The Hollowmen formed in winter 1984 in Des Moines, Iowa. Original members were Tom Armstrong (vocals, guitar), Joe Page (drums), Mike Sangster (guitar, vocals, piano) and Eric Svenson (bass). Eric, Mike, and Tom were 20 years old at the time and attending different Des Moines area colleges while Joe, then 15 years old, was a sophomore in high school. A pool of songs, written by the various members before the band formed, enabled The Hollowmen to quickly work up a set of original material that infused garage rock and jangle pop with a more melancholy lyrical sentiment. Several instrumental tracks also appeared in the band’s early setlists.
Five months after forming, and after refining their early songs through a steady slate of gigs in college towns across Iowa, The Hollowmen recorded a 6-song EP titled Poison For Profit at South River Recording, an 8-track studio in Indianola Iowa. Studio owner, Mike Lawyer, engineered the session and co-produced the tracks with Mike Sangster. Poison For Profit was never released in the U.S. and was instead available as a cassette-only release on the Acid Tapes label in the U.K. The EP was largely forgotten by the band because only eight months later they recorded their first, full-length album titled Sinister Flower Gift, which was released in 1986 on Pravda Records.
The ten songs on Sinister Flower Gift, plus two additional unreleased tracks from the session, were recorded at the 24-track Remington Road Studios, in Schaumburg, Illinois. Production and mixing were provided by future Grammy winner, Michael Freeman, along with Ric Menck and The Hollowmen. Michael Freeman also handled the engineering. Sinister Flower Gift offered an expanded sound canvas compared to the Poison For Profit EP with the introduction of alternate tunings, dissonance, and a wall of guitar sound interspaced with several tracks that continued the band’s garage and jangle pop roots. Sinister Flower Gift generated favorable reviews from regional and national music publications. Concurrent with the release of Sinister Flower Gift in 1986, and expanded touring across Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska, The Hollowmen’s songwriting and sound continued to evolve rapidly – moving further away from jangle pop and toward a more aggressive, overdriven sound.
In January 1987, The Hollowmen began recording songs at Studio 55, a Des Moines area 8-track studio, for what would become their 2nd full-length album, Pink Quartz Sun Blasting, released on Amoeba Records in early 1988. The Studio 55 sessions were engineered by studio owner Kerry Moore. Jim Roth was the lead producer and played guitar on one song. The single “Never Ending Ceiling” from the Studio 55 sessions was released on The Iowa Compilation from South East Records in 1987. Pink Quartz Sun Blasting generated positive reviews from a variety of regional and national publications.
In March 1987, bassist Eric Svenson announced he was leaving the band to attend law school. Before he departed, the band went back into Studio 55 to record a backlog of songs, many of which were written in between the band’s first and second albums. This latter batch of recorded tracks was not released at the time and only became available 30+ years later on the compilation titled Too Much Is Better Than Not Enough. In all, the band recorded 26 songs at Studio 55 from January to May 1987. Jim Roth, a longtime friend of the band, multi-instrumentalist, and producer of the Studio 55 sessions became the band’s bass player in June 1987.
The Hollowmen continued touring throughout the midwest in 1988 and 1989 and expanded their reach with a west coast tour that included shows in California and Arizona. The band recorded the single “Pavilion” at Studio 55 which was released in 1988 on South East Records’ It's Another Iowa Compilation (Uncharted Territories). They continued to break new ground creatively with their songwriting, utilizing more alternate tunings and exploring different time signatures. None of this later era material was recorded.
After a whirlwind 5 years together, the band broke up in the fall of 1989, allowing each member to pursue new musical opportunities. Tom Armstrong gained success as a west coast-based honky-tonk country singer/songwriter, releasing several critically-acclaimed solo albums. Among other projects, Mike Sangster fronted the alt-rock band, Head Candy, which released its Starcaster album, mixed by Andy Wallace, on Hollywood Records in 1991 with a song featured on the soundtrack to the movie “Mad Love” starring Drew Barrymore. Head Candy’s "At The Controls" video was featured on MTV’s 120 Minutes. Eric Svenson, Mike Sangster, and Joe Page played together in the surf/hot rod band The Delstars, releasing multiple records. Jim Roth formed the band Voodoo Gearshift, which also featured Joe Page on bass. Roth later became a long-time guitarist in the band, Built To Spill.
Joe Page passed away in 2007.
The Hollowmen regrouped in 2015 to play two nights of reunion shows, one each at Octopus College Hill in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Lefty’s in Des Moines, Iowa. For the reunion shows, the band’s longtime friend, Troy Urich, and Svenson’s son, Luke, filled in on drums.
In 2017, The Hollowmen recorded some as-yet-unreleased tracks at Jim Roth’s Fort Lawton studio in Seattle.