INTERVIEW: HOLLY HEBE SAY NOTHING HURTS, SHE PROMISES

Hi Holly! Would you be able to tell me a little bit about yourself? How’re things going now that life is sort of somewhat back to normal?
Things are going well! I live in a little town in Mornington Peninsula, it’s super cute and small and cosy and I love it. I’ve just got my little studio set up in my room, I spend a lot of time they’re just kind of writing and producing and I’ve got a little outdoor piano that I sit at and play a lot at as well. I think it's so nice to be able to sit outside and play music, it’s a lot more inspiring sometimes, than sitting inside. I started uni last year doing interactive composition at VCA, so that's been really fun. It’s like a really different side of music that I haven’t really experienced before. A lot of art music and kind of more abstract, I guess. That sort of side to music has been really cool. So it’s been fun to have kind of producing at home and doing the songwriting thing and then having that side as well going at the same time. I think they’ve been able to sort of complement each other really well which has been fun. I had a great summer break just gigging and jamming out with heaps of friends and things like that, meeting lots of musos and that was just like the best thing ever. I think that’s the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of being more of a solo artist and gigging a lot more so far this year, is just the people I’ve been able to meet. It’s just been awesome.

Your new single is called ‘nothing hurts I promise’ and it’s incredibly beautiful,
I must say I’m very much a fan. Can you give me some more background on that? What was the inspiration behind writing it, how did that go?
I feel like one day I was just sitting at my piano and I was just improvising as I mostly do when I sit at my piano, just kind of playing whatever comes out. And kind of stumbled across this piano riff I guess that I really liked, I kind of fiddled around with that a lot. After meeting so many amazing people over the past couple of months, and I don’t know, certain people I guess just like come/go in your life and they impact you. I just had this feeling that people were impacting me a lot more than what I was impacting them. I was just meeting all these amazing people and I was so inspired by them, and I was like “oh my goodness, I’d just love to be able to give that back to someone.” I guess I wrote this song about things that you don’t say and just really wanting to tell people how you feel and how that’s kind of impacted you or made your life better, but just being too scared. I think in the long run it’s kind of those unsaid words that end up hurting you a bit more. So that’s sort of what the song is about, the song is pretty special to my heart I guess like it means a lot to me. I’ve really enjoyed the process of kind of building this song up from the roots and just having it as sort of a piano riff at the start, and then experiencing all these new connections over the past couple months and then just being so inspired by all of that, then kind of building the song from there.

You had a single launch recently! How did you find the song was received with the audience and how did you feel playing that live for the first time? How was that experience for you?
It was so fun, I think it was kind of what I’ve been working towards for so long and what me and my band have been putting a lot of hard work into. I think to be able to just finally play it at an event that was made for that song, I think that was really special. I told a little bit of the story about the song beforehand and things like that and it was just so nice to see people kind of moving a little bit to it and just seeing people’s faces in the crowd, which is really cool. I think just singing it live made it a lot more real. I guess it’s sort of all the times that I’ve been singing it to myself at home or my first voice memo recordings of the song when I was first writing it and then finally playing live, it’s just the best feeling. It's kind of like “oh, this is what I’ve been working towards .” So yeah it was really cool.

That’s incredible! So you’ve received you’ve released a couple of singles lately… Is this a hint at an EP release, or what are your future plans (If you can tell us!)?
I really think that I’d love to put together an EP, I think at this stage I’m sort of just writing and producing and then being like, “oh yeah I probably should release things!” I guess when I first started releasing I didn't really know where it would go and if would continue releasing, because I feel like I do a lot of different things in my music world in terms of producing and then all my uni work. So it’s a lot of different projects that I’ve got going on. But I’m loving this solo act, and I think with the collection of songs that I’ve got going on I’d love to put together an EP and kind of tell a bit more of a story. So definitely stay tuned!

I’m super curious, what does your writing process look like when you are putting together a song? You mentioned that you use a piano.
It’s so awesome, I’ve got this super old piano, it’s over 100 years old and it's so beautiful. It’s sitting in my lounge room and I’ve basically written probably all of my songs at that piano. I feel like a lot of the times where the songs are little more personal or they’re a bit more poetic or lyrical or closer to me; they always start at that piano. Because I’m sitting down and I’m just in my feels or feeling super inspired. Then other times I’ll be sitting at my laptop just with my computer program open to producing and a riff will just pop into my head and I quickly record it down and then usually goes from there. I feel like if I think too much about the producing side, I overthink it and then I never get the song done. But sometimes I just like chuck in whatever happens and in a couple of hours I’ll be done and it’s so exciting, ‘cause those songs usually turn out to be the ones I like the most. I feel like the ones that I start at my piano are often the more personal ones and then I’ll record them. Then other times I’m just sitting on my laptop and I’ll be like “oh let’s just do something and see what happens” and that’s so much fun. I feel like there’s two different ways of writing and creating a really good ‘cause it kind of suits then different songs that end up coming out at the end which is really cool.

How did you know and when did you know that this was something you wanted to pursue in the music industry?
I don’t think I’ve ever thought of being anything else but a musician in my whole life. I remember when I was really young and I started playing the piano, I think I was four when I first sort of played and then started getting lessons when I was five. I have never ever thought of another career path. Which I think is probably a little bit naïve.

When I was younger I just always thought like “I just have to be a musician, like this the only option.” I think that’s actually been a bit of a blessing and a curse because I’ve sort of had tunnel vision. I just cannot see myself doing anything else and I think that’s actually really motivated me because it’s just what I absolutely love doing. I think that maybe took a bit of pressure off during school because like I felt like I really knew where I was wanting to go and so that was helpful in terms of picking my subjects and things like that I feel like. I enjoyed year 12 a lot more because I was doing subjects that I really loved that I knew that would help me to get to where I wanted to be later on in life.

Obviously still working towards it, I don’t know. It'’s just so cool that I get to have a passion, and I’m really grateful for that. I feel like the past year when I started releasing music, I was like “yeah this solo artist thing is really, really fun, and just being able to play in a band is awesome so I’d love to ride this wave a bit more.” I think originally always knew that I want to do something in music but didn’t know 100% what that would be. I feel like it’s always going to change, but this solo artist thing is really fun and I’m loving doing it at the moment.

And lastly, I just wanted to know who your top three Aussie artists/acts are right now?
I really like Aodhan, he’s from Sydney, he was in the Triple J Unearthed High in 2019. His music’s awesome, I really, really love his sound and his band’s vibe I guess. I really love Velvet Bloom, another Melbourne muso. She’s awesome and her music’s just so inspiring and the way she writes things I think is really, really cool.

And then, I mean you can’t go past Spacey Jane and stuff like that. I feel like they’ve
really revolutionised that Aussie band sound the past couple of years and that’s been
really awesome. Oh, there’s just too many I just love them all.

Listen to ‘Nothing Hurts I promise’ HERE

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INTERVIEW: ALEXANDER BIGGS AND THE FEELINGS BEHIND ‘HIT OR MISS’

Melbourne creative Alexander Biggs has released his debut album ‘Hit or Miss'. The album is about hanging onto the idea of someone after they’ve left the room like you’re hanging onto their ghost or a husk like a cicada—all the insides gone, taken off, old here and new somewhere else—like an outline of dust in a roadrunner cartoon. Our girl Kayla chatted to him all things Biggs.

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You’re quite well known for these incredibly distinct, almost poignant emotive songs - ones of which resonate deeply with many people. How do you find that your musics ability to touch so many people has influenced the manifestation of the themes present within your songs?

I try not to think too much about anyone else’s perception of my music. I remember a time when I was like, 19, playing the first kind of iteration of my project, like the very raw, beginner phase of figuring out what you’re going to sound like, and how to write songs, and someone telling me I reminded them of Death Cab, and I didn’t know any of their music, except that one song, so I looked it and then found myself emulating them, and I don’t even think I was the biggest fan at the time. I’m not saying I’d do that now, but I know that feeling now, and I know how you can take your own agency away when you worry about what others think about you, well-meaning or not.

Do you find you often write to appeal to the emotions of your listeners or are these songs truly written on the basis of your own experiences and emotive forethought?

I write solely to explore what I want to explore and to channel what I want to channel. I think there is a desire to connect with people, maybe offer a feeling of our shared experience, but I don’t let that come first, that comes after the fact. I write the songs because I’m compelled to, and they resonate second. I can only write from that experience.

In a 2018 interview - you’re quoted as saying “Melbourne is an inspiring place to live” have you taken inspiration for your new album release from any local talent, locations or occurrences that your listeners mightn’t have caught in your album’s musings?

Nah, I don’t look out at people like that. I appreciate Melbourne artists, any artists, for the unique things they bring to the table, their voices. I think Melbourne is imprinted heavily in my songs, but maybe more in just a personal sense. Songs translate to many locations, but in my mind I see where I was, or where I’m singing about. The new stuff I’m writing has a lot more of a city feel to it with a hint of northern suburbs. The stuff on Hit or Miss feels 90 percent northern suburbs, 10 percent NYC.

You have been a support act for some incredibly talented artists like Stella Donnelly and Julien Baker. If you could pick anyone in the industry to support (past artists included) who would absolutely make your lifetime if they asked you to support them?

I’m really hoping Ruby Gill takes me touring the world with her when she gets famous.

Your discography has a really consistent sound and tone - often as listeners we assume that your album release has direct connotations to your emotional state at the time of writing and it definitely has an almost cathartic feel to it - talk us through the process and feelings behind ‘Hit or Miss’.

The process was a whole bunch of recording, a whole bunch of feeling things, and a whole bunch of stressing about it.

How does it make you feel as a musician to know that people all over the world are listening to your music?

It’s neat to think people around the world are listening to my music. It’s a privilege, but one I don’t think about too much.

If you could think of any scenario or location in which you think your album is best listened to what would that look like? (for example I could definitely see myself crying into a tub of ice cream listening to ‘mostly i feel nothing’ haha)

I think it’s a headphone-walk kind of album. Walk around your neighbourhood at dusk. That’s the mood.

What can we expect from you in future? Are you ever tempted to produce collaborations or experiment with new genres?

Ummmm, I’m really interested in synths and euclidean rhythms but I’m not sure how much they’ll feature in the next stuff. Still exploring. Well, synths are involved a little, but I’m not going full radiohead or anything. They have such distinct characters and feelings, which I feel helped a lot when used sparingly in the last stuff. I’d like to turn it up a notch maybe.

Writing an album can be quite the process - did the songs on ‘Hit or Miss’ come to you over a length of time or did you smash it out and work on the production side of things more?

Hit or Miss was an ever-evolving process. It had so many different iterations, and a lot of songs got bumped out for others. I think it took a lot of time because it hadn’t yet arrived, and then one day it did, and it felt right.

Do you fear being pigeonholed to one type of genre or do you feel as though your current releases are the most authentic reflection of your past, present, and future self?

Yeah, I mean, most artists in my experience don’t like that. The amount times I get put in some, surf chill coffee strum playlist is a little annoying but I’m also grateful, and at the end of the day, you can’t choose who listens to you. I think any of the people I look up to or that my ego would want to be validated by would think my record was trash or trite or something haha

Music often provokes a feeling of nostalgia or provokes emotion tied to events in one’s life. Do you find that performing songs consistently stops this from occurring for you, or if anything does it make you remember events, feelings etc more vividly?

Maybe at first. I get tired of songs sometimes, but I’d say the feeling just develops and evolves into something else. It’s like looking at old photos—they still do something to you, but it’s not the same as being there. Probably for the best.

How has the response to your new album been so far? Is this what you expected or has it exceeded your expectations?

It’s been nice. I didn’t really know what to expect so I just take it day by day.

Congratulations on a super great album it’ll definitely be getting a ton of listens from me!

Thanks :)

'Hit or Miss' is OUT NOW

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HEAD OVER HEELS FOR ST EMERALD

Move over Bachelorette, MAF’s, and Farmer Wants A Wife, it’s time to turn off the tv and straight onto the radio - or any form of streaming service - to tune into Melbourne indie-pop band, St Emerald, with their new single, Head Over Heels featuring the incredibly talented fellow Melbourne singer songwriter, Jessie Singleton. 

Compared to their EP, Worried Hearts earlier in 2020, Head Over Heels moves away from a full band indie-rock sound and is a sweet love song with the duets to match, as Jessie’s vocals add that layer of tenderness. It’s an interesting direction St Emerald are taking, but one which showcases their adaptability, and further explores their gentle songwriting abilities. 

It’s a gorgeous release from the relatively newly formed group, with finger picking moments sure to strike a chord with fans of Plain White T’s Hey There Delilah. But the melody isn’t overpowering, the acoustic moments blend almost seamlessly with the backing vocals along the way. This track, just over two minutes in length, is an ode to that fairytale-love-stuff which is perfect for those moments spent daydreaming about a future lover. 

Single artwork by: @jamesmactaylor on Instagram

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