On Easter Sunday we sat down with Holiem in the basement greenroom of Manhattan's Mercury Lounge. They had just played a powerful show alongside Cohort B, Glimmer, and Sleepwell, making a strong case for the theory that Jesus rose from the dead to rock out. Below are edited excerpts from our conversation.

First off, what’s your name and what do you play?

Roman: Roman, guitar.

Diego: My name is Diego and I play the drums.

Liana: I’m Liana, I play bass.

Ben: My name is Ben, I sing and I play guitar.

We’ve seen you play three times now. January 6th, February at Main Drag, and here. You get better every time, you must practice a lot.

Diego: We do.

Roman: Every day.

How’d you start playing together?

Roman: Me and Diego met at Third Street Music School where I was playing bass and he was playing guitar.

Ben: Three of us went to this upstate summer camp called French Woods. It’s a performing arts thing. Me and Roman met there and formed our first band at twelve years old and wrote our first original songs. Since then we’ve always thought about making a real band work.

What did you think of tonight's set? You have really good songs with great textures, there must be a lot to remember.

Liana: We got to keep people on their feet. We’ve got to keep ourselves entertained, you know.

Roman: We like an active listening experience.

Diego: We try to be as dynamic as we can.

So again, the first show we saw you at was January 6th at The Meadows. Cool place, really loud. Forgot earplugs that day. We could see the setlist on stage and you had a song called “Shugazi” which made us laugh.

Diego: That song is actually “Nothing But Silent”.

Ben: We hadn't named it at the time so we threw a random name on there. All we knew was 'Shoegaze. Allright, Shugazi. Boom, that’s it. That’s the name for the show tonight.'.

What inspires your music?

Roman: Johnny Marr.

Diego: I like textures that a lot of progressive drummers have like Danny Carey and Niel Pert. World percussion and stuff like that.

Liana: A lot of Tool as well. A little bit of screamo, but only recently. I think my longest inspiration is Will Heggie from Cocteau Twins.

Ben: As soon as I started writing songs my first influence had to have been the Smashing Pumpkins. You can definitely hear it in some of our writing. It definitely influenced the way I play.

You’re all younger than 21, what’s your take on 21+ shows?

Roman: We don’t know, we’re not allowed in.

Diego: I think it’s a huge missed opportunity for venues, they’re missing out. And it sucks for the audience also, people who want to experience these shows but can’t.

Roman: Because promoters think that a sold out show with a 21+ crowd will sell more drinks.

Diego: From a business standpoint it makes sense, but I think they should just let people enjoy music.

Liana: Alcohol has so much influence on music, and that does make me sad. I don’t know. It’s crazy that that is the reason there’s an age limit. It’s crazy.

Inversely, what’s your take on the all ages scene?

Roman: Love it.

Ben: It’s awesome. We get all sorts of people.

Diego: That’s pretty much our entire fanbase.

Roman: We’ve had new people at every show. There’s a lot of infants, we’re big in the baby category.

You just put out an EP. You feel good about it?

Ben: Mostly, yeah. We were stuck with a very tight deadline to release it because we had an EP release show.

Roman: Whoever made that deadline is.....

Liana (laughing): It was Roman!

Ben: We kind of put an imaginary deadline on it and it led to a lot of stress and anger.

Roman: Yeah I was really upset.

Diego: I was handling the production and I think we could have done a better job.

Who did the artwork?

Ben: There was an artist that I’ve been following for a couple of years. I really like their paintings. I had one on my wall. Roman came over one day all the way to Long Island and he saw it and was like “what is that”.

Roman: Smitten

Ben: Yeah, he was smitten. I contacted the artist and he just happened to respond so I feel really lucky that we were able to get that collaboration. It was awesome.

Imagine you’re playing at some festival and you are the third headliner. Who would you want to be second and first?

Roman: Guided By Voices, Melvins.

Liana: Melvins.

Roman: I won’t play if Foo Fighters are playing.

Any plans you want to share for the future?

Roman: New music.

Diego: Working on a full length release.

Roman: Going to see some new faces.

Liana: I’m going to college.

Where’s the next show?

Roman: We’re not allowed to say. It rhymes with Fatission Fair Shwarden.