Interview: Holiday Sidewinder
One of our all time favourite humans, Holiday Sidewinder, has just released “Born On The Wind” a new collaborative single with PBO, Personal Best Records’ in-house label production team. We caught up with the former Bridezilla frontwoman to find out more:
Hello Holiday! Where are you at this exact moment and how has your day gone so far?
In bed. My mobile seems to be getting some action this morning!
You’ve just unleashed your brand new single, Born On the Wind. Can you tell us a little about it?
Last Christmas (I gave you my heart…), I went into the studio with my uncle (half of PBO) for the first time ever and we whipped this up in a day! I’d just been given a ring from grandmother that my grandfather had given to her in 1966 inscribed with ‘born on the wind, by the wrath of the sea, under the sky’s infinity’. So I imagined their romance where they would go on long drives in Western Australia and gave myself some poetic license. My grandmother has been a ballroom-dancing lesbian most of her life, doing social work in Alice Springs and Afghanistan and so on, so I think my grandfather romantically summated her character pretty well.
Will there be an album, or an EP to follow?
This is a one-off collaboration, special release. My solo material is an entirely separate thing. My album is still in glorious pipelines.
We were at your debut London solo gig a while back and it was magical. Are there any more live shows coming up?
I may do another small showcase next month.
How is London life treating you, generally? You’ve been here a while now since your relocation from Sydney…
London is fabulous! I’ve very much enjoyed selling pants to the likes of countesses, Jerry Hall, John Paul Gaultier and Adam Ant to pay my keep. Washing dishes and carrying boxes of booze from basements up wonky staircases. It is by all means an absolutely brilliant city. I love the grime and the hardship as much as the glamour and the ritz! A place where both stand wilfully in each other’s shadows. It is the land of opportunity and a city that belongs to the world. ‘Londoners’ aren’t english, they’re people from all over the world with a common goal and mind-set.
What prompted your move here in the first place?
A small suitcase and a three-week writing trip. I just didn’t get on the return flight home.
You’re a long way from home. Do you have any plans to relocate back to Sydney?
I like being part of the bustling mad world, if anything I’ll keep moving anywhere but home, but of course, there is no place like home, and Australia is heavenly.
After so many years being part of the much-loved five-piece Bridezilla, how are you finding being a solo artist? What are the upsides and downsides?
I’m enjoying the complete freedom of vision. I’m a loner at heart anyway. Confines and limitations can be great to work within though, and I do miss just playing music together. That incredible chemistry of musicians who have are so overfamiliar with each other’s playing… it’s like second nature, almost sublime and ethereal. That is rare and irreplaceable. I miss the girls’ company too. We were a family.
If you could go back and give teenage Holiday a few words of advice, what would they be?
Non, je ne regrette rien!
What are you listening to/reading/watching at the moment?
I’ve been reading The Prophet and Siddhartha again, and The Symposium of Plato, and a bit of Wordsworth here and there. A Bollywood film called Sholay is my new favourite! And Aretha Franklin blaring on the stereo. Gospel is Soul.
What are you going to do now you’ve finished this interview?
I’m going to The Royal Albert Hall this afternoon to see my friend Ruben Fox play, a tenor sax player. He’s boss.
“Born On The Wind” by Holiday Sidewinder & PBO is out now via iTunes.
Interview by Bobby Townsend.
