There’s a story about how every musically inclined person listened to Velvet Underground’s first album and decided “Hey I should start a band.”

You can lump Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers in there. Plus, the Cars. Both took, musically, something from the rawness of the VU’s album. The Cars probably took a little more from the more adventurous side but The Modern Lovers’ ‘She Cracked’ could have been a VU song. 

COVID I think had somewhat the same effect–for bedroom music producers. Trapped in our homes, apartments and multi-use rooms, freed from the meaningless torture of commutes, we found room to roam in music. 

I had, just prior to the pandemic, assembled a robust music PC. My first ever. It was budget friendly but more awesomely powerful than any laptop or other desktop that I’d ever had. My musical brain was unconstrained. I could try anything and the PC was up to the task. Rarely putting up a fuss as I stacked instance after instance of Diva. 

Before the pandemic, I was a musician. A guitarist who’d let his calluses whither in favor of parenthood and other responsibilities. My chops had seeped away. Songs and riff that once could be conjured were, like, paper products, unavailable. 
I still knew what a good song was though. That ability to recognize when something was working, when you tapped into the mana of the universe, and something could emerge from your DAW that sounded like music, that I could still do.

So, in the long, long days of the pandemic, I started slowly assembling the tools and ideas that would be Tholos. I had listened to a lot of synthwave and electronic music (name check, FM Attack and MPM Soundtracks before the pandemic but something about it crystallized for me the possibility. Creating that musical genre was perfect for the circumstances I (and many others) found myself in.

I didn’t need other musicians. The lonely vibe of the pandemic seemed a perfect match for synthwave music. Empty streets. Nights inside. Escaping the reality of the days. That was the fuel. Four years later. I’m still here. COVID still happened. It didn’t inspire me to start a band but it did start the 2020’s version of that: starting a project.