Slow Hollows Reveals the Inspirations Behind Each Track on Bullhead

Today, Slow Hollows—the recording alias of LA-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Austin Feinstein—has released his fourth album, Bullhead. The LP is Feinstein’s first since 2019’s Actors, and it’s a remarkable foray into a world where rich synths, big guitar riffs and limitless hooks converge. In 2020, Slow Hollows the band broke up, and Bullhead marks the project’s resurrection as Feinstein’s solo future.

“Making a cohesive album was the most important thing to me,” says Feinstein. “Having some time away from the band made me realize what Slow Hollows stood for. It’s hard to realize what you’re getting at when you’re doing it. Making a sonic shift towards the sounds of early Slow Hollows records felt like something I needed to do for myself.”

In January of this year, we unveiled our Paste Session with Slow Hollows at Pachucho Supply in Los Angeles, California. Feinstein performed three songs, including the Bullhead title track and “A World Is Waiting.” Feinstein was kind enough to break down all nine songs from Bullhead for us. Listen to the album as you read, and you can order it and check out Slow Hollows’ upcoming US Tour with P.H.F. and Computerwife here.

Bullhead

“Bullhead” is a song I wrote early on in this album’s process. I was staying by myself in a friend’s guest house and would spend all day recording ideas into a loop pedal. The feeling the chords and melody gave me was something I’ve been trying to express through music for a long time. It inspired me to write about starting over. The lyrics talk about a caretaker realizing they’re caring for something that doesn’t care back. This dynamic excited me immensely and it informed the overall theme of this record.

Homebody

“Homebody” is a song about someone else’s fantasy pulling you down. I think everyone’s living in their own dream world, and when those worlds collide it’s sometimes painful. This song is about asking for help in the midst of that pain.

Dreams Go

“Dreams Go” is about wanting to be relieved of a caretaker’s duties. It’s about realizing the thing you’re caring for is never going to give anything back, then choosing sleep as the answer.

Idle Hands

With “Idle Hands,” I wanted to explore the theme of caretaking and what it does to a person’s body. The song is about feeling emaciated, drained of life and yearning to feel a change. The image of being trapped in a room with plants dying and old cups piling up was something I couldn’t get out of my head. There is no resolve or light in this song other than the glimmer of hope that letting go gives.

Tired

“Tired” is my song of levity. It’s a sappy earnest song about wasting time with the person you love. It’s also about easing up. Time is being wasted but it’s for the best. The other songs on Bullhead have a beaten up quality to them; like they’ve been wailed on mercilessly for years, but for me, “Tired” feels like relief.

Old Yeller

“Old Yeller” is about spilling your guts. This image of an old vacuum cleaner kept replaying in my head when I was writing it. There’s something about that caretaking, dutiful purpose a vacuum cleaner serves excited me to end. It’s about working over the same familiar spaces over and over again until you have no choice but to give up because you’re too full of resentment.

Soap

“Soap” is a nod to the guitar music that drove me to make music as a kid. We were about a month away from going into the studio, and I felt like the album needed a song that paid homage to my younger self. I wanted to make something I would have been excited by as a kid. This very simple chord structure came to me, and then the lyrics came equally fast. I was in the middle of falling in love with my girlfriend, so words felt heavy. The lyrics are achy and desperate and come from a very different point of view than the other songs on the album. Yearning for something as opposed to yearning to get away from something was so relieving to write about. At the end of the day it’s a desperate love song. The sentiments are immature, but they are real.

The Villain

This song is about what you learn with distance. I toyed with not including this song on the record because it offers no solution to its negativity. It’s written from the perspective of someone who is truly guilty, and most of the record is written from the opposite perspective. There is hope in saying “don’t give up,” but that sentiment is almost clinical to me. It’s vague and doesn’t tell you what you should be waiting for. It’s also about manipulation. When someone is guilty, begging for forgiveness can feel like a put on. Distance is usually what reveals this.

A World Is Waiting

“A World Is Waiting” is about growing up. The lyrics don’t leave anything to the imagination. It’s about arriving at a perspective that makes you excited to live your life. This shakes out as my favorite song on the album. Nich Santana wrote a really interesting drum part that kept us both on our toes and deeply invested in the tracking process. This song is my way of ending things on a positive note.

Watch Slow Hollows’ Paste Session below.