cling to his sopping white t-shirt.

Friends in the audience join the band to sing happy birthday and sloppy hugs are exchanged all around.

“Two more nights and this horrible tour is over!” Menno jokes.

But after the set, when the post-show handshakes and photo ops conclude, his words tell a different story.

“That was awesome!” he says. I show him a shot of his foray into the audience and he seems relieved.

“I was hoping you got a picture of that!”

And then it’s back to the routine for just a little longer. Pack up the gear, the Horseasaurus stickers and shirts that read Hollerado but bear a Wu-Tang Clan logo (two great examples of the group’s sense of humour and playfulness).

—

In the early morning hours of the last Friday in February, there in front of Sneaky Dee’s with that battered van again stuffed to its limit, Jake mentions they watched Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous on some recent stretch.

He jokes that I’m, “The Enemy,” a couple of times.

“Stop calling him that!” Menno laughingly chirps. “Good people, friends, that’s what this is all about.”

The funny part is Hollerado is almost famous.

There’s so little pretense here – a fact some might find refreshing – and their rock solid musicianship, superior imagination and obvious eye for a gimmick where necessary (see the video for Americanarama featuring Dave Foley) have them poised to move ahead with the quest for long-term musical careers.

Even they can surely sense it. As broke and tired as they might be from booking their own shows and interviews, the phone calls are certainly more frequent than ever, the sets tighter and the fans slowly but surely more numerous.

True, now that the tour’s over its back to day jobs until Canadian Music Week and SXSW dates again beckon Hollerado from home, but time and exposure are two things they suddenly have a lot more of while slumbering through these first days of March.

And it’s all just starting to pick up momentum, mostly because like nachos, Hollerado is best shared with friends.

Download Record In A Bag for free!

More photos from Hollerado’s final two dates at Sneaky Dee’s

aaron.miller@citytv.com