BRIT METAL CREW HOLLOWKIN GUITARIST DJ HUSSEY SHARES HIS TOP 5 TRACKS WITH AATR

10th October 2024 0 By Jon Deaux

High flying Brit metal crew, HollowKin, have just returned from a successful UK tour and the rising hard-hitters are also set to drop thier towering debut EP, Confessions & Failures, on Friday 15th November. You can check out the band at: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4SvhacCmtmxkd1Np3ww5xa . With all of this in mind, we exclusively caught up with guitarist DJ Hussey and asked him for the top five tracks that have greatly influenced the band’s biting sound:

“1. Let’s start with this one: “5 Minutes Alone” by Pantera

5 Minutes Alone, does so much right for me – it dances around an infectious groove, funky time signatures and pure brutality. All things I try to accomplish in my own writing! It’s also unashamedly long at nearly 6 minutes, dismissing the “3 and a half minute pop song for radio” trope (a personal bug-bear of mine).

Next up I’d have to go with: “Left Behind” by Slipknot

Riffs. For. Days. My love for down-tuned guitars likely comes from this song as the guitars (in drop B tuning) as low enough that they sound menacing and brutal but still hold onto all of their clarity and don’t step over the bass. The entire Iowa album is one of my all time favourites so I could have easily picked any song from that album.

Number three: “Imperium” by Machine Head

Another long one at nearly 7 minutes. This song means the world to me, especially from a structural standpoint. The riffs are insane, the drums are insane, the vocals and bass are insane but structurally the song seamlessly takes you on a journey (like so many Machine Head songs do) and it throws away the “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle, chorus” nonsense and takes you on a journey from start to finish.

There are lots of songs that came to mind for number four but I went with: “Rose of Sharyn” by Killswitch Engage

“Rose of Sharyn” is a song that seamlessly combines technical and driving guitar riffs and drums with powerful and MASSIVE choruses crescendoing in a HUGE ending… but moreover this song taught me the importance of texture in a song, especially a heavy metal/metalcore song. A song that goes 1,000,000 miles an hour from start to finish can become tiresome but the tiny 20 seconds of peace in the middle of this song at 2:23 minutes is the reason the ending is so huge and powerful! That short 20 seconds provides balance, perspective and nuance.

And lastly I’d have to say, of course, Metallica “Master of Puppets”
When I first learned this song all those years ago before I’d even written a song I became obsessed with downpicking guitar riffs… this is the ultimate downpicking guitar riff as far as I’m concerned and I knew I wanted to write relentlessly heavy, fast riffs just like this.

Honourable mention, if I may: Lamb of God and “Laid to Rest” as I think it one of the greatest guitar riffs ever written and the way the drums and guitars work off of each other through the whole song is incredible. It’s a near perfect song as far as I’m concerned.”