Giallows: A Candid Conversation
Giallows, a psych-rock band from Davenport, Iowa recently sat down with The Fusion Press’ Lauren Alexis Wood to discuss their latest EP, a series of heavy, spook-rock bangers that they recorded in one of their area’s largest and most infamous haunted houses… in the dead of summer.
“Giallo,” an Italian murder-mystery film genre, is where the band drew inspiration for their name, and unique sound. Check them out on BandCamp. Their discography is the perfect soundtrack to your Halloween party this month.
“Our take has an extra letter so we don’t get sued by the Italian government like several other US bands inspired by Italian cinema have.” explained Devin, lead singer for Giallows.
I had to get the scoop on their latest album, ‘Almost Alive at Factory of Fear’.
“The process of recording this album was intense emotionally and physically, due to the extreme summer heat on June 28th & 29th of 2019 inside the haunt, and due to the physical requirements of hauling all the gear and then playing for 4 continuous hours two nights in a row. We alternated between our regular set and free-flowing jams, twice a night for two nights, so it ended up being around 9 hours of material. From that I edited together the best parts and then we repaired the many, many instances of damage and musical mangling that the situation necessarily produced. It was very taxing before, during, and after the main performance, but in the end we found it a sincerely amazing experience. Working with the team at Factory of Fear was amazing, they are pure professional haunters, and they made the whole thing as smooth and easy as possible, from selecting a performance space to giving us hookups for all our computers and mixers and amps.” Devin shared of the grueling experience.
Aside from the timely release of this album, I wondered what else the guys had been up to, especially during the pandemic.
“Primarily we passed pandemic time by streaming to Facebook, then when that was terrible, Twitch, then when I figured everything out, both at once in high-quality. The ‘thing’ about streaming is that most of the major meeting applications are made to transmit less-than-perfect human voices and selfie-sized videos across vast distances, so they all seem to degrade and mangle music and performances when used, so our biggest hurdle in that regard was assembling all the software and resources to send nothing less than A-level audio out to the people at home, but after much experimentation, we got it going in a reliable, repeatable way. Many of our spring and summer jams turned out very close to as perfect as I was hoping, but there’s always room for improvement of course.” Devin explained.
Lastly, I was curious about what fans could expect next from these Midwest rockers.
“Our next main project is writing all brand new material and recording with the new lineup, Adam and I on guitar and bass and vocals, and CM Alexander from the stunning Stephen King Bookclub Podcast, Derry Public Radio, on drum machine/sampler/synth. The possibilities are more limitless than ever, so we spend a lot of time and energy on constructing good restrictions to work within, which we find are more freeing than limitlessness!”
Keep up with the band on Facebook and Instagram.
