The Oral History of Holding Onto Sound

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“WE’RE HERE TO FUCK SHIT UP.” – Holding Onto Sound, Myspace

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Before Holding Onto Sound formed, two of its future members made music with various other bands in high school.

Bennett Mains, Holding Onto Sound guitar/vocals

Back in high school, I was in a couple bands with Robert [Bob] Gates—the guitar player that eventually joined Holding Onto Sound.

Bob Gates, Holding Onto Sound

Bennett asked if I played bass,because he was in a band with his friend, Matt. I went and played with them, and we hung out after. That was our first band together. I don’t even think it had a name, but that one didn’t last very long anyway [laughs]. We were in At Sixes and Sevens next with our buddies Tyler [Prough] on drums and Ryan [Hart] on bass.

Bennett Mains

What happened with At Sixes and Sevens was that … [sighs]I fell into my first addiction. I fell into my first addiction, and then I basically locked myself away for a month. I went off in my own little world, and started getting real fucked up. That was probably my first warning sign that things were going to get bad later on.

Bob Gates

I fully expected Bennett to leave At Sixes and Sevens—partly because I wanted to leave, too. We were trying too hard to sound like New Found Glory or Taking Back Sunday and it was time to grow up a bit. But it’s not something Bennett and I ever talked about.

Bennett Mains

As I got into to a more experimental mindset, I realized that I really wanted to play reggae. I got into the RX Bandits and I was really into Sublime. I also started to really get into ska. I heard Leftover Crack and Choking Victim and I really got into that genre. I wanted to start playing that kind of music, and nobody else was into it. When I put the drugs down I left my room I had a vision of this ska/punk/hardcore hybrid thing.

Tyler Prough, At Sixes and Sevens

I could see it coming. Practices became like going to work and lost their fun. Bennett also wanted to play guitar and explore other styles of music. I used to stay over at Bennett’s house and get pretty fucked up and smoke cigs sitting out on his roof. During those times, he would talk about how he wanted to play guitar.

Bennett Mains

I was only doing vocals in the band, and I wanted to start playing guitar and doing more of the songwriting.

Bob Gates

Bennett is really passionate about the guitar. I taught him some shit like tuning but he is a natural. He was able to write melodies and chord progressions easily, so I would watch him do that. We would bounce ideas off each other. We basically taught each other how to play.

Bennett Mains

Punk rock was also starting to ingrain itself into my psyche and change the total course of the way that I wanted to express myself.

Tyler Prough

At this time Bennett became friends with a musician named Clayton and they started jamming and hanging out a lot. That was the beginning of Holding Onto Sound.

An inspiring new friend would give Bennett the confidence he needed to pursue his frontman dreams. The duo then set forth to find a bassist and name the band.

Bennett Mains

I met Clayton in high school. We became friends and would hang out and smoke weed. After I emerged from my room I had this vision of what Holding Onto Sound could be, so I played him a couple of songs. He said, “Dude, this shit you’re writing is good!” It took him saying that to give me the confidence to pursue being in a band. I had a really rough childhood, so Clayton saying that to me was like the first time someone said, “You’re fucking worth something.” After that, we started writing together. So I owe Clayton a great deal—even though we eventually had a bad falling out.

Bob Gates

I played bass with Clayton and Bennett in the early stages of what would become HOTS. So I guess I was in Holding Onto Sound before Vanessa [Tidwell, drums] and Zabi [Naqshband, bass] [laughs]. I can play bass, but guitar is my passion, and since HOTS already had two guitar players, I started a band with the At Sixes and Sevens guys called Seeds of Suburbia. Clayton and Bennett started trying out different bassists and drummers.

Bennett Mains

Clayton said he knew a bass player from high school. He’s the one who introduced me to Zabi.

Zabi Naqshband, Holding Onto Sound bass/vocals

My friend, Andrew, was in a band with Clayton when we were younger. Andrew and I rode BMX bikes, and afterwards we’d hang out at his house and I would include myself in their practices for fun. Years later, I was working at Copeland Sports, and I ran into Clayton. He asked if I was still playing bass, and I said, “I’ve been playing a lot recently.” I went to jam with him and Bennett, and really enjoyed it. Bennett has always been one of my favorite people. Right from the start, I wanted to get to know him better and be friends.

Bob Gates

Seeds of Suburbia was using the same practice space as HOTS, and that’s where I first met Zabi. He didn’t really drink beer, but we were all drunk one night and we wanted to know whether or not we could light our farts on fire. Turns out the answer is “yes” [laughs]. That’s how I got to know Zabi.

Tyler Prough

We ruined Zabi—he was so innocent in the beginning [laughs]. We all were really close friend,s and that band room was our second home. Sharing that practice spot with those guys was some of the best times of my life.

Bennett Mains

Zabi was an adequate bass player before he joined the band. But once he got in, he took off like a fucking rocket; he wouldn’t put his bass down. Every time I saw him he was better at the bass than he was the week before, almost to the point where it was like, “Dude slow down, you’re blowing us out of the water here with your shit” [laughs].

Zabi Naqshband

I had only been in one or two bands in high school, and I hadn’t played for a couple of years. But then I got hurt on my bike, and was stuck in bed with my knee in the air. I couldn’t go outside or do much of anything. I was bored and decided to start playing my bass again. I like to do a good job and I really enjoyed playing bass. I liked making music, so I would always have that bass with me. I wouldn’t want to get my crutches, so I would use my bass to get out of bed and walk around the house [laughs].

Bennett Mains

I wanted to call the band House of the Sun. I was young [laughs]! I was high as fuck, and then someone said, “Dude, you know ‘House of the Rising Sun’ is already a song, right?” We liked the “HOTS” abbreviation. We thought it was cool.

Zabi Naqshband

We went to a party, and this guy Johnny heard us talking about wanting to change the band name, but keep the initials. Johnny walked away, got all the way to the backyard, then he came running back in and shouts, “HOLDING ONTO SOUND!” Then he was gone [laughs].

Bennett Mains

We were like, “That’s fucking it!” It stuck because I liked the idea that music is free and in the airwaves, so if you try to grab music, you make a fist. We were all rebellious and, shit so it was fitting.

While the rest of Holding Onto Sound came together easily, the band struggled to find a permanent drummer.

Bennett Mains

The three of us kept running into problems with drummers, so we turned to Craigslist and them some online forum. We went through a few more before we met Vanessa. As soon as we met her, everything clicked.

Vanessa Tidwell, drums

I saw a post about joining a punk/reggae band, and I was instantly sold.

Zabi Naqshband

We invited her to the rehearsal space, and that was it. Within the first couple of songs, we knew: she was awesome.

Vanessa Tidwell

We were all nervous, but as soon as we started jamming, it felt like it was meant to be. Plus we all have crazy personalities and once the jokes started I knew we were going to get along just great.

Bennett Mains

She was incredible. We couldn’t believe with all the changes—because even in the beginning, there were these abrupt changes that were going from hardcore to ska to rock—she was right there with us. We hadn’t met a drummer like that. Plus, she was awesome and reliable.

Zabi Naqshband

She was also super young. Bennett and I had both turned 20 and Vanessa was only 15.

Bob Gates

Vanessa was younger than all of us, and just so stoked to be in a band. She was shy, but already able to hold her own. She proved early on that she could hang. Not just musically, but with everybody. She was just dope.

Vanessa Tidwell

When I was really in elementary school I was always tapping on stuff or playing air drums so it was only natural for me to join band when I got older. I got my first drum set and the rest is history [laughs]. I was in 2-3 bands before HOTS.

Tyler Prough

Vanessa is a badass. Everybody clicked and honestly it was like a big family of friends for a while.

Bob Gates

Then right around the time, they gave her full-time status once Clayton was out of the band. They moved out of that rehearsal studio.

Bennett Mains

Clayton and I had personality differences. Sometimes things just come down to that. I wish nothing but the best for him, and I hope he’s doing great. We just saw things differently.

Zabi Naqshband

Things were up in the air, and then Bennett came to me and asked if I wanted to keep doing this—if I wanted to keep jamming.

Bennett Mains

I called Zabi, and Vanessa and told them that I couldn’t play with Clayton anymore, but if they wanted to keep playing with me that would be dope. Luckily we decided to keep it going together. We parted ways with Clayton, and that’s when we became the three piece. That’s where Holding Onto Sound really got started.

The newly minted trio began playing more shows, eventually catching the ear of a local collective of artists, musicians and poets. They ended up forming a relationship that would last throughout the rest the band’s career.

Zabi Naqshband

I felt like [our popularity] was a slow burn. I would see people at our shows, but it wouldn’t be the same people. We might get ten or fifteen at the beginning, but it always seemed like eight or nine of them were rotating.

Bennett Mains

Things started to change when we wrote “A Girl Called Lighting.” That was a huge turning point for me as a songwriter. It gave people something to sing back at me. When that happened, it was like “This is it.” That’s everything, because there’s no band without the people watching, right?

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering, poet

I had been relatively engaged with local music for a few years at the time, but their band was one that really took me by surprise. Although still a little rough around the edges, I noticed how awesome they were. The two songs that caught me instantly were “Lester Pauline” and “A Girl Named Lightning” (AGNL is still a song I catch myself singing to myself time and time again). Needless to say, we hit it off and ended up working together for the duration of the band’s existence.

Zabi Naqshband

We were playing a charity show, and Amir Rikkah saw us. I knew Scott from high school so he asked us to come hang out with his friends. We all got along so they started inviting us to stuff.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

HOTS and I were both invited to play at “LadyFest.” After I had finished my [poetry] set, Bennett and his then-girlfriend [now ex-wife] Alexi approached me to talk about the possibility of collaborating.

Bennett Mains

We would have Amir Rikkah get up on stage with us and we’d start our shows with his poetry.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

At first, I was speaking the Vegas poem as an interlude in their set. They later decided it would be a great poem to open up their show with. I loved the idea.

Zabi Naqshband

We did it one time live and it was awesome. So we kept doing it. The next thing you know we’ve become a Macro-Fi staple.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

Def [John Kiehlbauch] already had Macro-Fi going to some extent when I started performing with HOTS. I was in a small collective, and HOTS already had ideas for their group No Label. With all of these groups/collectives going on, a few of us started talking in the parking lot one day after a show about building something new and bigger.

John “Professor Def” Kiehlbauch, Macro-Fi

Macro-Fi started as a small group of friends that were into making weird electro and hip-hop in their bedrooms. We rarely played live, since there just weren’t very many local venues in 2002-04. After Scott introduced me to Bennett (and GDB and The Skooners), we all decided that if we came together and supported each other’s shows through friendship more than musical genre ties we’d have more chance, of getting a crowd at the shows. Then we just clicked.

Bennett Mains

Las Vegas is a special city, and it’s not like other places where you can get your own little genre pocket of music together and think that you’re going to break out of there. The odds that you’ll even break out of Vegas are practically 100,000 to one. The odds are stacked against you from the start. So we decided to come together like a family.

Zabi Naqshband

After we started working together we noticed that it wasn’t just our friends and cousins coming to our shows anymore; it was people we straight up didn’t know. Macro-Fi was a big reason for that. Strangers would see those guys enjoying themselves, and it made them want to see what the fuck it was about. And then they’d come check us out and they’d dig it.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

At the time it was common to hear that “Vegas had no culture” but there we were, artists with ties to many different scenes coming together, realizing “we are the culture.”

John “Professor Def” Kiehlbauch

Downtown was just being rediscovered, and the venues were happy to have us. HOTS was always an anchor band that would attract a crowd. And Macro-Fi had tons of weird acts that would open up. Everything from hip-hop to heavy metal.

Vanessa Tidwell

There wasn’t a lot of shows happening where you could hear hip-hop, indie, punk, reggae and spoken word all in the same night. And it was such a unified crowd and experience. Macro-fi is family. We all had such eclectic tastes in music, so it always made for a good time.

Bob Gates

I cut my teeth playing Pennywise covers and shit like that when I was growing up, but I was also a big 80s fan, and I played Iron Maiden covers. I listened to a lot of stuff. Macro-FI was appealing to me because it was so inclusive.

Bennett Mains

It didn’t matter if it’s rap, it didn’t matter if it’s punk, it didn’t matter if it’s country, it didn’t matter if you’re a fucking painter; we were going to fucking stick together.

Bob Gates

That’s why they called the shows “Common Ground;” it was all different sounds coming together. HOTS was a natural fit for that since we could play pretty much any style of music and jam with whoever. I wish that we got to do more of those shows during my time in the band.

Blair Dewane, The Skooners/Rusty Maples

Although our musical styles were different, we shared a respect for giving a performance all of our fucking energy. There were countless Bunkhouse shows where we’d shared the bill, and I never wanted to follow them because I wanted to scream their songs from the crowd at the top of my lungs and not have to perform afterwards.

Bennett Mains

We built a family, and everybody had each other’s back. And nobody was making any money, we just did it because we loved it.

Zabi Naqshband

There were just these large functions, these parties where there were bands and food and art and all that stuff and I honestly don’t know anyone who was doing anything like that on that level before them.

Bennett Mains

The biggest stand out thing was the First Friday shows they’d put together. Our Vegas shows, when we were surrounded by our families, that was definitely a highlight [of being in the band].

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

My favorite shows would have to be the ones they played with The Skooners, One Pin Short, and Outside Looking In (OLI). It didn’t matter where it was, there was something about those shows, they were truly special. Maybe it was because it was the epitome of the collective. Maybe it was because those crowds usually packed the venue with friends and loved ones, or just the way the line-up worked together, but those were probably some of the best times of my life.

Shawn Garnett, One Pin Short

HOTS was a ball of energy, just heave ho-ing through every song. They ALWAYS put on a stellar show.

Shahab Zargari, GC Records

I remember being impressed that you saw hip-hop heads and punkers and rockers and nerds and drunks all in the same place at the same time enjoying the same songs together. Lots of fun was had–especially at the old Bunkhouse.

Zabi Naqshband

I met my wife, Missy, when she was working at The Bunkhouse. While we were dating I was also booking shows and running sound. It was a little bit loser format than it is now, so it was easier to do that stuff. Nowadays you’ve got to submit your stuff and make sure you’re not going to do better than the DJ [laughs].

Bennett Mains

My fondest memories playing are always going to be at The Bunkhouse Saloon. We were there with our friends, just doing our thing.

Zabi Naqshband

I would have to say that it was those Macro-Fi nights that sold Zappos on buying the Bunkhouse. It was those nights that they were showing up and going, “oh shit what’s going on here?” There would be times where we would put 100 people in that place.

Bennett Mains

When I look back on those shows, not only is it the best time of my life that I’ve ever had playing, but it’s also one of my biggest regrets. It’s one of those, “you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” things and in those days I didn’t appreciate what we had. I wish I would have let people know that we appreciated them. If I could change things I would have appreciated my bandmates more instead of turning inward.

As the band’s audience continued to grow it became clear that they needed to record a proper full length.

Zabi Naqshband

The biggest boost to our popularity was when we put out an actual album. People were able to listen to it at their leisure. Every time we put out an album, it seemed like our band got more popular.

Bennett Mains

Our first album we did Travis Allen, who was in the band Hang ’em High. We recorded that album with him in 2007 and it was a great time.

Travis Allen, Hang ’em High

I met HOTS at a rehearsal studio by the name of the Alamo. Hang ’em High practiced right across the hall from them. Over time – and many different substance-fueled adventures – we started playing shows together.

Zabi Naqshband

Travis told us that he worked at a studio called Snake Rock Studios. I think there was actually a guy named Snake Rock in town at the time. We got in there and fired it out real quick. That was our first pressed CD.

Bennett Mains

We always had a blast recording albums. That was our sweet space because we recorded live. We were a fucking live band. So when we recorded, we had a blast.

Travis Allen

First, if anyone has ever hung out with this band, they’d know that they’re genuinely kind-hearted people and that they’re fucking hilarious together. Second, they’re extremely talented. They came in, set up and hammered out the recording in a few sessions. I had them do multiple takes of all of their songs being performed together live – I didn’t have them do any overdubs to keep it as close to their live-feel as I could.

Bennett Mains

A majority of the time, I would write the song, the basic structure of the song, at home or wherever. Most of the time – not every time but like 90% of the songs that I sing that were my songs – that’s how I did it. Then I would bring it to the practice space, and Zabi and Vanessa added their flavor, because I’m just kind of a straight forward guitar guy.

Zabi Naqshband

For my songs, I usually have lyrics written down first. I would bring completed songs to the rest of the band. Bennett often times had chunks and we would piece them together.

Bennett Mains

With my lyrics, I pretty much made them up in the studio, except for a song like “A Girl Called Lightning.” That’s a very specific story. But I rarely wrote lyrics. Most of it was just going to the vocal booth and freestyling until I liked what I was saying. I would get an idea for what the message was and then figure out how to get there. If someone really went through the HOTS records and broke down the lyrics, they’d see some shit that’ll make you say, “that doesn’t make any sense” [laughs]. But I didn’t care because it sounded good.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

The band invited me to the studio with them to record two poems for the album.

Zabi Naqshband

The spoken word part was recorded separately, and we were fucking around with it after everyone went home. We put in a portion of what we did, and added his part to the end of a song, and then played the rest of it over it. I think it turned out awesome. There was no writing or formatting with it; It was just us dicking around, and it just happened to work at the end of that song.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

“Onward And Upward” on that album was written as a complimentary piece to their song by the same name. OLI (Luke and Okword, at the time) had also made a remix of it.

Luke Freeman, Outside Looking In (OLI)

I worked with Zabi and Bennett on my previous projects, so I really wanted to remix one of my favorite songs off their album. It started with me sampling Vanessa’s drums, restructuring the patterns and cutting up the rest of the instruments. I created the song on MPC2000XL, and actually lost all of my work when it crashed without saving, leaving me to start from scratch. I think it came out better than my original take and it became “Onward & Upward II.”

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

By that time, all of us had been hanging out and working with each other for a bit, so the bringing together of genres was kind of a staple to what we were doing.

Travis Allen

The album turned out raw and aggressive, and at other times, hauntingly beautiful. To this day I still listen to it loudly in my car and reminisce of the good times spent while making it.

Zabi Naqshband

That was also the first time we relied on Macro-Fi for business, even though no money was exchanged. Def is the one who mixed the album, and Mike Biggs [Macro-Fi artist] did the artwork. He did the layout and everything.

Mike Biggs, artist

I was the resident artist of Macro-Fi, and did a shitload of flyer designs for bands and events. I would set up a table at shows and sell my art and do live paintings. I met HOTS at one of their shows. I loved their music, and I got to know them better. One day, they asked me to design their album cover and I was totally excited. I always love designing stuff for bands, and I loved their music so of course I said “yes.” They gave me a lot of freedom and trusted my ability to do something original.

Zabi Naqshband

We did two release shows, and one was at The Box Office. We used to have shows where Macro-Fi would set up the Swingshift Sideshow to put on performances between bands. They would swallow swords and hang anvils off their eye sockets, just gnarly things like that shoving nails in your noses. So at our CD release we had something like that. We always had our friends’ bands play, like Six Shooters to the Sky and TheCore. Anytime we’d put a show together we’d try and get TheCore., Deadhand, Six Shooters and OPS. I had a list of bands, and it was just the same bands all the time because we knew it worked.

HOTS found more opportunities after hooking up with a local label with a family connection to one of its members.

Bennett Mains

Sometimes you don’t know where you’re going. You feel like you’re wandering a little bit, and then you have these people like Shahab, the same as Clayton, who come along and say, “what you’re doing is cool, I want to help you.” Shahab was awesome. He really promoted us. Without people like him there’s no Holding onto Sound.

Bob Gates

GC is really the passion of Shahab, with him being able to help bands figure out new ways to deliver their music. A lot of bands at the level HOTS was at have “label support,” but it doesn’t mean anything. The label isn’t really supporting them. GC actually supported us, which was cool. Shahab has the drive to get shit done. And he’s Zabi’s brother-in-law!

Zabi Naqshband

Shahab and my sister Heela [Naqshband] started GC Records in California. They had a really cool mix of bands like East Arcadia, Enemy Youth, Vlad and the Impaler and Introspect. Then I started playing punk, and Shahab has always been into that music. We did a little bit of stuff together when GC was in California. When they moved to Vegas was when we really started pushing the GC relationship.

Shahab Zargari

Heela and I weren’t sure if we would keep the label going when we moved to Vegas in 2008. Zabi was the main reason we did. He said we had too good a thing to just give it up. And from then on Zabi was yet another GC “employee.” We were all of the same mentality regarding getting the music out there so it made it easy to push forward.

Vanessa Tidwell

Shahab and Heela are amazing. GC Records really helped to get our name out there, and we had some amazing opportunities thanks to them. They are family, and I really appreciate everything they did for HOTS.

Bennett Mains

Shahab would push us to do things like photoshoots to promote our records. I really appreciate all the work they did.

Shahab Zargari

The best thing any band can do is promote the shit out of themselves and not rely on anyone else, label or otherwise. HOTS was always good at that, and their fans really loved the authenticity.

Zabi Naqshband

GC gave us a larger online footprint. They were one of the reasons we got to open for NOFX at The Joint. Shahab put us on a music videos comp and, Punknews did a review of it that singled us out as one of their favorites. NOFX were coming to town, and Shahab knew someone over at Fat and through that connection was able to talk with their manager Kent [Jamieson]. He shared the review and that basically got us the show.

Shahab Zargari

It all happened because of the Chemical X DVD collaboration with Epitaph and the connections Heela made with the Dropping Food benefit comp. Those relationships lead to that show, which then opened up the band to so many more amazing opportunities right up until the end.

Zabi Naqshband

Afterwards we started getting friendly with Kent. A lot of the roadies were cool, too, but the band didn’t really pay attention to us too much. I mean Fat Mike, I’ve met him a million times, and he barely remembers my name [laughs]. We asked if we could make the show our CD release party for our second album, and they were cool with it. Because of that, I think we may be the only Vegas band to do a CD release show at The Joint.

Shahab Zargari

The NOFX show where they, the Vegas residents who are only supposed to be security or servers or spectators, actually opened up the show, was a big deal. Two weekly Vegas magazines wrote about it in the same week. It was nuts.

Zabi Naqshband

I had people hitting me up saying, “you opened for NOFX, we want you to play here.” NOFX didn’t help us personally. They didn’t give a shit about us. But everyone else saw that and thought it was pretty awesome. So that’s was a big turning point as far as putting us on the map.

Bennett Mains

My dream from 14 years old was to share a stage with NOFX, and I did it. We did it. NOFX had been my favorite band since I was 12, and we played with them a few times… and it did nothing for me. Nothing. I just got worse and worse. None of that stuff ever made me happy because I didn’t have the right tools. And not only that, I didn’t open up to anybody. I didn’t open up to Zabi or Vanessa about how I was feeling. I just tried to ignore it, which caused more problems down the line.

For their second album, Holding Onto Sound traveled to Seattle to record with someone who worked for the same label as Nirvana and Sunny Day Real Estate.

Bennett Mains

Def knew Ben [Kersten, producer], who had recorded bands for Sub Pop, and the experience recording with him was just awesome.

John “Professor Def” Kiehlbauch

Ben was a college friend who opened up a studio in Seattle called Mysterious Red X. HOTS wanted to do something different, and studios weren’t a dime a dozen like today.

Zabi Naqshband

Def goes, “My buddy [Ben] is coming to town, he’s done stuff for Sub Pop, and I told him about yo,u and now you need to play a show while he’s here.” It was very short notice. We ended up playing with A Crowd of Small Adventures at Yayo Taco. Ben really liked our set and invited us to come out to Seattle.

Ben Kersten, producer

I really liked them. Most of what I was recording in Seattle was a little more emo/indie rock. So I was excited about working with some more aggressive music for a change.

Bennett Mains

We drove to Seattle with Def. I just want to go on record that if you’re going to take a road trip, don’t take it with Def because he’s an asshole… an asshole that I love very dearly [laughs].

Zabi Naqshband

We ended up having this really awesome recording experience. We didn’t have to go home, so we got stay in the studio for 12 hours straight. It was fun to be in a studio and not have to worry about having to go home and make dinner [laughs].

Ben Kersten

They stayed at my house and they were all super considerate. They were also easy to work with which made this such a fun project. Their personalities lent themselves really well to working in the studio. No one had egos getting in the way.

Vanessa Tidwell

We definitely let the weirdness flow, even making a lot of song adjustments on site. It was something about that studio – or Seattle – but the creativity was at an all-time high for us.

Ben Kersten

We tracked everything live with the intention that we could overdub anything if we needed to. The way my studio was set up was that it was easier to get the guitar tones after the fact, because I only had so much space in the live room. A lot of times, we’d have to stick the guitar cabs in the closet. But for the most part it was recorded live.

Bennett Mains

I think that that’s our best record. I love the way it opens with the train and ends with the train. You hear Def in there yelling. He goes, “This is it, it’s totally it.” It’s all recorded reel to reel; it’s a real recording. I love it. It’s very dear to my heart. Anytime I listen to that, it takes me to Seattle.

Zabi Naqshband

This time we made up something with the intentions of Scott going over the top of it. It worked and was awesome.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

We decided that the poems should have some music behind them so that they weren’t so blatantly an interlude.

Zabi Naqshband

It broke up the flow of the album, but didn’t break it up so much to where it was weird or it sounded out of place. It just added extra flavor to something the listener wasn’t expecting.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

Def and I recorded the first poem to the train tracks, and then we listened to an hour of them simply jamming in the studio. I heard the part that would eventually become the backing track to “Gluttonous Luncheons,” and decided to go from there. It worked perfectly.

Bennett Mains

When it came time for the cover there was no question. We had one of the most amazing artists I’ve ever personally known as a friend, and he was down to smoke some weed and draw some shit.

Mike Biggs

This one they had a specific idea for the cover. It was a simple design, but still fun to do. I was happy to do it.

Bennett Mains

The image is about resisting. That’s the tone of that album – you have to resist the social norms of what people tell you is right and wrong. Resist what authority figures have told you and look at shit through your own eyes. We’re products of what we’re taught and if you go through any soul searching what you’re doing is pulling back the layers others have put on you.

Mike Biggs

I took a picture of my hand up in a fist, and drew it out vector style like a graffiti stencil….then they wanted the color outlines around it like reggae colors.

Bennett Mains

That was a nod to Bob Marley, who was a huge influence on me. The simplicity of that artwork totally sums up everything that Holding Onto Sound was and stood for.

Ben Kersten

I’ve always been a harsh critic of my own work, but I was super stoked on them as a band and felt that the product well-represented their sound. I thought we did a great job.

Bennett Mains

I still can’t get over what a good record Songs of Freedom is. It captured this really happy moment, before I went off the rails with my drug addiction.

Holding Onto Sound didn’t just play locally. The band made it out of Vegas on multiple occasions, though life on the road wasn’t easy for all of them.

Bennett Mains

The first time we toured was cool. We played in Kingsman, Arizona in this dude’s garage. And there’s fucking nothing ever going on in Kingsman, Arizona, so it felt like everyone under 25 was there. It was awesome.

Zabi Naqshband

Chris Lay set up the Kingman show, and he was wonderful. I plotted a tour, and found him through an Arizona punk website. I said, “we’ll play anywhere,” and he offered up his garage. The cops ended up driving by and nobody said anything. Everyone was drinking, smoking, and having a good time. It was great.

Vanessa Tidwell

Kingman was LIT. One second, it looks like just a house show in a garage with a few friends, and before you know, it we could no longer fit everyone in the garage! Those were good times. And Texas was our second home outside of Vegas. Imagine one of our old school Bunkhouse shows but, in Texas, but mix in some wildlife (yeah, we played on a farm once), a lot of punk rockers and a BBQ.

Bennett Mains

There were shows in San Antonio that this dude Artie would put together, and they were also incredible.

Zabi Naqshband

We met Artie Garcia (Sans Faith) through OPS [One Pin Short], who we were touring with. That was our first big, long tour. And getting to go with them was awesome because I knew Jordan [Rosenthal, drums] from high school, and Shawn is just a sweetheart

Jordan Rosenthal, One Pin Short

Touring together was a blast! The crowds might not have been the bigges,t but I got to see one of my favorite bands perform every night! HOTS truly had something special.

Zabi Naqshband

We had to leave the tour early because we were running out of funds, and we were having a hard time being away for so long. This was our first real long jaunt, it was about a month.

Bennett Mains

We were definitely focused and wanted the band to succeed. We all wanted it. Touring is important to make that happen. But I had a really hard time on tour. I just struggled with it. I didn’t really like it that much.

Zabi Naqshband

We were all getting homesick and having a few other issues here and there and, so we had to bail early. OPS ended up playing two more shows and one of the shows was San Antonio. They ended up giving away some of our merch, which was passed on through some people and eventually ended up with Artie.

Artie Garcia, promoter

My friends and I would jam out to the CD like crazy, so I contacted HOTS online and bugged them to let me book them. They played the first annual fest I used to throw called Fall Fall Fall Fest, and a couple other times after that. All the shows were fun, and we created a pretty cool following down here for them.

Vanessa Tidwell

Our friend Artie always made us feel like we are family and put on some amazing shows.

Zabi Naqshband

Suddenly we were making frequent trips out to San Antonio, and we just liked it out there so much. They were always so nice. And we always made enough money to get home, which is awesome.

Bennett Mains

Those were good times, but I was still having difficulty touring. I had drug problems, and that was really unfair to the rest of the band. Zabi and Vanessa are two extremely driven people, and Zabi has the ability to walk into a room and meet somebody and get us a fucking a show. Vanessa, too. They have this ability to make friends with people wherever we went, and I admired it about them, because I didn’t feel like I had that.

Zabi Naqshband

I’m pretty friendly. I do sales and I don’t mind talking to people, so the band usually put me at the forefront of everything. Anytime someone needed to talk to somebody in the band, they would say, “go get Zabi.” One of my main responsibilities, not because anyone directed me to it, but it just worked out, was that I would just go and shoot the shit with people, and make them feel like we worth giving their time to.

Bennett Mains

We would play these amazing shows, but I always kind of wanted to be that person that could walk in and light up a room the way that Zabi did. I felt like I didn’t have that I just turned inward, and ultimately self-destructive.

Zabi Naqshband

I wouldn’t say that Bennett isn’t social, but judging by all the stuff that was going with him… that mindset makes you feel like everybody’s looking at you and knows your problems. Around his close friends he was a more open, and lot sillier. But I wouldn’t mind. I could have a nice conversation with somebody random at the grocery store. I don’t know if I invest as much emotionally in my conversations as other people do, so maybe that’s why I can just talk to people. I just want to talk to people and listen to what they got to say.

Bennett Mains

I have regrets. I had a knack for just fucking things up. And you know I just missed the hell out of home. We’d go somewhere and play to an empty bar in Oregon or something and I would just be like, “dude, why are we doing this?” I’d rather be at home with our people doing it there.

Zabi Naqshband

Nothing beats people singing and screaming in your face and giving the love that we felt in town.

After two albums, Holding Onto Sound came to the decision that they needed to add a fourth member in order to shake up their sound. They knew exactly which guitarist to call.

Bennett Mains

We started going in a different direction when we were writing our third album, The Sea. It was a departure from Songs of Freedom, and I felt that if we were going to go in a new direction, let’s just fucking go and bring in a second guitarist. I knew Bob was available so we asked him.

Bob Gates

I had left Seeds of Suburbia because my father was sick and I had wanted to spend more time with him before he passed. I wasn’t happy, and I wanted to change my life. So I was out of music for almost three years when Bennett invited me to join Holding Onto Sound.

Zabi Naqshband

I was really nervous because I don’t like change. But we needed something. I could only fill so much space with noise, so it would be nice to have a second guitar. We talked about it and we said if it was going to be anybody it would be Bob. He was number one on a very, very short list.

Bennett Mains

Here’s the thing about Bob, and I don’t even know if he knows this, but Bob is my oldest friend. I moved around my whole life, so Bob is actually my oldest friend. So if we were going to have a new member I wanted it to be Bob.

Bob Gates

I was so out of practice but when Bennett asked me to jam, I said I’d give it a try. They’re badass and good people, so I figured it would be a fun time. But after the session, I didn’t think I could hang with them. They’re so good, and I was rusty. It was like getting up off the couch for the first time in your life and immediately running a marathon [laughs]. So I turned them down.

Zabi Naqshband

He was really unsure and couldn’t find himself a place. I was really bummed because I felt like if Bob can’t do it, who can? He took a little bit of time, thought about it more and came back a second time and fit right in.

Bob Gates

Bennett was really adamant about it. The songs he was writing for The Sea were being written with the idea of having two guitars. And instead of going into the studio and doing all these extra guitar parts himself, he wanted to add in somebody. Looking back on it, I’m very grateful and appreciative that he thought of me and that I had the chance to do it.

Vanessa Tidwell

I love Bob. Bob definitely brought in the girth [laughs]. We felt like we were already loud, but when we brought Bob in he filled any empty space and really added those undertones. I enjoyed the fact that all of the boys could really write and create off of each other, even more with Bob adding a whole new dynamic to the group. And he helped me to create some even weirder, harder drum parts!

Bennett Mains

Playing shows with Bob was fun. How we would get him to learn the old songs was we would play shows where we would perform an entire album, Songs of Freedom or self-titled, all the way through. He would go home, listen to it, and figure it out. No fucking stoner who is worth a shit is going to do that on his own [laughs]. We had to do the shows to put the pressure on him.

Bob Gates

It was like taking me back to my roots. A lot of people that get into punk or metal guitar playing, they just put on a CD and start strumming along. Since I knew Bennett so well, I would listen to the albums and instantly know what he was doing. So it was easy to sit down and map out some stuff for me to play.

Zabi Naqshband

He’s mentally very good, so he was able to break down the songs and pick up what we were doing quickly. He just knew. And none of the songs are too complex. They weren’t math rock or anything [laughs]. They’re fun and fairly easy to follow.

Bennett Mains

His style of playing guitar is a lot different than mine and I feel like that really balanced us out.

Bob Gates

Occasionally, Bennett would point out spots where he always envisioned a second guitar. But for the most part he let me do my thing. As long as I wasn’t trying to take over someone’s solo [laughs].

Bennett Mains

You could really hear it on the Songs of Freedom songs, with some of the guitar parts. The solo-y stuff. It’s a little more powerful and straightforward. That’s where he shined. He added a lot of cool textures to that record, and to our live shows. It made it a lot more powerful and fun.

Zabi Naqshband

I became closer to Bob and I don’t know if that affected Bennett, because at the same time Bennett was being more on the secretive side. He started to be around less. There would be times when he would disappear, and those were the times Vanessa and I got close to Bob. We all knew this problem was happening and we were all involved, but I also felt kind of bad bringing Bob into this life.

Bob Gates

I didn’t know what the temperature of the band was like before I got in. But talking to Zabi about it later, he said there was this surge when I landed.

Zabi Naqshband

I hate to say it was a mess but, it was starting to become a mess and if it wasn’t for him, I think that worse things would have happened to our band earlier. He breathed new life into HOTS and added layers. Having the extra tones in there was always cool.

Bennett Mains

Bob is such a sweet, gentle spirit. The only problem was that bringing him into the band made it that much harder for our friendship when the band split.

The band worked with a Vegas producer on what would become their final full length, as well as a companion 7”.

Bennett Mains

We did The Sea with Ronald Corso [11th Street Records, National Southwestern Recording] at his house. His garage was converted into a recording studio. That all came out well and we just had a blast.

Ronald Corso, producer

They were a totally focused force of nature that I was lucky enough to have come into my shitty garage studio and just fuckin’ explode.

Bob Gates

We spent all summer in Ronald’s backyard, and I really found my bearings with the band. Ronald was cool because he encouraged me to grow into my own. And he let me mix The Sea, which was fun.

Zabi Naqshband

Ronald cooked us dinner, we met his family and we invaded their privacy. I felt lucky. In this scene, people do what they can and sacrifice everything. They will do things for free, they will do things for absolutely nothing just to get more stuff out there and to get involved with something. Ronald really dug our stuff and was willing to just let us do what we wanted to do in there. And he helped us along the way.

Vanessa Tidwell

Recording with Ron was always a blast. He pushed us to really dial it in and it turned out great. I got some great sounds and tones with him.

Ronald Corso

We made a couple pretty decent punk rock records together, but they were so much better than the albums. They were a legitimately important band and a really bright moment in Las Vegas music that anybody who was there remembers in that way.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

I had moved to Tahoe for the winter, and Bennett reached out to me asking to write something for the album. I heard a few songs played live before I left, but I largely did not know what the album would entail. All I was told is that it had to do with the sea, and that the intro was a waltzy feel. So I wrote what I felt, which was the Poseidon poem.

Brock Frabbiele, TheCore./graphic designer

Bennett approached me about doing some shirt designs, which quickly turned into doing album art for The Sea and The Tempest.

Zabi Naqshband

Brock is one of my favorite people, and I know that’s the case for a lot of people. This scene has a lot of really good people and his art is great. I love the imagery and he just went with it, and he did an awesome job. He’s like working with family, and it blossomed into something even better.

Brock Frabbiele

The printing for these albums were all handmade. We made rubber stamps and stamped the art on each cover, front and back. HOTS had an indescribable way of transferring emotion through their music, and I had a challenge trying to recreate that attitude and conviction.

Bennett Mains

There’s so much tied into The Sea. Music was my only expression. I don’t know why people get into bands, but for me, music is my only outlet. So what The Sea is about is drug addiction. There’s some songs that seem like they’re political but for me, that’s not what it’s about. For me, [lyrics] “the sea” and “these sharks like remember me” – it’s about fucking demons.

Zabi Naqshband

When you’re on tour and you’re in a van for hours and hours, you have a lot of time to talk. We just shot the shit and came up with a lot of concepts during those times. But Bennett was very good at hiding what was going on, even from us. I was very naïve about the whole thing. With the drugs, it took me a really long time even after the band broke up to get a lot of the answers. There was still so much I didn’t know.

Bennett Mains

The Sea is a reference to being lost in this fog. I did that record on oxycodone, and I’m not proud of it. I’m not saying it’s, like it’s cool. It just happened.

Zabi Naqshband

I wish I would have dug a little bit deeper into the lyrics but I had a job to do – backup vocals and play bass. I felt that there was something up, but I knew how secretive he was, so I didn’t want to pry. My relationship with Bennett really had its ups and downs, and when you bring spouses and girlfriends in the mix, it can kind of change things a lot. Those relationships changed during our time in the band. There were times when we would only see each other for shows and practice.

Holding Onto Sound continued to play frequently, which was good for their fans but didn’t sit well with some promoters. This need to play often lead Bennett to form a side project.

Bennett Mains

Vegas isn’t like other places. Bands have an “I’m not here to show off my vanity” state of mind – and I fucking love it. Vegas bands aren’t here to show you how fucking cool they are. The Skooners, Lydia Vance, Six Shooters to the Sky; bands like that.

Brendan Scholz, Lydia Vance/Mercy Music

I’ve always loved HOTS. They weren’t like any other band in Vegas. They were amazing musicians and some of the nicest people I’ve had the privilege of knowing.

Bennett Mains

We weren’t interested in selling tickets, we weren’t interested in getting signed. We just wanted to fucking play music.

Micah Malcolm, The Quitters/Illicitor

The first time the Quitters played with HOTS was the night the Canvas Cafe was closing. We became really friendly as bands and always tried to book shows with each other. I feel that HOTS pushed The Quitters to write crazier songs at the time because we saw what they were accomplishing with their music.

Zabi Naqshband

We played all the time, and a lot of promoters started giving us shit for it because they wanted their shows to do well. We got a lot of shit for playing too much. And then we started not getting shows because of it.

Bennett Mains

We didn’t slow down until we quit. Our attitude was, “fuck that, we want to play.” I didn’t care if some guy got mad at us. I wanted to play more.

Micah Malcolm

Bennett and I would hang out at shows, and in early 2012 he brought up the idea of us doing a two-piece project. When the lead singer of your favorite band asks if you want to play music together, you immediately say, “yes” [laughs]. This became Banana Riot!, the band getting its name from an experience my Grandpa had growing up in England during WWII.

Zabi Naqshband

Bennett was bailing on us so much, and all of a sudden he was in another band, and I was really hurt by that. Part of me felt that he was trying to subliminally get one of us to quit. It felt like he was doing things to purposefully piss us off.

Bennett Mains

I just wanted another outlet. A big part of it was that I was getting tired of playing ska, and Banana Riot! was the perfect place to just rage. It was straight forward blasting and I just enjoyed it.

Micah Malcolm

I felt this instant connection with Bennett when we began fleshing our songs out; it had a jazz feel – we never played a song the same way twice, but we always could follow each other through the chaos.

Bob Gates

We dug the band but it was also a bummer because we knew Bennett was trying to patch holes in his ship with whatever he could at the time.

Bennett Mains

I can’t say where my head was, but I can tell you is I fucking loved playing with Micah.

Micah Malcolm

Technically, Banana Riot! never broke up. So Bennett, let’s do a one off show sometime soon!

Bennett Mains

There could be a fifth show [laughs]. Micah is great and I loved playing with him.

While Holding Onto Sound continued their relationship with GC Records through the release of ‘The Sea’ and ‘The Tempest,’ doors were opening with other labels.

Bennett Mains

I always had this resolute, “I’m never going to sign a contract” attitude, and the band knew that. I thought we’d get taken advantage. But we ended up playing more shows with NOFX and then there were some murmurs going around that maybe their label [Fat Wreck Chords] was looking at us. Then we went on this tour with [Fat Wreck Chords band] Cobra Skulls, which was our final tour.

Zabi Naqshband

I was at Bunkhouse and Cobra Skulls was playing. I was with Devin [Peralta, frontman] just doing the normal Bunkhouse routine where everybody talks outside. We played with him in the past, and he asked us if we’d be down to tour together. I said, “of course, are you kidding me?” They were going through Devil Dolls booking agency at the time. Deborah [L. Toscano] was the one who ran that and we ended up dealing with her quite a bit because she had a hand in pretty much every Fat Wreck band that came through town.

Bob Gates

That tour was very bittersweet. Devin is one of the nicest dudes I’ve ever met. He really put his neck out there for us with the tour. Looking back at the shows we got to do, like Punk Rock Bowling and the NOFX shows, we knew people that could help us get to the point we wanted to be at. We wanted to go and kill it, but at the same time we knew it was a volatile situation. And the saying’s true: it all comes out on the road.

Bennett Mains

We played in San Antonio and we were getting ready to go to Austin. Deborah was going to be at that show. Everybody was psyched up that we’re going to do this show and… *sighs* I ran out of heroin. And I lied to the whole band.

Zabi Naqshband

Deborah was stoked to finally see us play. I was under the impression that we really needed to play this show for her to understand what we were doing. And we didn’t. I thought this was going to be one of the defining moments for our band. If she picks us up we would be an unsigned band touring with Fat and Epitaph groups. Then all of a sudden Bennett comes to me and says, “hey, we gotta go.”

Vanessa Tidwell

I know for a fact that this show would have lead to bigger things. I feel as though everything that we had worked for was finally about to pay off. I was disappointed, to say the least.

Bob Gates

I kind of had a feeling something was up, but I didn’t know what it was. I thought maybe Bennett was growing disinterested in the band or whatever.

Bennett Mains

I told them something had happened to my grandma and we needed to leave. That’s one of those things that I live with. Fuck… it was right there. I learned later on that we may have been seriously looked at. The way I handled things… it was wrong and the band didn’t deserve that.

Zabi Naqshband

He swore to us that he wasn’t leaving because of his drug problems, that his Grandma was having some issues. We found out the real reason after the band broke up. That stuff right there is in the “no-no zone” of lying. There’s different levels of lying and that’s pretty much the black belt. If I would have known that… I think I might have quit.

Bennett Mains

People say “no regrets” or whatever, but I regret that. If I could go back I would do that show, if nothing more than for Zabi and Vanessa and Bob. The hard work that they put in, it paid off. It fucking paid off.

Bob Gates

We didn’t know at the time that this was the iceberg to our Titanic.

The band soldiered on with a few more local shows before breaking up on April 6, 2013 on the way to a festival.

Zabi Naqshband

I didn’t know that Bennett was going to do what he did to us on the day we left for Way Out West Fest. I had no idea that was going to happen. All I knew was that he had been to rehab a few times. I didn’t know exactly what he was doing, I just knew that he was out of control.

Bennett Mains

They were on to me and I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle how fucking terrible I felt about myself. We stopped at a gas station on the way to Arizona, and I went into the bathroom and I smoked some meth. After we got back on the road I asked to take another shift driving and the band made it clear that I couldn’t, so I said, “I’m fucking done, take me home.”

Zabi Naqshband

We had only gone one exit, literally one exit. We just got the van filled with gas and were on our way. Then we had this conversation in the van with some things that… I’m sure he didn’t feel. Maybe he felt them at the time, but I know he doesn’t believe these things. What he said was pretty hurtful and anyone that would have heard it would have been like, “whoa, that’s pretty deep dude, that’s dark stuff.”

Bennett Mains

I had really fallen into my drug addiction. It was to the point where I couldn’t hide it. It was always a point of contention with the band. Zabi and I got into more than one fight over my addiction. But I wasn’t really off the rails until the last two years of HOTS. I just got into a full on opioid addiction. That lead to heroin, which ended up leading into meth. I had gone way off course. Also, I didn’t want to keep playing ska/hardcore music. My heart wasn’t in that anymore. But I can’t really say that for sure because I was so… I was on another planet.

Zabi Naqshband

Bennett said he was done so we dropped him off at home. Then we pulled up to my house and I said, “I’m drawing a line in the sand, I can’t do this anymore.” And that was it. Bob goes, “what are we going to do?” and I told him to post something on Facebook. Go on there and say, “we can’t deal with this shit”. Bennett’s gone, he could fucking die, we have no idea what’s going to happen to him, but we can’t sit here and be a band. I wasn’t going to call his bluff anymore.

Bob Gates

There’s only so far you can go when you deal with people, and we got into the van as a band, and we got out of the van as not a band.

Bennett Mains

It’s another one of those things that I just look back on and go, “dude, fuck, how could I do this?” *Pause* How could I do that? My heart was broken… and I broke theirs, too.

Vanessa Tidwell

I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it to this day. It was a huge “wtf” moment.

Zabi Naqshband

I knew there were lots of drugs involved. Bennett likes to party, and being a musician it’s especially hard being around that stuff because it’s everywhere. I’ve never done heroin or anything mega hard, so I don’t know what it’s like to not have control.

Bennett Mains

I was having more problems than just Holding Onto Sound. I was also having problems with my parents, who I stole from… *Pause* I robbed my parents. My parents saved my life. Alexi, she saved my life. Definitely saved my life. And I was hurting all these people. The people that were buying our records and the people that were coming to our shows… I was hurting all these people, too.

Bob Gates

It’s a bummer of a thing to have happen, but I’m sure other people in other bands can relate. People that have been in any relationship can relate. Things happen and sometimes you say stuff that you can’t take back. That’s just how it goes. It was a shitty experience, but we were kind of expecting it. Maybe not in the way it happened. But we were operating HOTS on the assumption that it could be done at any moment.

Bennett Mains

When the breakup came, it was just inevitable. I think we all knew it. It was a ticking time bomb and that was nobody else’s fault but mine.

Shahab Zargari

I just remember feeling sadness. They were on the cusp of big things, and it all just eroded with a snap of Thanos’ fingers.

Zabi Naqshband

A couple days after this happened, I ran into Bennett at a Yeah Yeah Yeahs show. Missy and I went, and I saw Bennett and Alexi. He quit our band, and then I see him at a concert and I was like… fuck. He saw me and just kept walking. I couldn’t believe it, but that show put a lot of things in perspective for me. If it wasn’t for that particular concert, I wouldn’t still want to pursue music as much as I do.

Bennett Mains

The way the story ends for me in Vegas is that I went to a psych ward. The cops busted me, and I started threatening to kill myself, so they put me in a psych ward. I ended up escaping – they said it couldn’t be done and I fucking did it! But… I got locked up again, and Alexi and my mom found this rehab place out in Texas. I had been clean for six days at this point, and that’s the longest I’d been in… I don’t even know how long. It had been 10-15 years and I was practically begging for help. When the judge agreed to send me there, I started crying because I was so happy.

With Bennett in Texas to rehabilitate his life, Vanessa, Zabi and Bob made the choice to continue playing music together under a new name.

Bennett Mains

At first, I wasn’t going to stay in Texas when I got clean. My plan was to get my head on straight and go back to Vegas in six months and try and patch things up. I was hoping to get the band going again.

Zabi Naqshband

There were moments where if he would have caught me at the right time, I would have said, “I forgive you, don’t ever do that again, let’s fucking do this.” But there were also times when I would have been said, “don’t ever fucking talk to me again, fuck you.” It’s hard. I felt very betrayed by the whole thing.

Bennet Mains

I realized over the first six months I was there [in rehab] that I couldn’t undo what I’d done. Holding Onto Sound, for me and not for anyone else, needed to be laid to rest.

Bob Gates

I changed my career for Holding Onto Sound. I aligned my life to do that and it was one of those things that sucks to end.

Zabi Naqshband

I was having a really hard time processing it, but at the same time, I felt like if I didn’t play music, it would be worse. Music was always a thing that helped me. My therapy. And not by myself, but playing loud music with drums, screaming into a microphone, and running around getting sweaty. That’s what I enjoy. I told Bob and Vanessa that we can’t just quit doing this. We all like this too much.

Bob Gates

And that’s how Illicitor came about. Zabi, Vanessa, and I were already writing songs together for HOTS when the end happened. We would go to practice and it would just end up being the three of us because Bennett didn’t show up.

Vanessa Tidwell

We always were able just to pick up our instruments and just jam. And these are my brothers at the end of the day, so it was totally natural.

Bob Gates

Our plan wasn’t to continue HOTS because we didn’t want to continue that band without Bennett. It was actually twofold, because if things were going to end, we wanted to end on own terms, and we also wanted to keep playing music. That’s what we all needed to do at the time.

Zabi Naqshband

We started taking songs that we had been writing while waiting for Bennett. We used to have band practice without him since he wouldn’t show up. We would sit there and jam for hours and hours. This was before I had kids so I could do this kind of stuff [laughs].

Bob Gates

I wasn’t writing songs for HOTS. I was putting the icing on the cake as opposed to the other three, who were designing and baking it. Illicitor was really new territory for me. I was not only writing songs now, but also singing them. It’s still something that I’m figuring out and getting better at.

Zabi Naqshband

We had this plan at the beginning where we were going to write all these songs, record them, put the music out and then the day we put the music out we’re going to announce ourselves to the world. But then Vanessa really wanted to play a show and get it over with. So we played the show with her, and then the next day she told me that we needed to talk. I texted Bob and was like, “mother fucker… I know what’s happening” [laughs].

Vanessa Tidwell

I ended up leaving because I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to put as much time and effort into the project as I had invested into HOTS. With me joining Holding Onto Sound at such a young age, I molded my life, my jobs, and everything else around the band. I had a career opportunity I couldn’t pass up, and after what had just went down with Bennett I had to make a really tough decision not to continue.

Bob Gates

I think that playing in Illicitor was different than what Vanessa anticipated. That band was always going to be under our terms, and we weren’t going to lobby to change members. If any one of us was going to leave we figured that would be fine because we support each other.

Zabi Naqshband

Vanessa joined HOTS as a teenager. We had just got done touring and playing a million shows, and then all this shit happened with Bennett. I commend her for letting us know as early as she did. That’s one of the most admirable things about Vanessa, she doesn’t mess around with that kind of stuff.

Bob Gates

When we started Illicitor, we were all close already, but I feel like I’ve gotten closer to Vanessa since she’s been out of the band. Now when we meet up it’s just us talking about shit. We’re just friends. She’s such a cool person, and even though it’s a bummer that we’re not in a band together anymore, I say “c’est la vie.” I’m better friends with her now, so it can’t be really that much of a bummer.

Zabi Naqshband

I love her to death, and don’t have any ill feelings toward her whatsoever. As soon as we had that conversation, Bob and I set out to find someone to take over and immediately thought of Micah [Malcolm, The Quitters/Banana Riot!].

Micah Malcolm, Illicitor

The Quitters was on the bill for Illicitor’s inaugural show at The Artistic Armory, which turned out to be the only show with those three in the lineup. I received a phone call within a week of that show from Zabi asking me to join Illicitor. I said, “yes” immediately.

Bob Gates

Micah is a beast, and he evolved with us from what we were doing in HOTS to the metal/punk band that we are today. He’s such a heavy hitter on the drums. He has a good musical ear. He can play a ton of instruments and write songs, too. It’s a different vibe than when Vanessa was there but of all the drummers in Vegas, Micah was our first choice.

Zabi Naqshband

Micah is one of my favorite drummers. We both love Refused and I always felt that he had a very Refused vibe when he played.

Vanessa Tidwell

Illicitor really has taken flight, and I’m super proud of them. If anyone hasn’t made it out to a show they’re missing out. And Micah is the shit.

Bennett Mains

Illicitor is fucking great. I’ve got to see them play live, and it’s phenomenal. It makes me very happy because I can see them being them. They’re a force.

Unlike the rest of the band, Bennett stepped away from music. He used that time to straighten up his life.

Bennett Mains

I had a fucked up childhood, and I never opened up to anyone about it. My father was a pretty violent drunk, so we left him when I was seven. We packed up a U-Haul, and as we were driving away, I said to myself, “I’m the man now.” My mom ended up getting remarried to my stepdad, Lindell, and that dude is one of my heroes. There’s just something cool about men like him. It wasn’t his job to raise me, but he stepped up and did it anyway. But I had so much trauma. I was molested more than once (not by my dad). Instead of seeing a counselor, I brushed it all under the rug… and it all caught up to me. I was dealing with so much, and that’s why I’m a huge proponent of mental health now. I just let all this pain sit there and turn bad. Alexi, Def and Scott… those were the only people I had after I shut myself off from the band. They saved my fucking life.

Bob Gates

Being in Texas is something that’s better for Bennett. Sometimes I wish we could go back to the success that HOTS was having, but not at the cost of the cost of our sanity. It’s not worth it to do that to ourselves. I’m trying to be as forward-thinking a person as possible. It’s tough to look back at the past because you can never change what is.

Bennett Mains

When I got to rehab… it was rough. And not because I had to get sober. I realized how much damage I’d done. All I could do was think about how much I hurt my friends. Bob, who had been one of my best friends since I was 16 years old, Zabi, Vanessa, my parents and my wife… I hurt all of them. Professor Def, I fucking love that dude, and I stole from him. I offered Blair heroin one time, and I kept thinking, “thank God he didn’t take it.” I thought about all those people that were trying to help me along the way. It was rough, but it was motivation to change my life. I took a complete break from music. I started to think that music wasn’t for me. I was focusing completely on getting clean.

Zabi Naqshband

Bennett called me while he was in rehab. I saw a Texas phone number, answered and heard, “Zabi?” I was having hard time not crying because I just kept thinking that he was going to be dead. I told him that and I think it really upset him. I asked, “are you okay, are you clean?” He said he was and I told him that was all I needed to know. I said that but I didn’t feel it. I felt like I needed to say more. I had some issues. I was having a hard time hanging out with Bob or Vanessa and not bringing it up.

Bennett Mains

That was the first time we talked since the band ended. I called him to catch up and to apologize. Zabi saying to me that he thought I was dead… it had a big impact on me. I was doing a lot better at that point but that was definitely a tough thing to hear. That was really tough.

Zabi Naqshband

There are still moments that I get that anger all over again. When it first happened I’d just start thinking about it and become super bummed out for hours. I would try and find a way to move my sadness and anger towards something. But the person to blame for it wasn’t in front of me. They were thousands of miles away. So getting over it was hard. It was a slow fizzle for me.

Bennett Mains

I decided to shift my focus towards helping other drug addicts, so I got a job at a rehab center. I worked there for three and a half years and helped other people get sober. That’s all I cared about. I was lucky enough to be able to help. And if anyone is reading this is struggling like I was, know that you can come out the other side. If someone is struggling with drug addiction, you can get sober. You can come out the other side and be a better person for it. This story seems dark but Holding Onto Sound was the one of the most beautiful things in my life. I was lucky enough to have people around me who not only saved my life, but put me in a position to where I could help other people save theirs.

HOTS surprised everyone by reuniting on May 13, 2016. They’ve reunited one more time since then.

Bennett Mains

That first reunion show is my favorite Holding Onto Sound show ever. It was Def who got us back together.

Zabi Naqshband

Someone posted an old Macro-Fi show flyer on Facebook. It had all the bands people associate with that time, like The Skooners, OPS, OLI and us. People started sharing the flyer and talking about how cool it would be to see that lineup again. Def reached out and said, “let’s fucking try this.”

John “Professor Def” Kiehlbauch

Family Reunions. The reunion show was just that. It wasn’t about a record breaking crowd or pushing old music. It was about getting people together who haven’t all been in the same spot together in years.

Vanessa Tidwell

Def sent the message and we knew it was a definite yes.

Zabi Naqshband

Def made some phone calls and found out that people were relying on me. If HOTS did it, the other bands would do too and if I said, “no” then the show probably wouldn’t happen. I wanted to play hard to get… but I really wanted to do it. It felt like it would be a good way to say, “goodbye.” Plus, I like being the popular band for a night [laughs].

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

Honestly, after the break-up of HOTS and the somewhat disintegration of Macro-Fi (time happens and new ways need to be paved) I was not sure if we would ever be able to all come together to relieve those times again. But Def low-key talked everyone into getting together again, going as far as offering to pay our ways out there.

John “Professor Def” Kiehlbauch

We flew in people from all over the country – all over the world if you count Hawaii. The shows mirrored the stuff we did all the time and was fuckin’ lit.

Bob Gates

We thought it would be cool if we could pull this off, and it turned out to be a ruckus! [laughs] It was good to finally see Bennett again, and to know that he was doing ok.

Bennett Mains

I had never ever played a Holding Onto Sound show sober before that one. When the band was together, even when there wasn’t hard drugs going on, I was still smoking weed and shit. But to play that show completely sober, and really take in what was happening that night… it was amazing.

Zabi Naqshband

I had never actually seen sober Bennett before so it was different. We were all in a different place, and I just didn’t know if it’s the same flavors as it was before. It was hard to act like none of that stuff happened.

Bob Gates

It’s tough for us to be in the same room and talk about HOTS because of how unceremoniously it ended. I didn’t even speak to Bennett for a long time. When we did the reunion show at the Bunkhouse, that was the first time I had talked to him since the breakup. So that reunion was really good closure for me because it finally felt like something I could finally get passed.

Zabi Naqshband

Having the reunion show in our city and in front of our friends, I knew it was going to be a big deal.

Bennett Mains

It wasn’t just us either. We played with One Pin Short, OLI, Hassan, Late for Dinner and the Skooners. I don’t think my heart has ever been that full during a show as it was night.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

Seeing everyone together, having the lineup almost exactly as it had played out multiple times, being on stage with HOTS again, and having them close out the show was as close to perfection that I could have asked for.

Henry Snyder, Outside Looking In (OLI)

It was truly amazing that regardless of how long the band was broken up for, they could assemble at a moments notice and bring down the house without missing a beat. In my opinion HOTS is one of the greatest bands to be manifested in this city. Better than The Killers, Panic! at the Disco and even Imagine Dragons.

Shawn Garnett

I feel all warm inside just thinking of that show! I cried a little bit. As I get olde,r I tend to get more emotional (damn Disney movies tear me to shreds). That night hit me straight in the heart. HOTS tore it up like always. I will never forget that show.

Micah Malcolm

The reunion was a chance for, not only all of the fans, but for HOTS themselves, to say goodbye. It was one of the most emotional and cathartic shows I’ve ever been to, and I know I’m not the only one that feels that way. Being able to hear all of those songs one more time was extremely satisfying.

Bob Gates

We were a band that wanted to do things a particular way, so if HOTS had to end we wanted to end it right. To breakup on the road like – literally on the road – is not a way for any band to go out. Especially considering we didn’t get to play for our friends one last time. So the show was like a proper, cathartic release. We just wanted that Viking funeral [laughs]. To this day that’s one of the most intense shows I’ve ever played.

Vanessa Tidwell

It was such a great night. It felt just like old times.

Blair Dewane

Playing the reunion was great, but I felt incredibly depressed the next morning. We had a great thing in the music scene, with an abundance of friends and fans that were at every show, and it’s something we’ll never be able to recreate.

Bennett Mains

After we played, I was hugging people for fifteen or twenty minutes, just thanking them for coming and everything. I ended up meeting this kid, he was probably just twenty-one years old. He had a camera with him and a CD and he asked me to sign the CD. He goes, “please sign my CD, I’ve been listening to you since I was a kid, and then you broke up and I thought I was never going to see you live.” I was just so happy that I was sober for that show and sober for that kid.

Zabi Naqshband

It’s funny, the Bunkhouse was really skeptical about the show. We wanted it to be on First Friday, like we used to do, but they said, “no” because they already had a contract with a DJ. We ended up doing it on another Friday, and hit venue capacity by the second band! They later told me it was the most profitable show they’ve ever done. I just replied, “yeah, I told you, stupid DJs…” [laughs].

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

The second reunion was also amazing, as it again brought almost all of us together again. I just wish it would have been under better circumstances.

Bennett Mains

The Route 91 Harvest music festival shooting happened [October 1, 2017] and even though I live in Texas, it was still devastating. And one of our friends committed suicide at the same time. All this happened at once, and I got the phone call from Def, with him asking me, “will you come out and play a benefit show?” I was like, “no doubt.” No question.

Zabi Naqshband

Blair wanted to help out and raise money. We were seeing all this devastation and he didn’t know what to do to help outside of putting on a charity show. I was just so overwhelmed with what was going on but I said, “let’s fucking do it, let’s raise some money.” I was just so saddened by the whole thing. All I wanted to do was hug everybody I could and feel grateful that none of us were hurt.

Scott “Amir Rikkah” Quering

I am glad that Def, Blair and Bennett got it all together. Being away from home that month was incredibly hard and from talking to Bennett about those events, I think he felt similarly. Being away during the town’s and our friends’ time of need led to a somewhat helpless feeling, so I felt the second reunion was more of an attempt at healing, and showing the deep love the city, and the scene, has/had for each other. I loved seeing HOTS play again, and loved the show in general, but the feeling I had about it was much more somber and thankful rather than elation.

Bennett Mains

I’m glad we were able to do that. If we’re going to do it again? I don’t know. I’m not sure, it’s totally unclear. I think we’re all pretty happy with where we are in life right now.

Zabi Naqshband

I think some of us in the band would say, “yes” and some of us would say, “no.” If you catch us at the right time, it just might happen. I’m not just going to say, “never” because I love everybody in the band. I love Bennett and Vanessa and Bob. I love the music and the stuff we did. And it’s taken me a long time to have this love back for the band and for all of us. It took me a really long time to be okay with it.

With the past behind them, the four former members of Holding Onto Sound continue to make the music they love with various other projects.

Bennett Mains

I thought I could stop making music but I couldn’t. In the last two years I’ve gotten really back into it. I did a little country two-piece thing called Bennett and Jodi. I was in an industrial punk band called Little Father. I’m in another band called Cabin Man. I just recently started a band with my wife called The Observer and that’s going to be great. And then I have my own project called Mystik Dudes.

Bob Gates

Bennett has got a cool, folksy vibe to his voice. The new bands he’s doing are different than playing music full speed, so it really lets that voice shine. It also highlights how good he is as a songwriter.

Zabi Naqshband

After talking with Bennett and agreeing to do the reunion, I let my guard down and listened to his new music with an open mind, rather than listening to it all grumpy and mad [laughs]. Bennett has a specific style that I like, whether I’m in the band or not. It’s dope.

Micah Malcom

I dig the acoustic things I’ve caught on YouTube. His voice is undeniable, both tone and thoughts.

Zabi Naqshband

I’ve given his stuff as much a listen as I’ve given anything that I’ve listened to recently. As a dad, my life is dominated by listening to My Little Ponies [laughs]. Bennett does cool stuff, so I’m happy with it. I’m glad that he’s staying clean and playing music and that he seems happy. It sucks that he had to go through all the other stuff to get to this point. Vanessa’s still playing, and Bob and I are still playing. I have not taken a real break from music since I was in high school.

Vanessa Tidwell

I’ve had a few electronic projects, but nothing major. I’m constantly creating music and I still play drums here and there.

Bob Gates

Illicitor just did an EP with Mike Lavin over at Digital Insight. We worked on it quietly as a follow up to our first album. We want to put out something newer, something fresher. And then we want to do another EP as fast as we can, because that’s what we like to do. We’re in the mentality of simple things, shorter releases.

Zabi Naqshband

We’ve been going into the studio and firing out new stuff. Now that my second kid is a year old, we’re going to play some shows out of town. We want to pursue everything. More than anything I want to play music as a career, but at the same time I’m also really lazy and I have low self-esteem [laughs].

Bennett Mains

Holding onto Sound was the opportunity for me to play with the three best musicians I’ve ever known.

Bob Gates

What happened was a bummer. But the overall experience is something that I’m grateful for, because I wouldn’t be in a band today and I wouldn’t be making music if Bennett hadn’t asked me to jam back then.

Zabi Naqshband

One of the reasons that I remember more of the bad things is because there are less of them. There’s way less bad stuff in HOTS then there was good stuff.

Vanessa Tidwell

When I look back on things, I can say that the best times were on tour.

Zabi Naqshband

I liked being out on drives where we were all just talking. Being on the road was the only time I’ve gotten to see the stars. One time, it was so dark that I could see the Milky Way. I’ll never forget that for the rest of my life. And I was with the band. The first time I got arrested, I was with the band [laughs]. There’s a lot of first times while we were together. It’s a part of my life that I’ll never forget. I value and appreciate it. It shaped who I am today.

Bennett Mains

Thank you so much to everybody who ever bought a record. Thank you to everyone who came to a show, and to anybody who’s listening to us right now. Thank you so much for fucking caring about us. There are just too many people to name. Anybody who was ever in our proximity and anybody that we touched. Anybody that ever helped us get a show. Anybody who was close to us. Thank you. There would be no band to talk about without everybody. Without Zabi, Vanessa, Bob and all these awesome people like yourself. Without all that there’s no Holding Onto Sound. So thank you for that.

Written and compiled by Emily Matview. Phone interviews transcribed yb Kristy Calhoun. Edited by Emily Matview and Ian Caramanzana