The Out Crowd Wednesday, Oct. 26

[October 26th, 2005] [PSYCH POP] As frontman for Portland's psych-pop outfit the Out Crowd, Matt Hollywood hasn't received much publicity, but his cherubic mug might be familiar to many. As a former member of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Hollywood (above, right) received a lot of face time in last year's documentary smash Dig!, in which he played alongside the ever fitful Anton Newcombe. This winter the Out Crowd joins the film's other band, the Dandy Warhols, for a monthlong tour. It will be the Out Crowd's first national tour and will see them playing a solo acoustic show at the Kennedy Center while the Dandys appear on The Late Show with David Letterman. Hollywood sat down with WW to share his views on the Dandys, Dig! and determination.

WW: How'd the tour come about?

Matt Hollywood: We went out to Lollapalooza in Chicago with the Dandys last summer, did some songs with them, songs with the Jonestown, and [Dandys leadman Courtney Taylor-Taylor] decided he didn't want to take anybody but us on tour. They really liked the music we make, and thought it would be perfect. Courtney's got this idea there's no real patrons of the arts left so we have to do it ourselves.

Is there still much reaction from the documentary?

It's really skewed the age of the fans a lot lower. We're getting two or three emails a day from 15-year-olds asking how they could sneak into our shows. There's a cool community of people out there interested in the music, and a lot of them are young and trying to start bands of their own. It's this extended family of bands and fans who seem to be hip to the same things.

Were you happy with the film?

My view, no matter whether Dig! was accurate or whether it painted us in a bad light or made people look stupid, at the very least I always hoped it would inspire people to make music of their own, to dig deeper into what they experience musically and politically and artistically; that they're able to look at these people in a movie who are not living within the confines of the regular music industry or the conformist society that's shoved down our throats. It's not the whole story. There's no way it can be the whole story. You could watch all the footage, all 1,500 hours, and not know what it was really like. But, at the very least, people see that there's some talent and determination not to be like everybody else.