Holiday Sidewinder rides the wave
Our mate Holiday Sidewinder just released her hotly-anticipated debut album, Forever Or Whatever. Our editor Bobby had a chat to her about it:
Hi Holiday! Your album has just been unleashed. How are you feeling?
Edgy and giddy. It’s always a strange feeling putting something out in to the world once you’ve put so much of yourself into it, but I’m mostly relieved, I’ve been sitting on it for a year! Just can’t help but feel like I’ve dropped the ball or I’m forgetting something you know?
Can you tell us a little bit about the album’s creation? When did you start putting it together? Have some of the songs been around for a while? Or are they all new, or is it a mixture of both?
The songwriting process was cyclonic and stupidly fun. The one rule we had was “if it makes us laugh, it stays”. So wherever you hear a disgusting bass lick or a ridiculous lyric, that’s why it’s in there. It started off with one song every few months, and then they just came flooding in. So it’s a mixture of both, but I really made sure it felt cohesive, and there was a story to follow, like each song is an episode in a series.
Tell us a little about the album’s title, Forever or Whatever…
I’ve been a bit of an existentialist for a while. I think it’s a protection mechanism for people who feel too much really. Like opioid abusers. I found the more detached I became from the outcome of anything, the future, the past, the more I was able to just appreciate and enjoy life and love, without the fear of loss. Maybe that’s really unhealthy, I’m not a psychiatrist, but Forever or Whatever was more an attitude to life, to permanence and transience. Like nothing really matters, and everything is unfolding as it should, just ride the wave.
Can you believe it was 13 years ago that I first met you at the Bridezilla gig in Sydney’s Kings Cross? 13 years! How do you feel when you look back on your time in Bridezilla and at that time in your life in general?
Like anyone feels when they look back on their teen years – cringey and wistful. I was very focused and professional and VERY serious about myself and my music, it was a special but dark time – sex, drugs and rock n roll. I was a child working with adults who thought I was an adult too, in one of the most misogynistic and reckless industries around. I’m so grateful for the creative outlet and the experiences I had… I was incredibly dedicated and lucky. I have so many amazing memories of being part of that 00’s indie scene – meeting Jim Jarmusch, Steve Albini, David Yow, Martin Rev, Stephen Malkmus, Silver Apples, John Cale, Dirty 3, Nick Cave, Rowland S Howard etc. I met and played with all my heroes that got me into music. I realised that dream. It was incredible to know the power of just wanting something and manifesting it and being exactly where I wanted to be in that moment. It felt like fate, and I’m really proud to have stuck it out this long, and to be doing what I love.
Does this album represent the style of music you’ve always wanted to make? On the surface it seems a little different from what you were doing with Bridezilla, but I recall you always having an ear for a pop tune and and I recall you loving Britney…
I have really eclectic taste, I go through musical eras – rap, exotica, Bollywood, vapewave etc, but I was a child of the bubblegum pop era BIG TIME, so all those influences make their way into my music in one way or another and I think this album just sounds like a jumble of all those influences to me.
If you could give a single piece of advice to 15-year-old Holiday as Bridezilla were just getting going, what would it be?
Forget about boys, dump your boyfriend, prioritise friendships and get some sunshine. Reply to emails. Dance.
I haven’t been able to hang out with you for a while but, from what I can tell, you seem more happy and contented then ever, both personally and creatively. Is that a fair assessment?
I feel very self assured and uncompromising in chasing bliss personally and professionally. I’ll never leave a stone unturned, and I’ve accepted that about myself now. Time is not linear for me any longer either, I have no anxiety about it. I give in to the swells of life.
What’s the plan for the rest of 2019? Will there be more live shows?
I’m about to embark on a six-week US tour supporting my ex-boss Alex Cameron. I miss him and the band and its been less than six months since our last tour together. I totally have Stockholm syndrome. We’re a family. Being in that van with those boys is more home to me than anything or anywhere else. I love touring America too, it’s so vast and monumental, beautiful and sad, desperate and fabulous, drenched in history and possibility. The best and the worst. More than anything, I love meeting the people. If I don’t get to the city, I get to meet the people from that city and I get a feel for it. It’s incredibly rewarding meeting your fans in person and having a night with them.
Thanks Holiday! What are you going to do now that this interview is finished?
I’m going to the exquisite Le Saint-Amour restaurant in Quebec City, and I’m going to get a fat bottle of champagne and a very rich-expensive-but-tiny-portion-on-a-huge-plate-with-curly-tempered-chocolate-rasberry-coulis-premasticated-by-a-golden-bird kind of dessert to celebrate.
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Buy/stream the album HERE.
Interview by Bobby Townsend.
