The name Greg Holden doesn’t automatically roll off the tongue on the British side of the Atlantic.
But like some philosophers will tell you that a falling tree still makes a racket even if no one is around to hear it, British-born-and-raised Holden has been busy making sounds since the release of his first album in 2009, mainly in his adopted home of the USA.
Recently, Live4ever watched him perform at London’s Zigfrid von Underbelly as part of Shoreditch’s Community Festival, promoting his third album ‘Chase The Sun‘, but not before we had the chance to catch up with him a couple of evenings earlier in the rather lush upstairs office of Warner Brothers Records.
You were last here in July playing the Borderline. What have you been up to since?
“I’ve been touring. After July I had a few weeks off, which was nice because it’s been a really busy year, and then I’ve been touring in the States mostly doing some radio festivals and just continuing to promote Chase The Sun.”
Are you planning any festivals next year? Glastonbury?
“That’s definitely the plan. My booking agent is submitting me for all the big festivals. Hopefully Glastonbury, yeah. I’ve never played there and would love to. I’ve never even been! It would be really cool to play there the first time I go.”
So you’re Scottish born but grew up in Lancashire?
“Yeah, I grew up and moved around Lancashire, living in Heysham and then Leyland. Then I moved to Brighton for a couple of years and then London for a couple more and seven years ago I moved to New York.”
Do you still feel British at heart?
“Sometimes. Sometimes I get a little confused. I consider home wherever I am at the time. Right now Brooklyn is home.”
Do you think there is a difference between the US and UK audience?
“Perhaps, yeah. Though I’m not sure. I like the English because they heckle more and are less polite, which I actually really enjoy! I like the banter of being on stage and people shouting things. It’s fun.”
So you’ve done a bit of travelling around India?
“Yeah, I made it six weeks without getting sick and then I went to Dharamshala to see the Dalai Lama and got really sick and so I couldn’t go!”
How do you feel about Indian music? Would you ever putting it into your music?
“I love it. I’m always playing it at home in the background when I’m cooking. I don’t know. I’ve thought about it but, you know, George Harrison did it and I don’t really know if it would work for me. If it was the right thing then yeah, but I wouldn’t do it for sake of it. But I do love that music and it makes me feel very at home for some reason. It’s very calming.”
You’re a big Dylan fan. Would you ever consider ‘going electric’ like Dylan in ’65?
“I am! I play acoustic a lot but I went electric on my last US tour. The new songs I’m working on are very electric driven actually. I find it a nice change and it changes the way I write songs if I write on an electric guitar. Something different happens.
You have a knack for writing anthemic choruses. Is that your aim when writing songs?
“I like to write songs that I can imagine people singing along to. For me that’s the biggest rush when you’re playing a show and people are singing along. There’s no greater feeling. London’s always fun because people always sing loud. It’s the one time when I’m touring and I can step away from the microphone and let everyone do it. Always happens in London. I love it.”
Has your songwriting process changed over the years?
“I don’t think the process has changed. The songs are changing. I’m growing up, getting more mature and I’m getting better at songwriting, I hope.”
Do you write other parts of your songs? Bass or drums for example?
“Drums definitely. I’m really into them. When I write my songs I always make demos of them and program the drums. I’m a shitty drummer but I’m really good at programming them! It’s fun for me to do that. I’m not a great bass player but I definitely have an idea of what the arrangement should be when I go into the studio.”
How do you feel the current album is going?
“It’s going well. It’s going slowly, which my entire career has done. It’s certainly climbing I’ve just to got to keep working.”
Are you thinking about a next album?
“I’ve started writing it. I want the current album to go well and if it does then I’m anticipating that I won’t have that much time available and so I’m taking every chance I can get to write new music.”
Who are you listening to nowadays?
“I’ve been really into a band recently called EL VY. It’s the guy from The National. He started a side-project. They’re really cool. And there’s a band called Houndmouth. It’s like straight rock and roll.”
Do you think it’s the end of albums? What with the rise of Spotify et al, it feels like it’s all about the singles nowadays?
“I hope not. I love albums. Here’s the thing; if someone interviewed you and you could only say one sentence but you wanted to describe your whole self, how could you do that? You can’t have someone judge you off one song or one sentence that you say because it’s not enough. Albums are a way of rounding off one big thing that you want to say with a lot of different words. I think that it would be sad if people only started listening to singles.”
So what’s your favourite Dylan album?
“God, that’s a tough question. Bringing It All Back Home is probably one of my favourite ones. I love the cover. It’s so cool.
Favourite Beatles album?
“[Laughs] That’s really tough. Obviously the White Album is pretty fucking spectacular.”
Finally, what’s the strangest interview question you’ve ever been asked?
“I got asked a little while ago what my full name was? It’s Greg Holden! People ask me if I’m ticklish all the time, which is a weird thing to be asked.”
We never found out if he was ticklish or not, but 48 hours later he was downstairs in a dimly lit Zigfrid von Underbelly standing on the small, cornered stage ready to play an acoustic set backed by his occasional co-writer Tofer Brown on guitar. The stripped-down approach (Holden’s no stranger to this – his second album has an acoustic version of it available) immediately put emphasis on the rough strength of his vocals in opening number ‘Save Yourself‘.
Forgetting lyrics live must be the stuff singers’ nightmares are made of, but a slice of amnesia on ‘Give It Away‘, its infectious chorus hard not to hum along to, couldn’t have gone better when the audience gleefully filled in the missing lines, much to Holden’s beaming relief. For all his relative obscurity in the UK, he’s amassed a veritable gang of supporters who either swayed on chairs or stood up, arms sagged over one another’s shoulders, caught up in an act sometimes made of delicate and folky guitar pickings, and sometimes punk-spirited in the battering out of chords.
Whenever he spoke, evidence of the last six years spent in the USA was discernible in an English accent braided with a Stateside timbre, though never so apparent in his singing. New song ‘Side Of The Road‘ again hinted at Holden’s current abode through the Americana tones and tales of being pulled over on an interstate, rather than a motorway, by a cop. Tofer’s harmonies, rearing up often during the set, made for an especially dulcet listen.
The night’s swansong was an accident, Holden meaning to have played ‘The Lost Boy‘ (a tune that found it’s way on to the Sons Of Anarchy soundtrack) earlier on, and to have ended on something more upbeat, but being able to leave a crowd chanting out its coda around the room long after he and Tofer had laid down their instruments turned out to be a boon that befittingly ended an all too short 45 minutes.
