Emil Amos, singer, songwriter and founder of Holy Sons, is an incredibly prolific one-man band. “I taught myself how to fake the sound of a band while recording alone in 1992”, he told me. Now, more than twenty years later, Amos is releasing his fourteenth Holy Sons album, In The Garden, on Partisan Records. Check out his music, and read our interview with Amos below. Holy Sons will be touring in support of the new album (dropping October 21st) throughout the year. –Maya Eslami

WHAT YOUTH: You’ve been putting out albums for almost twenty years. When did you start playing music? And how has your passion for creating music changed along the way? 

EMIL AMOS: My father gave me a rare, old four-track in around 1989. It was a valuable asset to have between all of my friends’ bands back then in Chapel Hill, so I ended up recording several seminal local hardcore bands with it. And then, when all their instruments were still lying around my living room, I taught myself how to fake the sound of a band while recording alone in 1992.

Tell me about the new album, In The Garden. What can we expect to hear on this one? 

I’d never made a Holy Sons record with a ‘producer’ before. In the beginning, the whole genesis of this project was that it was a window into one person’s world in total isolation. But after having been molded completely in that paradigm, the new record is really still just as personal. Working with a truly gifted engineer like John Agnello creates a fundamentally different atmosphere for someone that’s always worked alone. For the first time I was really only thinking about the songs themselves instead of also trying to balance a mic on my shoe in my laundry room in my underwear or whatever.

Tell me more about working with John Agnello. How did you two link up? 

Partisan had asked me to try making a big, classic-sounding record because they genuinely wanted to see what it would sound like so they initially suggested him. When I was in high school ‘Where You Been’ by Dinosaur Jr. was a huge record, so that’s probably how I’d first become aware of him. There have been a lot of junctures in my recording life where I probably wouldn’t have wanted to go in a bigger high-fi direction, but the timing was perfect for me to change gears, and it’s a challenge that you have to appreciate as a songwriter. As much as lo-fi gave birth to my style, everyone knows and understands why records like Dark Side of the Moon are satisfying and you can’t really paint that kind of picture on a four-track.

The name Holy Sons. Any significance behind that? Where did that come from? 

I met a comedian named Duncan Trussell who became one of my best friends about 20 years ago in Asheville, North Carolina. We traveled to India, have written music together and still do live shows together. Back in college we had a mutual obsession with Secret Societies, LSD and Alchemy and the band name came out of that period of our discussions. We both have our own podcasts now on a network in LA called Feral Audio and we often talk about that early period of our lives.

You’ve been credited with releasing “genre-bending” albums. What’s your take on the whole genre classification of music? 

It was pretty easy to be frustrated with the prevailing stylistic boundaries in the 90’s, but most of those walls have melted away in the past decade. A lot of that has been due to the ahistorical atmosphere of the internet, as the rules of fashion for each generation have been changing quicker and quicker. In the meantime, I’ve been able to release virtually anything between the personas of Grails, Holy Sons, Lilacs & Champagne and Om. But no matter what was going on in the popular climate, I think I would’ve made essentially the same records in my own hermetic world alone.

What’s next for Holy Sons?

After an East Coast tour to support “In the Garden” early next year, I’ll have another new batch of songs ready to record. But first I have to get a new Grails record out and finish mixing the first full-length album Duncan and I have ever written together. Back to Work.

HOLY SONS TOUR DATES:

Sat. Oct. 22 || Los Angeles, CA || Union Nightclub

Sun. Oct. 23 || San Diego, CA || The Hideout

Tue. Oct. 25 || San Francisco, CA || Hemlock Tavern

Thu. Oct. 27 || Seattle, WA || Barboza

Fri. Oct. 28 || Portland, OR || Mississippi Studios