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TIM CARROLL OF HOLY HOLY

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How did you, Oscar and the touring band

get along during the recent European

tour?There’s such a cute snap of all you

guys on Instagram.

We got along great. We had a lot of fun.

It’s a really good band tour and it’s a good

bunch of people. Interesting conversations

about interesting music, film and politics:

the van journeys are pretty good. Tour life is

kind of funny: it is harrowing at times ‘cause

it’s late nights and early mornings and long

drives and so on. But it’s also in some ways

like a holiday, because you’re just sitting in

the van for six hours and reading or talking or

listening to music and then getting to a venue

and having a few beers and playing music.

So it can be really nice. And adding into

that the European landscape – I’ve travelled

around Europe a bit but I had never been to

Amsterdam, Belgium or Cologne.

Which was your favourite part?

We did a headline show in London

which was interesting and fun, and a bit

more poignant because a lot of the other

shows we did we were on a festival or on a

showcase or something, whereas this was

our show; and it was our first show outside

of [Australia] that we were headlining. It was

a really nice venue in London and the place

was packed and there was a real excitement

and buzz in the air, and we got to play a

bit longer, for an hour. That was definitely

exciting ‘cause I wasn’t sure if we were

going to get there and there be no one there.

Amsterdam was really nice. They really know

how to look after artists over there and it was

cool to just see some of the other bands, and

the different styles of music that were getting

some attention in that scene. We played

Manchester, Nottingham, Bristol. Those

shows were underground little cabin venues

of maybe 150 capacity. But sometimes those

small rooms really work, and they were all

packed and really jovial as well.

The new album gives us Fleetwood Mac

vibes, particularly tracks like

Outside Of

The Heart Of It

.The word “nostalgic” is

used a lot around you, too.What does that

word mean to you?

A lot of the equipment and the way we

are record is kind of a ‘70’s approach. We use

two inch tape and Neumann microphones,

but as the project developed we did decide at

times to use Pro Tools. We grew up listening

to music through our parents, and I guess

turned around in our 20s and realised that

we loved [those bands]. I used to work at the

Troubadour and Black Bear Lodge in Brisbane,

and DJs would be in there playing those

hits on vinyl and stuff, so that is a big part of

what we were influenced by. Neil Young is a

big influence, but there’s also a set of things

that influence [us] in the more contemporary

world, like Here We Go Magic, Lower Dens,

Band of Horses and Father John Misty. Even

Sharon Van Etten, and things like that. So

there’s times when the nostalgia is there but

there’s times when we want to push into

contemporary song writing as well.

After last year’s

The Pacific EP

, how did

you approach putting this new material

together?

Once we’d signed with Wonderlick – they

feel like a family business: they’re small and

they don’t have a heap of artists on their

rosters so they put a lot of care and attention

into everyone – we could’ve released an

album but they said ‘We think you should

put together an EP and then do a bunch of

touring and continue to write and record, and

then we’ll do the record a bit later.’ So that

was how it ended up coming together. We

chose some songs for the EP, put that out

and then did I don’t know how many tours;

five or six tours, we were on the road a lot.

That was great; tt was really good for the

band to get comfortable together on stage

and work out what did and didn’t work. We

also wrote a bunch of songs during that

[including]

History, You Cannot Call For Love,

Outside Of The Heart Of It

and

Holy Gin

.

You and Oscar live in different cities –

you’re in Brisbane and he’s in Melbourne.

How does jamming work?

Organising rehearsal studio [time] is...

really important. When you’re going back

and forth and you’re all separate there’s no

capacity for the band to work together; the

other thing that happens is somebody will

do something as a joke, like a solo or a drum

part, and then it ends up being something

awesome.

How do you lasso writing inspiration

when it comes, whether it be on tour or in

the studio?

Song writing to me is very hard to control.

It’s difficult to be like, okay, I’m now going to

sit down and write. It’s more the case that, I

guess it’s cliché but inspirational, come what

else. I’ll be in a certain mood and feel like

playing and then things will happen. So, you

have to be more responsive to when things

are happening. But, we do do certain things.

Often before a tour we’ll rendezvous in a

city and get a studio for two days and just go

down and get some cheap beers for two days

before we hit the road. So, because we live

in different places we have to make certain

arrangements.

(L-R) Oscar Dawson andTim Carroll