Name: Holly Blair
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, filmmaker
Nationality: American
Current release: Holly Blair's One Step Away Is Too Far EP is out via Future Gods.
Recommendation: One of my favourite poems by Mary Oliver is called “Wild Geese.” It's a gut punch in the best way and I feel so deeply connected to the message of it and Mary Oliver in general.
Also Hilma Af Klint was a Swedish painter born in the 1800’s and she is a magical witch. If you don’t know who she is, read about her, look at her work, take it all in. She never fails to amaze me with her foresight and connection to Spirit and the other dimensions.

If you enjoyed this Holly Blair interview and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her on Instagram.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

If I can have my eyes closed I usually choose to listen like that, it allows me to get lost in the world and stay a while. I feel music super somatically, and depending on the song I’ll feel it in my stomach or chest—sometimes in my hands and feet.

I also see the world around the song If I'm following a narrative, so I’ll see the story play out like a movie in my head.

What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

Music has been a part of me for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories are of my favourite songs and dancing to them. Specifically “Mambo No. 5” on cassette.



There was no restriction or filter when it came to connecting to sound or making it. Songs would just flow out of me without me even knowing it. My siblings said I was always quietly making up songs while looking out the car window about what I would see while sitting in my car seat. I’m sure it was quite annoying.

I miss that part of being a child, the ability to create without judgement, to say without thinking, to move without constriction. When I’m in my best moments I am able to bring together the filter I’ve acquired through experience and also that raw feeling of forward momentum I had as a kid, and that's when the special stuff hits.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?
 
That makes a lot of sense because that's when music became like God to me. I fell in love with Radiohead and Coldplay. I felt seen by the words of Radiohead, and felt like I found a world I fit into.



I was pretty angsty and struggled with being an emo and depressed teen, so to me I turned to music to feel like I wasn’t alone. It became my connection to Spirit at that age, and still is.

Since then it’s just grown. Although now I do listen with a more critical filter trying to figure out how they produced a sound etc.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?

Piano was my first instrumental love, but it wasn’t until I learned guitar that I really tried to sing. I would play quietly in my room and learn Dixie Chicks and Death Cab For Cutie songs in middle school. Guitar allowed me to use my voice because I couldn’t play melodies on it like I could on piano, just rhythm.

Then as I got older learning production started with GarageBand, and eventually I moved onto Logic. Producing made me feel empowered, like I could have control over manipulated sound and I could make something new.

I am still on the journey of getting comfortable producing.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

Honestly I’ve thought a lot about this and it's mostly just a feeling. I know the feeling music has given me throughout my life—it’s a sense of meaning. A sense of community.

The deepest parts of myself can feel, and better yet there is a voice telling them they aren’t alone. I feel that the world we live in is really hard. There is nothing normal about the violence and suffering that is a constant reality. Music is an outlet to feel the beauty and also feel the deep grief, and everything in between.

I just want to be a part of something that makes people feel.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

Again I think it’s all about a feeling. I'm interested in the in-between space. Not happy, not sad, not too gnarly, not too pretty. But something that contains contradictions and different emotional currents all in one.

It's a hard thing to define but that's what it feels like to me to be human, and that's what I'm interested in exploring in my sound.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

One time I was sitting outside in my backyard in Idaho, and all at once I got this profound feeling that everything was all connected.

A large semi-truck went by on the highway and I could hear its tires and the large puff of steam it let out from the top pipe. Then a flock of birds flew away from a nearby tree, started by the sound of the steam. The tree then shook as the flock left it and a breeze took the tree and it started to sway. All the sounds around me started to merge, it felt like a giant chain creating a track where every sound was informed by the sound before it.

I think of that moment often and how delicately interconnected everything in this existence is.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

When I'm in a specific mood, I love extreme darkness in music. It helps me access my anger and process it.

For so long I just pushed down my trauma and never allowed myself to be angry. Music helps me embrace that and let go of it.

For example sometimes I just blast $uicideBoy$ and scream to it in the car. I think it's called scream therapy? Anyways it feels amazing and I highly recommend it.



From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriads ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?

I usually work pretty linearly.

Often I just sit down and the song presents itself from start to finish in a linear way. Then I have to go back and re-work from there and sometimes the structure changes, but honestly a lot of times the songs just stay the same from the time they are written with a few small lyrical or melodic tweaks.

The chords usually come with the melody and then the words follow, but sometimes the words and melody come at the same time.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

A song that I really enjoyed the creative process for was “Make It On My Own” from my EP One Step Away Is Too Far.



I was sitting at my childhood home’s piano, and I had a vision of my childhood self in the house. I could see her spirit and spunk, and the song came to me— chords, lyrics and all in about 4 minutes. Nothing changed from that point to the point it was released, besides maybe a couple chord tweaks.

I brought a few songs to Tim Carr, my producer for the track and played him a few songs I’d written. He liked that one and we dove in, and had so much fun just creating a playful track that also contained the grief of a recent breakup of mine. It was cathartic and fun, my most favorite way to create.

Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

I think a lot about quantum entanglement. For me, sometimes when I’m writing I don’t think it's coming from me. Sometimes the source feels like it’s in my body but it's not my story. But I feel it as though it is.

My theory is that I've become entangled with a person or a spirit and their cell’s feel like mine while I'm writing. Probably a bit out there, haha.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

My music definitely represents my life in that it's a messy portrayal of shadow and growth. I wrote from different parts of myself and it feels like a form of therapy to give them a voice.

I think we can learn empathy for stories we wouldn't normally hear through music. You can put yourself inside someone's head for a bit, and expand your own mind based on theirs.

That’s why story-telling is so important. It gets us out of our own head and into someone’s else’s experience. And if we can relate to that or grow from it in some way, even better.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Definitely different. Specifically in the collaboration of it all. When I am up there playing a song and something special starts to happen, the energy starts to whirl around us and something feels like it's being created.

I live for those moments whether they are in a session or on stage.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?
 
Everytime I listen to either Fear of Music or Remain in Light by the Talking Heads I get this feeling of just wanting to move in this completely freaky way haha. Like something comes over me and I just dance and feel so alive.



Both of those albums just have so much good shit in them that brings on this wave of just an almost chaotic release. David Byrne is so unfiltered and it makes me feel unhinged in the best way.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I would like to see our artists better protected and cared for. Far too often are the stories of musicians getting screwed over by the industry side. Everything feels so backwards right now, and so many artists are burning out.

I almost think we need a revolution and I am hoping that we reach a point where real changes are made to better take care of our artists.