Part 1

Name: Natalie Holmes
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Nationality: British
Recent release: Natalie Holmes's Vitamin Be is out now.
Recommendations: Only two is very hard, I have so many I want to share!
Bon Iver - all albums consecutively. Aurora - A Different Kind of Human

If you enjoyed this interview with Natalie Holmes and would like to find out more about her and her music, visit Natalie's official website. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, and twitter.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I was making up and singing songs as a toddler and got put in piano lessons when I was in primary school by my parents. I remember learning grade pieces and just wanting to memorise it so I could put the music away and do my own thing.

Come grade 7 I bailed and started writing my own songs instead, as it was really the emotion of music that drew me in, and I’d learnt enough of the technical side of classical piano to use as a foundation for that. Honestly, I grew up listening to S Club 7, Paramore and Avril Lavigne amongst other noughties pop (my favourite album was Pop Princesses, just banger after banger!), but I loved singing and belting along to the melodies and lyrics, that’s what gave me joy.

This was before I understood that most of these people didn’t write their own songs and then I began to get into more into singer/songwriters like Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles. The way they crafted words and stories into songs that spoke to you but also gave you something very musical to grab onto, that was the beginning of what really inspired me.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

I’m very emotionally impacted by music, which I think is why I stray away from listening to straight up sad songs (and from writing them). I feel a surge of whatever emotion is being portrayed in the song - whether it’s Lizzo or Bon Iver.

So I tend to listen to whatever emotion I need more of at that time (which very often is a Lizzo or Ariana Grande pick me up!). Or if I feel like going more into an emotion to figure out what’s going on for me, it’s usually a Bon Iver moment as his music wriggles right into my soul, almost like a 4 minute long spiritual dive.

This one’s an anomaly for me as his lyrics are very abstract and poetic and go against the main reason I am inspired by music (following words and meaning). Which I think is why it does such unexpectedly magical things to me and there’s much less obvious leading of emotion.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

This has been a long and arduous process. The main challenge for me has been working mostly alone and maintaining that excitement and drive over a 10 year period. I’ve learnt so many skills from doing it this way, and am so happy I self-produced and mixed my album ‘Vitamin Be’ as I learnt so much and can feel really proud.

But at the end of the day sharing the excitement of a project with someone else is a huge, huge part of it, and I really long for that going forward. I’ve worked this way for long enough to feel I have found my personal voice, and would feel confident in working with others and staying strong in that but at the same time being able to take on different perspectives and grow beyond what my mind is capable of coming up with alone.

The real breakthrough I had came over lockdown, when rather than fretting about fitting the every changing styles and standards of the industry, I became excited about forming my own musical world themed around what I really cared about.

I was making my album, themed on nature, mental health and general big life reflections, and more and more things were coming to me about how I could create a framework around this and use what was really relevant and meaningful to me to reignite the fire. This burst of surety and genuine excitement led quickly to me writing music for the Calm app, having an article featured in Happiful magazine and playing music at yoga retreats.

Writing this now I realise how powerful that breakthrough was in terms of making new things happen that felt true to myself and my life.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

I feel like I’ve ended up touching on that in the previous question, but I’ve got a lot more to say on that …

I’ve always found it quite hard to pin down a sense of identity in my personal life, and being a singer/songwriter releasing music really forces you to delve into who your authentic self is, so that you can use alongside sharing your music. Saying that, I feel like it’s a very transient thing, and actually creating branding out of that can be confusing when you naturally grow and change.

As a listener, I enjoy listening to stuff that feels outside of my identity so I can vicariously take on those feelings for a while (hence, the ultimate sass of Lizzo and the effortless sophistication of Ariana). But within my identity, I feel more comfortable listening to Regina and Sara B as we’re on the same page …  But I need both to feel I’m not just sitting inside my existing identity but poking my head out and trying different characters on.

This works similarly in my creativity, and often I put too much pressure on myself to always include one element of these alter egos in each thing I write, in order to feel like I’m not sitting still. Writing, especially when it’s not for my solo material, is where I can get away with trying on these different personalities without committing to a complete change of identity.

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

Currently, it’s nature, adventure and questioning (or being straight up baffled by) social norms. On top of that it’s always been self-reflection, over thinking, contemplating relationships and purpose on this earth … Sometimes I wonder why I never studied psychology further as I never cease to be fascinated by how everyone’s minds are so different.

Above all, I feel called to create songs that leave people on a slight up. Even if the song is on a sad note, I usually try and resolve that with some kind of positive reflection on the situation, as I’ve always felt very passionately in my own life that the brain can be softly redirected of if we put in the effort.

I never wanted my songs to be the kind people listen to to wallow in their sadness - not to say that those aren’t valuable listening experiences in their own way.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I’m definitely leaning more toward the future.

I never really grew up in a musical family or had the old classics and legends playing around me, so I was never inspired by those timeless artists that so many are. I tended to always listen to how people were changing and challenging the existing songwriting framework, absorbing all these little nuggets of creativity and gradually morphing them into my own, sprinkling bits here and there and letting that encourage me to try whatever I felt like trying.

I’ve done that more in some songs than others - sometimes the OG song structure and fewer chords is what most effectively gets across a message, so I have to balance that urge to try new things with my passion of communicating. But there’s SO much technology out there now that I can’t not be playful especially when it comes to sounds and production. I love that other-worldly feeling that can come from things like reversed vocals, glitchy samples and lots of delays and reverbs.

I feel a strange comfort in ethereal sounds over organic sounds (which is partly where my love of Bon Iver and Aurora come from) - which may come from my inability to comprehend how humanity is the way it is, and preferring to fantasise about bigger pictures.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

Getting to use Logic at school may be the most valuable thing that came from my education. Ever since I’ve dabbled more and more and it’s become an extension of myself. I feel very comfortable and capable using this to create music and explore new sounds, and eventually grew the confidence to produce and mix final versions of tracks after years of only feeling I could use the term ‘demo’.

Learning piano at such a young age has also been vital to my growth as a musician as it early on gave me that feeling of ‘permission’ to make my own music, feeling like I knew my way around the theory of it. Of course this can also be a curse as I’m less able to see outside of the box of what ‘works’ theoretically.

The most crucial and constant learning journey is with singing. Year after year different obstacles come up in my relationship with my voice, I feel the older I get and more anxiety inducing life becomes, the more I have to hyper manage this relationship and keep it away from my head.

The throat is the first place emotions go, and tightness is inevitable, but the way you perceive that tightness influences whether that becomes a problem or simply a piece of information that allows you to accept and further explore the swings and roundabouts of the human body.

For the most part, it’s been the former, and for years I’ve struggled to the point where I was afraid of singing and could no longer rely on it as my strength. More recently I’ve been working through this and learning to embrace all it’s different qualities, to sing through the ‘bad’ sounds and sensations, and trust in it fully, which has turned my world around.