Jason Hollis — identified merely as Hollis in Nashville circles — has spent his life chasing element. First it was music: working the ground of Ziegler Music, his stepfather’s Baton Rouge chain of instrument retailers, the place teenage Hollis would beg to be locked in after hours to experiment with drum machines and study the gear he’d promote the following day. Then it was artist growth: shifting to Los Angeles within the early ’90s, immersing himself within the metropolis’s chaotic music scene.
“You are taking a variety of issues away from issues that you simply beloved about sure locations. And for me, like again in Los Angeles, my first journey there within the early ’90s, I turned buddies with Johnny Depp. And, you understand, he type of took me in as like a bit brother, and I acquired to see the entire Viper Room be constructed,” Hollis recollects. “The evening it opened, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed. Michael Jackson got here in with Elizabeth Taylor. I used to be simply amongst all of these items. And it was each single evening after that for 2 years — Tom Waits on stage with Timothy Leary studying poetry, Shane McGowan from The Pogs. It was such a time stamp in that second in time.”
However whereas the L.A. scene provided pleasure and success, Hollis started enthusiastic about elevating his daughter. “I’d spent a while in Nashville working and visiting mates, and Music Metropolis simply appeared like a means higher place to lift her than Los Angeles. It was smaller, extra related, and you may actually construct a life right here. That, mixed with the concentrated music scene, made shifting right here the apparent selection.”
Arriving in 1995, Hollis dove into Music Row, constructing relationships the place mentors like Tony Brown, Frank Liddell, and Travis Hill helped form his strategy to artist growth and producing.
In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, with extra time on his arms, Hollis found that the historic Douglas Nook area — previously house to the well-known Douglas Nook Cafe — may be transformed right into a hookah bar. Recognizing a possibility, he acquired the area and got down to honor its storied previous.
“This area is sacred, you understand,” Hollis says. “Tony Brown rushed the stage and signed Trisha Yearwood right here. Clint Black was signed right here. Garth Brooks signed his publishing deal right here. Each nook of this constructing has a narrative.”
Designing the brand new Eighth Room bar and lounge turned a collaborative effort together with his spouse. The duo meticulously curated each element, mixing classic items with customized finds: a Nineteen Fifties Vladimir Kagan “boat” couch anchors one nook; the inexperienced room is wrapped in uncommon Versace wallpaper designed simply earlier than the icon’s demise; and the boys’s room partitions are lined in Andy Warhol Polaroids, licensed from the Warhol property. “My spouse’s imaginative and prescient was that regardless of the place you level your telephone, it’s Instagrammable,” Hollis says with fun. “However beneath all of it is historical past and craftsmanship. Every bit carries a narrative — a time stamp.”
“The design of the ’50s and ’60s can’t be beat,” he provides. “These things is nearly indestructible, however extra importantly, these items carry tales. They’re time stamps — identical to songs.”
For Hollis, music and design are inseparable. His years on Music Row, working with among the most influential figures in fashionable Nation, Rock and Americana, sharpened his instincts for storytelling, whether or not via a track or an area. At The Eighth Room, each object, each wall, and each nook has been curated with intent, creating an area that honors Nashville’s historical past whereas inviting visitors right into a vibrant, lived-in expertise.
“Music and design are the identical to me,” Hollis says. “They each dwell within the particulars. They each inform tales. And in the event you get it proper, they each final.”
If you happen to’re coming to Nashville, Broadway if enjoyable, however if you wish to step it up a degree, or on this case, many ranges, you need to see The Eighth Room –2106 eighth Ave S, Nashville, TN 37204
–Jerry Holthouse
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