Holy Holy
Holy Holy are embarking on a summer tour around Australia to promote their new single A Heroine. It is an exciting time for the band with plenty of good things happening and they have even caught the eye of Oasis and Beady Eye’s Liam Gallagher who thinks they’re tops. The band is planning to knuckle down and finish off their much anticipated second album according to Timothy Carroll who talks to Across The Ocean ahead of their national tour.
2015 was a massive year for Holy Holy, has it exceeded your expectations?
Yes, very much so. My expectations were very limited. Even when we got one song on the radio that alone exceeded my expectations. I try and keep my expectations limited because then it avoids disappointment. It seems like an impossible thing to try and achieve and I remember thinking that if we ever got one song on the radio then it would be time to retire and celebrate. That was the beginning of the journey we just came in to.
The Boy & Bear tour, particularly here in Adelaide at Her Majesty’s Theatre was great.
That tour was very special for us because that was the time we got the line up which we have stuck with ever since. We knew we were going to be playing in these beautiful venues then we wanted to do more of a fuller sound but it was great getting in front of so many people and getting to hang out with the Boy & Bear guys. It was a tour we remember fondly.
Is that the sort of shows you aspire to play more of in the future?
Um, to some degree! I can’t really envisage in my mind a time where we would be headlining the Sydney Opera House. I guess maybe that could happen. I try not to think about that sort of thing but those guys do so many shows like two hundred shows a year which is something I don’t think I would be able to do. I guess we’ll have to form our own path where we will do things a little bit differently. It was amazing to see the operations from the inside and how they roll.
Does it make it hard knowing to be sustainable you’ll have to play more shows overseas?
That’s true! It has been interesting when bands are new it tends to be that when every opportunity comes along you take it but there comes a time when you have to start saying no to things because you can’t do everything and have to be more strategic. We have got to a place where we have to sit down and have a conversation about how many shows we want to do in a year. Out of those shows where do we want to be, how many of them do we want to do overseas, how many do we want to domestically because you want to keep a few in the bank in case this amazing opportunity comes along.
Do you feel the pressure of labels particularly those of Liam Gallagher?
Not really, I’m feeling pretty good about the band and the live show. We’ve been writing some new songs so it is feeling pretty natural and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to go back in to the studio to record and perform those new songs live. When we were making that first record in the early stages we didn’t have a label, we didn’t have management, we didn’t have much money and so on so it was very DIY a bit grass roots and a small budget, which was good and I enjoyed that and I’m proud of the record we made. It will be exciting to hit the studio this time with the band being more cohesive and a bit more support behind the record and the idea of having an audience ready to listen to it, I’m excited for that.
Is that pressure from the label to get the next album out quicker to maintain the momentum?
I don’t feel too much pressure at this stage but that is something we definitely want to do. I’m aware that records just take ages so we want to start as soon as possible because if we start now it will be a year or so especially given that we all live in different parts of Australia and a few of us have different projects on in the background as well. We have to be pretty strategic and map out the year and work out times we can get in to the studio and to write and record. I do think in this day and age to not leave too much of a gap between releases.
It would be hard starting over again on the next record wouldn’t it?
That’s true! We had started writing for the next record before we released the first record so half the record is already written. We’ve got writing scheduled for the next several months but we are hoping to release a first single soon-ish around the middle of 2016.
Will the release be an EP or full length album?
The plan at this stage is not to do an EP but I wouldn’t rule it out. It would depend on people who know more about the industry than me to advise us on that. At this point the plan is to do an album, I think you can do a lot just by releasing singles. If we released a single in the middle of this year, we could then a release a further three singles and do three tours before having to release the album proper. Then we wouldn’t have to have the album ready when we released the first single. A few bands have done that. Big Scary for example have release the first single of their next record and when they released that single the record wasn’t finished. There is some flexibility around that.
Are there any hints about how the next album may sound?
I think there will be a development. When Holy Holy first formed I had come off the back of a song writer background and at first I was having to get used to the tones and sounds of an electric band and what it sounds like when a drum is going full tilt, a snare and so on. There was a degree of reservation on some of the earlier recordings because I was getting used to that. Since then we’ve done a lot of shows, written more songs and I feel much more comfortable with a sound that I think is our sound, the Holy Holy sound. We’ll be hitting this record from that point rather than having to develop up to that point, if that makes any sense.
Will any of the new material be road tested on this tour in January?
We have been playing one new song already so we started playing that one on the album tour just gone. At this stage that one will be on the next record. There’s another one that is probably ready but we’re kind of scheming and planning with rehearsal time to see if we can get this one ready in time. Sometimes we use the sound checks and so on to road test songs so then by the end of the tour they may be ready to play. We’ll see what comes together but I am in to the idea of playing new stuff. Some bands will hold things back until the album is released before playing new material. I’m up for playing new songs when they feel good and it is good for the song to get a bit of a road test before it is recorded.
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
- Aversions Crown - January 27, 2017
- Sick Of It All - January 19, 2017
- Refused - January 11, 2017
