Nightlife / Music

Three Years Hollow hopes to ascend to new heights

By Stephanie De Pasquale | Wednesday, August 13, 2008 | () comments

Local and national interest has Thee Years Hollow thinking they can make it beyond the Quad-Cities. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

Luke Sears jokes that the first time he and Darrel “Dex” Lenniger saw Jose Urquiza after their band, Three Years Hollow, finished recording its debut album was at the Quad-City Times building during an interview about their upcoming CD release party.

“I kind of gave up my entire life during the recording process to get this thing put together,” said Urquiza, who engineered and produced the album, even though he had no idea how to do so before they recorded it.

Urquiza had some help from Rob Cimmarusti, owner and senior engineer/producer of the Real Trax recording studio in Davenport. Three Years Hollow recorded there, and Cimmarusti mentored Urquiza through the engineering and producing process, but Urquiza mostly learned by doing.

“Learning everything, that was nothing compared to telling myself to stop,” Urquiza said. “I’m a perfectionist. Everything has got to be perfect, and I can never let it go if there’s just one little thing wrong. Then I’ll spend way too much time trying to fix it.”

Three Years Hollow has been together for five years, but has been through a couple of lineups and a name change. Urquiza, who sings lead vocals, said they waited to record a full-length album because it took that long to get the right members. Urquiza and Tony Reeves, on guitar, have been in the band since its inception. They were joined by Sears on guitar three years ago, Chris Cushman on drums last year and Lenniger on bass this year.

“This is kind of like a new beginning,” Urquiza said. “We’ve got the right members and we’re going to start like we’re fresh and young again and push harder than we ever have.”

The band has been compared with Disturbed, Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace, but its members say they’ve heard from fans that they attract a wider audience than most in their genre.

“We’ve heard from a lot of people who have said, ‘All I love is really, really heavy music, but for some reason, you guys, even though you’re not screaming all the time, you’re singing. I like it.’ And then we’ve had people say, ‘I don’t listen to your kind of music at all, but for some reason I really like what you guys are doing.’ ”

The band plays shows nearly every weekend locally or regionally and has a loyal following. Its members also have been fielding questions for the last three years from people all over the country on MySpace about when they’re going to put out a CD.

The local and national interest has them thinking they can make it beyond the Quad-Cities, so they plan to start shopping the CD to record labels.

“We collectively write really good songs,” Sears said. “They are radio-friendly songs; you hear these songs every day on the radio and there’s no reason why our songs can’t be on there because they’re just as good, if not better.”

Three Years Hollow also has set records for the number of times its songs have held the No. 1 spot on some online stations. So it’s not surprising that the name of the album, “Ascension,” has to do with the band’s hopes of taking its music to the next level.

“We just felt like it was all part of the new beginning thing,” Urquiza said, “where it’s time for us to finally step up to the plate and ascend, rise into where we deserve to be.”

IF YOU GO

What: Three Years Hollow CD release party with Mindset Evolution and Echodrive

When: 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 15

Where: Redstone Room, 129 Main St., Davenport

How much: $5

Information: redstoneroom.com

On the Web: myspace.com/hollowqc

Stephanie De Pasquale can be contacted at (563) 333-2639 or sdepasquale@qctimes.com.

Comment on this story at qctimes.com.