Photo by Anna Azarov Photography
The name is as attention-grabbing as the style, and the delivery is as explosive as the music! THE HOLY WOW has been serving us an adrenaline shot of gothic electro garage rock. This is all filtered through the deeply personal lens of Russian born, New York raised, California grown Dmitry Wild. Dmitry has a strong diverse background that shines through to his intricate and detailed music. Dmitry Wild found an outlet by playing music and quickly developed a prodigious list of bands to collaborate with by his late teens. This experience collaborating with bands served beneficial for Dmitry early on. However, it wasn’t until the unfortunate passing of his father where he delved right into his music as a solo artist and shelved his collaborative projects.
Photo by Anna Azarov Photography
The official THE HOLY WOW Debut album, “Modern Ancient Man”, came out January 18th and boasts an impressive collection of philosophically rich, romantic songs, built on electric back-beats and distorted melodic guitar instrumentals! This album falls in line with the work of the Cramps, Jesus and Mary Chain as well as a few modern rockers. THE HOLY WOW keeps the ball rolling with their latest music video "Hey Dragon" featuring Mekia Machine. The music video put a cool spin on the song and brought out the personality of THE HOLY WOW.
2019 has been a spectacular year for THE HOLY WOW, the recent recording of their new single “Dilemma” which speaks about the process every artist has to go through. When you don’t make money doing what you love but instead having to go to work and make money doing something you are not passionate about. THE HOLY WOW is way on his way to great heights of success and we’re looking forward to seeing what’s next from them!
Listen to THE HOLY WOW here.
Welcome back to BuzzMusic THE HOLY WOW! Tell us, what inspired your name?
One time I was walking around Union Square in San Francisco, California and I met a street seller who was selling everything with a WOW in it, sculptures large and small and even pendants, so I asked him why Wow? And he said, one time I got so stoned I ended up in the Universe and there all I heard was WOW constant and long Wow… so I just stood there and smiled. That’s what I said every time something moved me. So I said, “WOW” but then I found out there was already a few musical projects with WOW so I thought what’s bigger than WOW and that is HOLY WOW! Ha! So yeah there you have it, but also you can look at it from another angle, WOW is the most commercialized word and an expression of wonder, I see it everywhere now, on products, and billboards, so it’s sort of POP status now, and HOLY is something sacred and spiritual like a HOLY MAN, has no connotations to Christianity, there are Holy Men in India and everywhere. Anyways, so you take a POP word and a sacred word and get you a hint at the style of music, we keep commercialism nearby while our content/song lyrics are sacred.
What were some of the challenges you faced when breaking through as a solo artist? It was challenging, because who else do you have to give you feedback. I mean in the band you have your band members, but when you decide to go off on your own you are in the vacuum of your own creation, whether it’s good or not, you are clueless, but you still keep moving forward blindly believing it’s good. I can do this. People will dig it.
How would you describe the creative process behind your single “Dilemma”?
Well Dilemma we already wrote as a band, or more like I had an idea for a riff and a chorus, and I came to the studio and showed it to the guys, just the intro riff, and then Pete laid down this spacey synth, and the band just took it and ran with it. When I had to sing something, I looked in my phone and there it was. I always write lyrics, on the road, on the go, always jotting down ideas, only now luckily, we have a phone to carry all our madness. I wrote some painful things about being an artist and a musician and having to go to work, so I just started yelling in the microphone without a guitar, and then the chorus came at the right time and we all kicked into gear together. The bridge, we had Gary French (bass) develop it, he is the bridge man, I only write verses and choruses, he comes and says we need a good bridge, so we sat on it for a while and didn’t have the bridge, and then he came in one time and said I think I got it. We tried his chords and Jorge Vega the drummer, doesn’t need much to get creative, so we all fell into the loud breakdown bridge part and then it all grew together.
What was your personal favorite element to the video “Hey Dragon” and why?
In the music video for “Hey Dragon”, it was our attempt to capture the moment we are all living through right now. When Trump was elected everyone walked out on the streets, protesting. It was the most beautiful thing to be part of that, then Pro Earth protest, Climate Change protest, then Women’s march to DC. In Russia, for example, there was only 1 protest and army arrested something like 1300 people in one night, they never had another protest again. It’s against the law. Here you can protest and express your disagreement with the system, with the president or whatever you dislike. In that video, we tried to inject the protest scenes to stand by the RESIST movement as the basis of human expression. It’s important to RESIST to show we don’t agree where our leaders take us because we all know our ego lives under the ground, in the HADES you might say, the LORD or Chaos is waiting for all of us to fuck up so we can destroy ourselves, so I say: “Wait we are trying to get it together. Let’s realize every day is a thrill and a present. Let’s cherish it and not let bigots control and manipulate our present.” Also, I invited my good friend, Mekia Machine to sing with me, because first of all, she is an amazing singer and also me and her stand for unity between cultures and races, saying loud that racism is over and we will stand united for each other and with each other, no matter where we come from. Ying Yang sort of speak. I love that girl, big shout out to her. She is a great musician in her own right and has a powerful church like voice. Check out her on Spotify I also recorded guitar on her 2 songs, “Keep on Standing” and “Say My Name”.
How would you describe your songwriting approach to “Hey Dragon”?
At first I created a rough demo on my computer at home when I was still living in California, then when I moved back to NYC and joined forces with Vlad, producer from PunkTV, he heard that song and he just came up with the better pounding drum track for it, then we never released it on the first record, “Stratosphere Sessions”, so I had it in the backlog. Finally, when I reformed as a solo artist I used that backing track and using Logic, recorded the guitars and vocals then I went to Mekia, and she did her vocals in her own bedroom when she was attending Columbia University and that was it. I had it mixed with Zenon Marko another renown producer in Tribeca who I had the pleasure to work on few other projects as well. That’s how it came about.
What’s next for you in 2020? We can't wait to hear what's next from you! In 2020, now THE HOLY WOW is a band so we have been working on a few more songs we wanted to record and release at the beginning of the year. Then we want to work on a few music videos and really try to nail the new direction and the sound and the visuals to go along with it. Plans are plenty, but time is limited, but one step at a time we will get there. So stay tuned for some new music to come out in 2020. Thanks Buzz.