Behind The Weirdness: Rejecting The Program
I went to high school in the early to mid 90’s. Like any other kid I used to doodle & daydream. One morning in Social Studies, I was having one of my vacant moments. A moment where I drift in & out of reality. Leaving behind the present moment. When the bell rang, I was jolted back in to the default world & the album art for Rejecting The Program was in front of me in my notebook. I don’t remember drawing it but it felt familiar. It was the first time I felt like I was remembering something from the future.
This was traced from the original drawing. Laid out as a visual for the album cover concept. The original notebook was damaged 20 years ago when I dropped it in the rain & it fell underneath my buddies deck. When he returned it to me some time later, this picture survived. So I tore out the page & saved it in the pages of an Edgar Allan Poe book.
On November 30th, 2011, my staring off into space episodes turned into losing consciousness & control of my body.
I felt like death the first few weeks after, so I stopped taking the doctor prescribed pills & got my medical marijuana card. Within a few days my memories started coming back. My stutter was going away. I no longer had to concentrate on which foot to start walking with.
A few months later I started making music again. The very first song I put together was Transmission Lost. This exact version. There are no lyrics, what you hear is exactly what I heard while I was “out there” wherever I was.
My motor skills weren’t very reliable yet, so I began playing guitar along with an Alesis SR-16 drum machine I had lying around. A drum beat was easier to jam along with as opposed to a click track or a metronome. One day I experimented with turning it on & off with my toes.
I was always inspired by the Storm origin story from The X-Men. She was taught how to pick locks with her toes as an orphan in Cairo. Ever since reading that I was always doing things like opening doors & picking up clothes off of the ground with my feet. Using a drum machine with my toes felt natural.
Almost immediately there was something was missing. The bass. There was this old Casio keyboard my friend Amber had given me just collecting dust in the corner. I bet I can play that with my other foot.
The following summer work commenced on an album called The Anomaly, which featured multi-tracked versions of early songs like Modern-Day Hymn & He Is Risen. It also had early versions of Osiris & Meta. Despite all the overdubs/overthinking, I think it sounds like a great precursor to what I do now. My childhood friend Jeromy D’Amico edited & mixed the album remotely from NY.
On July 12th, 2013, i performed for the first time as I Am Hologram at The Bloody Basin Festival at The Sail Inn in Tempe, Arizona. The poster says “Richard Nihil”. When I took the stage that night I introduced myself with “Greetings, citizens of Earth. I Am Hologram & we thank you for participating”.
In 2014, I would spend my nights & weekends practicing in my apartment with my cats as my only audience. I used headphones so the cops didn’t get called. One night the sounds I was making gave me motion sickness. The whole room started vibrating. The colors of reality separated into red, green & blue. Like a 3D movie without 3D glasses. The lines that defined objects from one another blurred until it all molded together. I half expected the world to disappear & I would be left there in a blank unprogrammed nothingness. Then came the buzz.
A friend of mine from the days of working at Club Afterlife in Scottsdale made this picture for me.
Interesting side note on my involvement at Club Afterlife. Here is a video of a guy who thought my 4/20 event was a devil worshipping event. You can also see “Nihil Army” on the screen. You haven’t fully made it until you have had a conspiracy video done about you
While hiking on shrooms at Dreamy Drawer near Piestewa Peak in Phoenix, I felt that buzz again coming from under the ground. In my peripherals, I saw a disc rise out of the desert. It was gone by the time I turned around.
The next day I brought my guitar out to the same spot which I referred to as The Church Of The Morning. I wanted to tune my strings to the key of that underground humming. At home I adjusted my keyboards pitch to match my guitar. It wasn’t until the next year someone educated me on 432hz. The tuning I stumbled upon in the desert.
Phantom Tree was the last song written for the album. It was a jam song I messed around with during one of The 710 Club festivals. It was released on Volume 2 of the Live At The 710 Club collection, under the name When Phantom Was A Cherry.
The chorus came from a a few scribblings in my notebook. Originally it was Cherry Tree not Phantom. The dead organic matter in the picture was the inspiration for a much needed name change.
In the Spring of 2015, my good friend Jeremy Blackwater contacted me about joining his band Four Skin on tour as their bass player. Their bass player at the time, was on parole & was denied permission to go on tour last minute. In exchange for my services last minute we agreed to make an album together when we got back.
On August 17th, 2015, I would record the Phantom Tree, Meta & Osiris (Remind Us) after an hours long session. The next night, tripping on about an 1/8th of mushrooms, I recorded the rest of the tracks. Every take is 100% live. There are no overdubs.
The masters vanished from the hard drive not long after this. It occured while the studio was being packed up to be moved out of the space. Jeremy had convinced me to save them to my phone the last night of recording. The audio is taken from those wav files stored on my phone. We never had the opportunity to mix or master it properly.
A dude I met at one of the 710 markets had a whole t-shirt printing business. He transferred the design into a silkscreen template & I personally made my very own first t-shirt. The CD’s I had at the time were all burned from my laptop & had my chicken scratch handwriting on it. If you are a chicken & you’re reading this, I mean no offense. You are just not typically know for having neat handwriting that’s all.
5 years seems like so long ago. Especially after 2020. Sleeping outside of The Rogue Bar in my shitty car with the busted window after a gig.
Some of you have watched me come from nothing. Some of you have watched me meltdown. Throw fits. Embarrass myself. All the growing pains.
I smile when I see people wear my shirts. This whole trip was worth it. Every step of the way. Imagine how the 14 year-old in me feels when he sees his design on your body. This piece of art for me signifies a turning point in my life. The hard road back from the self destructive path I was on.
And that is why you all make it hard to have a bad day. I no longer feel the rage I felt when I recorded this. Your support has made this love.sick.alien feel a lot less alone here on Spaceship Earth.
For all of these reasons & more I am celebrating Rejecting The Program’s birthday by playing it in its entirety on the Dubs Private Reserve Show KWSS 93.9FM tomorrow night at 8pm MST
For more info click here
I also got CD’s professionally duplicated by Moon Valley Media, new t-shirts from GoodFellas Merch & a new batch of stickers from Printrunner.
Phoenix New Times listed Rejecting The Program as one of the Best Local Albums of 2016. It was ranked #7 out of 40.
You can also read the Yab Yum review here
This Friday is also the 1st of 2 rerelease parties
The 1227 Tap Room hosts I Am Hologram’s event in Phoenix
The 2nd rerelease party is next Friday at Bone Haus Brewing in Fountain Hills
For more info click on each flier
If you read through this whole self indulgent explanation I sincerely thank you. There’s a lot put into everything I do. I obsess day in & day out how to keep expanding the universe of all I create. This is my life & I am grateful you are a part of it.
Rejecting The Program is included in the 2020 digital collection titled Frequencies. Check it out on