Holy Wave's Album Five of Cups Marks the Band’s Profound Reexamination

Photo Credit: James Oswald

Austin psych rock band Holy Wave has a long history of making music. The band, made up of Ryan Fuson, Kyle Hager, Joseph Cook, and Julian Ruiz, grew up together in the southwestern US, eventually making their way to Austin, Texas. Looking back at the band’s catalog, it’s a collection of surf-rock, lo-fi garage, and dream pop. The four-piece layers structured pop songwriting over experimental instrumentation, making their music some of the most exciting psych rock today. The band makes it look easy to compose mind-altering music that shifts and shapes throughout each track.

On their latest album Five of Cups the band is at their best. On “Bog Song,” a track inspired by a trip to the mountains Fuson took with his father, the guitars and synths never fade out of sight. Instead, they let each note ring into the next. On the track “Hypervigilance,” Fuson sings the lines “Cause I got a secret power / it’s that I can see through your shit / hypervigilance,” with a type of suspicion, unsure whether we’re watching him or he’s watching us. On “Nothing in the Dark,” the band contends with the reality of another passing day before the song fades out like a bad transmission. 

As Fuson describes, it was a chance encounter during a tarot reading that influenced the band’s latest release. Feeling pessimistic about the future of the music industry post-pandemic, pulling a Five of Cups card during a tarot reading changed Fuson’s perspective. The card itself represents a focus on the past which prevents us from appreciating the present. The resulting album Five of Cups perhaps can best be described as the band reexamining their position as a band and carving a new path forward. 

soundvsystem connected with vocalist Ryan Fuson to talk about optimism, the ups and downs that come with the music industry, their bond as a four-piece and working with Mexican psych rock duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete.

Listening to the singles that have been released so far, there’s a sense of clarity, and moving through life with intention. At the same time, the track "Happier," delves into the artificial construct of happiness. There’s this balance of being cautious, yet optimistic at the same time. How was the band feeling while you were making the album?

I think albums are always a kind of tapestry when it comes to all the feelings that are involved. Especially for a band like us that has four songwriters. I think that we definitely have some more clarity when it comes to knowing what we want to do on an album but by no means are we ever completely clear on what it is that we want, just some more clarity. I also think that a level of optimism is always something we try to maintain regardless of the subject matter. 

You’ve spoken about the band being disheartened by the changes that have taken place in the music industry. So much so, that you almost walked away from it. Aside from the Five of Cups card that appeared in a tarot reading offering an opportunity to see a different perspective, was there a particular event that made you rethink your stance?

Well, I can’t speak for everyone when it comes to having second thoughts about a music career. I think I was the only one who was feeling that way. It was mainly, at the time, just a pandemic situation. I had honestly started to think that touring was a thing of the past and potentially live music in general. So, it seemed a little bleak to say the least. I started to get pretty depressed, and I started kind of pushing people that I love out of my life, and I was starting to convince myself that I could just stop music and it would be fine, or I could stop seeing my band mates and it would be fine. It was getting the tarot card reading at this time that kind of woke me up a bit. The fact that I got that specific reading seemed a little too close to home and it made me really start to think about my future and what I needed to be happy.

Can you discuss the process of writing and recording Five of Cups? Did the band approach it any differently from your previous work?

For our last album we kind of saved a good chunk of the writing for the studio. We wanted to do the same thing for this one, but the timing just wasn’t right. So, we got together a couple weeks before we started the album and we really started demoing a lot and working the songs out as much as we could. We wanted to be able to get into the studio with as little question as possible about what we needed to do. The thing that has always been the same though is we all bring ideas or songs to the table and then work them out together. That will I imagine always remain the same.

The band collaborated with the Mexican psychedelic duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete on the track “The Darkest Timeline.” How did this collaboration come together?

We are big fans of theirs and have wanted to work with them for a long time now. I think we didn’t quite feel that we had this song figured out, and we just thought that they could help us understand it, and that this song in particular would work really well with them stylistically. I think they sent us something back like less than a day after we sent it, and it was perfect. It was like seeing this song we had been working on for a few weeks just completely come into view for the first time. We ended up keeping all the demo takes they used. They were just so perfect and captured the spirit of the song so well. 

How do you balance the exploration of new sonic territories while staying true to your artistic vision and identity as Holy Wave?

I feel like we have always tried to write music that reflects the songs and influences we have at that time. So inevitably those things keep changing, and so our “sound” will change but I think our process remains the same. So in essence maybe our “sound” is as much about our process and the feelings we like to explore as it is an actual style or sound. That’s at least what we hope. 

As childhood friends who grew up together, how has your strong bond influenced your musical journey and contributed to the band's longevity?

Throughout our history, there has always been a sense that our band is different from the other bands we have met and toured with. Sometimes it can be hard to pinpoint what it is when you’re inside of it, but I know that we are all brothers and our friendship is as important or more important to us than our music career and that is probably not a very common thing in the music biz. We have remained all together this whole time and we have only lost one original member because he fell in love and moved to Sweden, which you can’t blame the guy for. I’m sure that we will all be playing music together until our hands stop working. 

In your fifteen-year career, how has your experience in the local DIY scene influenced your music and shaped your artistic identity?

I think that we can still have a do it all ourselves approach to things. We like to try and keep everything in house. I think that we can kind of skimp on some luxuries other bands might take to make the road easier, like drivers or TM’s. When it comes to live shows though I think that there is something about playing live that you can only learn in the local bars. How important it is to connect with the audience and to try and make every show a real event. When you’re in a small band in your hometown without any real promotion or money all you really have is your songwriting ability and your ability to translate it live, and that’s how you’re going to win fans or not. Also when you’re playing local shows all the time, to the same people, it makes you good at writing new [songs] often. 

The band recently announced that you’re heading out on tour in the US, EU, and UK, making up for the fact that you didn’t get to tour around Interloper. What can we expect on the upcoming tour?

Well first off, we are very excited to finally be going back, not being able to tour Interloper was one of the more bitter moments of the pandemic. I think our plan is to treat this as an opportunity to have two albums worth of music to play for anyone who comes out and sees us. I think it’s safe to expect a lot of songs from those two albums to be played. We have been working a lot on sets this last few months for these upcoming tours and we are just really excited to be able to perform again.

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Five of Cups is out now on Suicide Squeeze. To purchase Five of Cups head to Bandcamp. The album can also be streamed on Spotify and other platforms. Follow Holy Wave on Facebook & Instagram. Catch the band on the road:

Aug 15 - Mobile, AL - Alabama Music Box
Aug 16 - Houston, TX - Continental Club
Aug 17 - San Antonio, TX - Paper TIger
Aug 19 - Austin, TX - Hotel Vegas
Oct 12 - Santa Ana, CA - Constellation Room *
Oct 14 - Albuquerque, NM - Sister *
Oct 15 - Denver, CO - Hi-Dive *
Oct 17 - Chicago, IL - Sleeping Village *
Oct 18 - Detroit, MI - Lager House *
Oct 20 - Troy, NY - No Fun *
Oct 21 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge *
Oct 22 Brooklyn, NY - Baby's All Right *
Oct 23 - Baltimore, MD - Metro Baltimore *
Oct 25 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl *
Oct 26 - New Orleans, LA - Gasa Gasa *
Oct 27 - Austin, TX - Levitation *
Oct 29 - El Paso, TX - Love Buzz *
Oct 30 - Phoenix, AZ - The Rebel Lounge *
Oct 31 - San Diego, CA - Casbah *
Nov 01 - Highland Park, CA - Lodge Room *
Nov 08 - Groningen, Netherlands - VERA
Nov 13 - Munich, Germany - Milla
Nov 22 - Barcelona, Spain - Upload
Nov 23 - San Sebastián, Spain - Dabadaba
Nov 24 - Madrid, Spain - Wurlitzer Ballroom
Nov 25 - Lisbon, Portugal - Musicbox
Nov 26 - Porto, Portugal - Auditório CCOP
Dec 01 - Paris, France - Point Éphémère
Dec 02 - Brussels, Belgium - Botanique - Rotonde
Dec 06 - Brighton, UK - Komedia Studio
Dec 07 - Bristol, UK - The Crofters Rights
Dec 08 - Manchester, UK - Basement, YES
Dec 10 - Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK - The Cluny 2
Dec 11 - Leeds, UK - Brudenell Social Club
Dec 12 - London, UK - Moth Club

* with Ulrika Spacek

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