Hollerado's 'White Paint' Album Has a Deeper Meaning You Scratch to Find

Hollerado's 2009 debut album Record in a Bag got the band a lot of attention for being exactly that. It was a CD in a Ziploc bag, filled with confetti. They're not taking the same gimmick route with their next album.

"We got sick of people asking us if the next record was going to be a record in a box or something," lead singer Menno Versteeg tells Spinner. "So, we just told people that the next one would just be Hollerado the album, with no artwork, because we didn't want to think about it.

"But even then, people would say something. No matter what you do you're making a statement, so you might as well put some thought into it."

The band's upcoming album White Paint reflects a new outlook on many things, as the band just went through their "five most formative years," which included world tours, moving between cities and the death of Versteeg's grandfather. The latter became an integral influence to White Paint and its artwork.

A European immigrant who arrived in Canada with no money and seven children, Versteeg's grandfather became a traveling furniture salesman to make ends meet. One day, he started building stained glass windows even though he had no knowledge of how to do them, and spent the next 20 years building windows as ornamentation and in buildings across Canada.

"We wanted to use that as an album cover, so it's a picture of a window at St. Joseph's Church in Toronto and we're painting over every single copy of the album with white paint and that's why we're calling it White Paint," explains Versteeg, who wrote a few songs about his grandfather on the album. "It's going to be crappy paint that scratches off, so it's the obvious statement that you can paint over things, but your past is underneath and no matter how messed up your past might've been, they're always going to be there and all you can do is start fresh and do better."

As promotion for White Paint, the band has also thought of a creative way to interact with fans. A limited 200 fans can pre-order the album online and for an extra fee have a song written for them. All they have to do is fill out a questionnaire and the band will put together a song.

"We're not monkeys in a zoo, writing a song for you," Versteeg clarifies. "We're using is as an exercise for us."

For those expecting a fully completed, perfectly recorded song, you might be a bit disappointed. Songs so far have ranged from minute-long Black Flag-style rage jams to some three-minute long songs with structure.

"It's been really fun so far because we have no concern for the quality," Versteeg says with a laugh. "I think some people's expectations are a little high, but we're recording them wherever we can do it, so some will be in our jam space with a handheld recorder and it'll sound like total shit.

"That's not the point. We're not in a building making toothpaste ads, we're having fun with it."