HOLLYWEERD

Expanding Your Fanbase Without a Label

By Wahid Khoshravani

Photos by Ryan Purcell (Oh Snap! Kid)

Collectively, the four guys known as Hollyweerd (Dreamer, Stago Lee, Tuki, The Love Crusader) have been hijacking the Atlanta music scene -- one fan at a time and one show at a time, building a movement of their own, on their own.

Since its creation in November of last year, Hollyweerd has been introducing crowds from all cultures, musical tastes and backgrounds to its wide array of audible delights and noise-making live shows. Performing at every major Atlanta venue, the group has held down several gigs at the Compound and MJQ and headlined festivals such as the A3C.

“Every show we do, even if it’s only two people, we kill. It doesn’t matter, because at the end of the day, we have a show,” says Dreamer, who sings, raps and produces most of the songs.

The band’s MySpace site is filled with music videos, interviews and footage of show performances like the unofficial version of Hollyweerd’s most successful song to date, “Have You Ever Made Love to a Weirdo,” which stands as a collection of live footage taken and put together by fans. One of the group’s biggest fans, Dreamer’s younger brother, Jawon Toney, along with his own crew Above Average, even originated an official, choreographed dance in appreciation of “Weirdo.” Because of YouTube, the dance has spread throughout Southern and Northern high school and college campuses and grown into a movement of its own. The young dancing trio accompanies Hollyweerd to concerts whenever possible and amps up the audience with its moves and energy.

The band’s manager and co-owner of Markstarr Multimedia, a creative marketing firm in Atlanta, Justin Huff says, “Hollyweerd is not just a group; it’s a movement of creativity and culture.”

Huff’s firm specializes in branding artists and creating each an identity through detailed marketing campaigns. Having done so with mainstream artists like Soulja Boy, Gorilla Zoe and B.O.B., Huff had a goal from the start to develop and present a unique package to the fans that separated Hollyweerd from other groups and movements.

“Our marketing team consists of a man and a group,” explains Dreamer. “That’s marketing right there.”

Huff attributes the group’s growing success to three basic components from the fan’s standpoint: Fans have to be intrigued to come to a performance, they have to become part of the show and they need a way to connect with the group after they leave. Before major performances, the band would post “test songs” for a short period on its MySpace site, asking listeners for honest feedback and allowing the fans to become part of the song selection process. After the shows, they would make an effort to make sure that people knew how and where to stay connected with the group through flyers, free CDs and posters with the group’s MySpace.

“We’re not an A&R group. Nobody put us together. We’re self-contained,” explains Tuki.

Although Dreamer sings the most, Stago Lee also plays the saxophone and Tuki raps bars with no end in sight; everyone is free to do as they please.

Dreamer continues, “Everyone has their own collective, and we just musically come together as Hollyweerd.”

When asked where the eccentric name emerged from, he answers, “We were thinking of something that represented us where we could damn near almost do anything we wanted to without being criticized.” That’s exactly what Hollyweerd has become known for, with its debut EP Color Blind Cognac and Edible Phat mixtape.

The band’s first release was recorded, put together and distributed hand-to-hand two to three months earlier this year. Shortly after, the name Hollyweerd could be heard slipping out of local clubbers’ and music lovers’ mouths. Not a week went by that a venue, party or a local spot with a few microphones and sound system was not being catapulted by the crew. In between wrecking stages and making a name for themselves, the band recorded the Edible Phat mixtape and once again offered it to the public for free as a digital download on August 1.

“We’ve put these projects together within a very short time span,” says Dreamer. Tuki quickly adds, “Even with that, we probably have somewhere around 11,000 to 12,000 downloads off of the different MegaUpload and vShare sites that people opened up. We have to go find them and collectively put them together. There’s a lot of downloads going on.”

Clearly, downloading the music is no concern to the group. Dreamer justifies doing so when he says, “We’re giving you full marketing to download something for free, so when I come back around at a show and we have a CD or a T-shirt that costs money, respectfully, you’ll probably buy it because of the fact that we’ve been giving you good quality material for so long. People love it, appreciate it, and our music touches a lot of people in that way.”

Exactly what is this music that has touched so many people? Edible Phat is a collection of musical genres intertwined with each other. Some revisit the sounds of the past, while others explore the trends of the present.

“We’re just trying to make Hollyweerd a total brand all around. That’s what all this about is -- branding,” says Dreamer.

“We’re trying to make sure the Hollyweerd name has a wide range. You might hear us doing some Coldplay-type songs. That just shows you the caliber. Everyone does their thing, whatever it is, and we do it well.”

Hollyweerd has achieved this by mimicking the creativity of its music with an equally original marketing campaign.

“For the first four months a different packaging/branding material was released every 10 days to promote singles or a mixture of recorded songs as four track EPs. And each release featured different abstract artwork and designs that complemented the direction of the included music. The goal of all of this initially was to achieve a commemorative quality with Hollyweerd,” explains Huff. “The exposure to everything music now is almost 100 percent digital, so we wanted to achieve an old-school genuine quality through physical collectible CD releases that even by themselves were art.”

Some may classify Hollyweerd’s sound as “ghetto tech,” some as new-age hip-hop and others may just generalize the quartet and its music as part of the hipster scene.

Tuki refrains, “That comes with people’s lack of a better vocabulary sometimes. They find a word and stick a whole genre of people underneath that one word.”

Stago jumps into the discussion. “The word hipster comes from after World War II and it actually represents what they used to call the white kids that acted like they were black. They called them the ‘hipsters’ of their time because they listened to jazz music. That’s where the word hipster comes from. Nowadays, it’s reversed. It’s used more towards black kids that want to act white. It’s basically flipped now,” he explains.

What matters is who the music is for. Stago goes on to point out, “It’s for everybody. It’s for your skateboarders, dope boys, hoods, white collars, blue collars, girlfriends, doctors, and what have you. Overall, we feel the world and the country is ready for a change. The music reflects what’s going on in the rest of the world right now, so it’s time for it. It’s time for a break. People need something refreshing and new, not another gimmick.” Dreamer simply puts it another way saying, “If you like listening to good music, you’ll like what we have to offer.”

Hollyweerd collectively draws its influences from various artists ranging anywhere from De La Soul to Radiohead, from Dizzy Gillespie to Goldie and from The Doors to Squarepusher.

“A lot of people throughout the ages like George Clinton, Michael Jackson, Prince, or Outkast were considered weirdoes at their time,” says Stago. “We try to reflect the movement those artists passed along and use it as inspiration. We feel like we have that same spirit in this day and age like they did.”

He adds, “There’s a whole renaissance in Atlanta between artists, musicians and entertainers, but it’s just not being put out on a bigger scale. It’ll come back eventually to the surface.”

That’s the surface Hollyweerd sees itself standing upon -- A place where music is not restricted by region, color or taste in sound.

Dreamer gives a great example of where the music industry stands right now and where they see themselves fit in. “If you think about when Outkast won Best New Group at the 1995 Source Awards, the crowd booed them because they were from the South and they were on some different shit. That was ‘95 and Andre got up there announcing, ‘The South’s got something to say!’ It’s pretty much along the exact same lines right now. Some people do know what’s going on, but right now we’re ready to literally spread the wings because we definitely believe in timing, and this is about that time.”

Dreamer is not far from the truth, having been vouched for by the likes of The Dungeon Family, YelaWolf and 9th Wonder, who reached out to the crew with a beat on “Ur Smile” on Edible Phat. With such backing the group, Hollyweerd’s recent success comes as no surprise.

One place the band has not seen backing from is record labels. Since day one, this success has been made possible by the group’s relentless work ethic and manager Justin Huff’s promotional company Perishable Fame. Hollyweerd’s first two projects and its latest release Electric Showroom, which is said to be “a lot more experimental, expressive and personal,” along with music videos for “Don’t Fight the Light” and “Southern Tuki,” has driven the band forward through that relationship. Stago remarks, “We’ve done so much without backing, support and help. Just think of what we can do if we have that support.”

The support Stago speaks of would enable Hollyweerd to step on a bigger platform.

“That’s what we’re looking for, the bigger platform,” says Dreamer, agreeing. “Honestly, we’ve done everything we need to do to have people know of us, and it’s just now that we need the opportunity to widen our playing field. We’re not asking for a record deal, but if a deal comes, that’s what it is. We just need a stronger machine, so that we can get our music to a wider audience. It’s self-contained, but we’re also ready to bust this shit to see what we can do.”

As a whole, the group expresses that its main goal is to branch outside of the city and the South with Electric Showroom and bring the Hollyweerd movement to the rest of the country and the globe, either with or without a label.

Dreamer plainly describes the situation. “At the end of the day, I’m not trying to ball,” he says. “He drives a Hyundai, these two don’t drive and we’re just trying to do our music at somewhat of a comfortable level. There’s a lot of folks asking for us outside of these walls. We’re ready to show everyone else what Hollyweerd is really about.”

www.myspace.com/hollyweerd