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| Holly Montgomery |
I am utterly mystified as to why the name of Holly Montgomery is not more widely known. Although the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist is a steady presence on the mid-Atlantic performing circuit with more than 300 gigs per year to her credit, she has remained a regional phenomenon through today. This relative obscurity is poised to change with the recent release of Sorry For Nothing via KZZ Music. The artist’s earthy voice, combined with unflinchingly honest songwriting and a stellar team of musicians, delivers a listening experience that, for this pair of ears, presses all the right buttons. Shortly before the album’s May 6 release date, I had the opportunity to spend some time speaking with Holly and learned a great deal about this superbly talented, intelligent, and passionate artist. Read on and enjoy!
Roy Abrams: Congratulations, Holly, your new
album is awesome! If we had crossed paths back in the ‘90s, you would have
already (a) been a part of my local concert series, (b) received commercial
radio exposure on my radio show, and (c) been the subject of a feature article in
the publications I was writing for at the time. I’m scratching my head,
wondering why it’s taken this long for your music to reach my ears.
Holly Montgomery: You’re very welcome. I hope that this comes out the way I mean it to sound, but I’ve been told that my whole life, and I’ve been really trying. I try and I try and I try and frankly, it’s finally getting out there now because one guy had the balls to sign a woman who was over (the age of) 22. [Laughs]
RA: There are a few songs on the new album which have been on constant replay on this end.
HM: Which ones?
RA:
HM: Oh, wow. That’s awesome.
RA: They grabbed me straight away. You’re such
a solid lyricist. The ability to capture and keep a listener’s ear on first listening
is rare; as you and I know, not everyone can do that. In my opinion, you can! I
found your “Bass/Vocals/Songwriting/Production”
video on YouTube and was fascinated by what I learned. You said that music
wasn’t something you thought about, it was just something that was, so
the recollection you have of hoisting yourself up on a piano bench sets the
stage for a very early start!
HM: Since I was super young, I don’t ever remember not trying to get up on a piano bench and starting to play before hearing “Be quiet! I’m trying to watch TV!” I was just trying to plink out piano stuff; that was the way that it always was.
RA: As a multi-instrumentalist to whom the
bass guitar has always held a special place, I loved learning about your
“clarity moment” when you realized that when you were listening to songs on the
radio, you were singing the bass lines. I’ve never heard another bass
player put it out there like that. That’s really cool.
HM: Yeah, it’s especially not something that you think of for women so often. I was in my late teens when I had the bass “Aha!” moment. Even at that age, I had already been obsessed with music for my whole life. As a little kid, I used to keep journals of all my favorite lyrics. I would hear a song on the radio and write down the lyrics; I was always obsessed with it.
RA: Are you self-taught?
HM: Yes and no. In elementary school and high school, I played the trombone. I went to college on a trombone scholarship, so I already knew and have always appreciated the value of education. I love to read music and I read music often, even though the gigs that I play don’t really require it! I enjoy reading it and knowing what the hell I’m doing, you know?
RA: Regarding your songwriting process, in the video, you stated that “I have to be an actor.” I’m wondering how one navigates that bridge between the autobiographical content and focus with slipping in and out of character that your statement implied. Which is more challenging for you? What obstacles and opportunities do you face in the process?
HM: One of the most important things for me about songwriting and lyrics is that when I write a lyric, it has to be true. That doesn’t mean that has to actually have happened. For example, with “Looking for Lancelot” I was inspired to write it because some guy made an offhand, kind of snide remark about how daddy issues were “in” with female writers. I thought, well, I have daddy issues, I’ll write a song. My father died when I was seven, so of course who’s not going to have daddy issues? But when writing a song, it’s not very interesting to just say, “Well, my dad died when I was seven, and I wish I had a dad.” That’s a boring song. (I thought) okay, who have I known in my life who lost their fathers or who had absent fathers, and what did they go through and what challenges did they face? And so therefore the song becomes true because I’m not just like sitting in a room and making up things. I have to try to write about things that I know. Many of my best ideas come from listening to my friends say what they’re going through. For me, in terms of the actor part, it’s much more difficult for me to sing a song that is personal. You’ll find this hard to believe after seeing me onstage, because I’m not great with big crowds around. In my element, I’m perfectly comfortable onstage, but offstage I’m a little bit of an introvert. When I start singing songs about myself, I go, “Uh oh! Do I really want people to know anything about me?” But it’s part of the process, and there’s personal stuff that I put into “Looking for Lancelot” and “All for Nothing,” which was straight autobiographical. I was having a really bad day, at the end of a long string of bad days. I was like “Is anything ever going to go right in my life?” You write the song and those things always pass, but I wrote it in the midst of that horrible string of bad luck.
RA: There’s an inner strength that appears to be ingrained in you. The world-weary resignation evident in the three songs I mentioned is forged by experience. One verse of “Looking for Lancelot” stands out in particular:
There’s a picture
of me at seven years old.
My father had
gone, the world had grown cold,
I still remember
that day.
Since then, I’ve
been looking mostly in vain for the right song,
the right man to
help dull the pain,
but unlike my daddy, it stays.
Those are some of the most powerful words that anybody has written anywhere, at any time. As autobiographical as that is, it can and will serve as mirror for those who are unable to articulate the way you’ve been able to.
HM: That verse is definitely autobiographical. I do remember that day very clearly. I was thinking about my life laying out before me. My parents were divorced by the time I was born. I saw (my father) every other weekend. There was already a fracture. It’s interesting; I’ve spent my whole life wondering. My father was a classical musician, he was a really, really great classical piano player. He might have hated what I did because I’m a rocker chick, I don’t know, but I sure wish I could have found out.
RA: While preparing for this interview, I learned that you became the adoptive mother to three children from Kazakhstan through your involvement in a particular charity organization. Can we discuss how this occurred and how it impacted your life?
HM: I was in L.A. for a while and did a bunch
of different things, from the ridiculous to the sublime. I had my deals, I lost
my deals. One of the last things I did while I was living there was (that) I
had a deal and then got called into an office one day, where the guy who was
supposed to be managing me was like, “Well, you’re turning 30, and it didn’t
hit, so (it’s) too late.” I was like, “Wow. Okay.” I had just spent years
putting that deal together, paying the guys in the band, spending the years and
the money of my life, and we had an incredible band that was ready to go at any
moment. That was it for that. I started thinking to myself that if I don’t do
something worthwhile in the world, what’s the point? I was overcome for the
next year after that with (thinking that) I want my life to have counted for
something. I don’t want to just be like those people you see walking up Sunset
Boulevard with a shopping cart, with worn-out sequined pants and a cowboy hat with
a big sign that says “Hey, listen to my record!” I could definitely see that
future ahead of me and I didn’t want that. It started out that I began
volunteering for this organization called Kidsave.
They bring kids from orphanages in different countries to the United States for
summer visits, to find sponsors or possibly adoptive parents for them. So I
started doing some volunteering work for them, stuff in their office, and then I
agreed to host some kids. I hosted a couple of kids and then finally, one day, from
a picture in a binder, there was my son staring at me. I went, “Oh wow, this
kid looks intense!” I got him into the program and ended up hosting him. That
was it; I couldn’t live without him. I met two kids while I was in Kazakhstan
adopting him and went back two and a half years later and (adopted them too).
That was kind of what happened there. I took some years off from the music
business because in my mind, I thought, I’ve been navigating the music business
in L.A. for ten years, how hard could this be? [Laughs] It was really, really
hard. When you have a fifteen-year-old who’s never owned a toothbrush or been
taught how to tell time, or that there was a World War II, or what a washing
machine was … The level of “What? You don’t know two plus two? Oh, shit!” That
was it. It took all of my attention, which was the best thing I could do. When
I finally came back to music, I came back in knowing that at this point, people
are going to consider me as approaching middle age, which is a big no-no if
you’re female, but I don’t care anymore! For the last ten years, when I got
back into my career, I just haven’t cared (about the perceived age issue). Of
course I want people to like it and listen to it. I’ve done what I can. I have
a great family, so I’m just doing what I can do at this point.
RA: I have a very good feeling about the
partnership you’ve entered into with Kirk Pasich at KZZ Music. How did that relationship
form?
HM: It formed because I put out an album called Leaving Eden in 2016. Somebody submitted that album for the first round of the GRAMMYs. I learned a lot since then. I learned what that means and what it doesn’t mean. I had no idea. It came out, then I got this notice and I thought, what the hell is this? I thought it was a joke at first. It was really interesting to me, because that album was a collection of different kinds of songs that I had collected and recorded over the past few years before that. I was like, “You know what? The odds of anybody listening to this further are probably nil, but I don’t care. I’m going to go to L.A. and go to some GRAMMY parties.” I called up the guitarist, Sherry Barnett, who was the guitarist in a band I played in during the ‘90s called The Mustangs, which was an all-female country band. I’ve never really listened to country music, but people always think that I have, I guess because of my accent. So, I called Sherry and told her what happened and that I was coming out to L.A. to go to some GRAMMY parties and hopefully I would see her. She said, “Oh, I can’t believe it!” because Suzy (Suzanna Spring), who was the lead singer of The Mustangs, is going to be here too. We should record a reunion show!” I told her that I would only be there a few days and that I wanted to go to those GRAMMY parties and make myself feel more important than I actually am. [Laughs] She was like, “Oh, it’ll just be one day.” So, of course, most of the trip was (focused) on The Mustangs. We got together and recorded this video and song that Suzanna Spring had written. Sherry is a very well known, fairly famous concert photographer herself and she had been shooting some photos for Blue Elan Records. She marched in there and kind of pounded the door down, saying, “Look at this video! Listen to this song!” and she bugged him until The Mustangs got a deal. As I said, I’m not a country singer or a country musician, so Kirk told me, “Well, you should give me the songs you’re recording. Maybe we can license them.” I said, “Heck, yeah. That would be great!” So, I passed on the stuff I was writing and recording for the album I just did and Kirk was like, “I don’t want to license this, I want to sign you to an artist deal!” I was like, “What?! Really!?” Pardon my language, but there’s no other word for it: What guy in Hollywood has the balls to say this: “I don’t care how old you are or how much you weigh. This is great music.” I was like, okay, let’s do it! I was pretty busy for the next year fulfilling The Mustangs’ contract and then COVID hit. I know for a lot of people COVID was devastating; for me it was so great. I had been doing like 300 shows a year up until COVID. The year before it hit, I played 320 shows; I was tired! During COVID, we recorded the rest of this album that I’d started, and there it is! This album is very different from the one before, and that album was really different from the one before that. I don’t want to sit around and do the same things I’ve always done. I don’t want to sit around and listen to the same music. You only live once; there’s too much to learn in the world.
RA: How long have you been working with your current band?
HM: I’ve been playing with the drummer (Andy Hamburger) for ten years. He’s so amazing and is one of the busiest guys in the mid-Atlantic. He’s awesome and I’m so grateful to have him in the band. I’ve been playing with the guitarist (Buddy Speir) since 2014. He’s just amazing. After I did “Looking for Lancelot” and “All for Nothing” he produced the rest of the album. He’s just got magic in his fingers and for our live show, Island Styles plays with us. He’s the guitarist for Candlebox; he tours a lot. It’s always a little tricky to get people’s schedules to line up, but when they do, I play like a powerhouse. I’ve played thousands of gigs with these guys. I’m grateful for any time I can get them on the gigs.
RA: Listening to the string and guitar arrangement of “Song of My Life” brought echoes of “Kashmir” to mind, which begs the question: Did you listen to Led Zeppelin growing up?
HM: Oh yeah. Growing up, I listened to
Zeppelin, Queen, Aerosmith. I listened to all that kind of stuff so much, and
then at one point I stumbled upon a John Denver record. I was also listening to
everything my older brother Bucky listened to. My brother and I had a band in
high school called Dorothy
Boys, which was like this really hard prog-metal band. I had this weird
eclectic background because in high school all my friends were total jazz-heads;
they loved jazz. I was playing trombone in the school band and I thought, I
just don’t see myself as a jazz trombonist. At the same time I was playing in
this metal band with my brother. I listened to a lot of prog stuff growing up.
I mean, I listened to Yes’ Fragile probably hundreds and hundreds of
times, (as well as) Jethro Tull and Genesis—I loved that stuff.
RA: As a bass player, I notice you play a 5-string. Did you start out with one or make the switch from a standard 4-string model?
HM: I started out almost from the beginning on 5-string. I had only really been playing bass for a year and a half or two years when I moved to L.A. I moved to L.A. to go to Musicians Institute because I was like, okay, I want to get caught up, because I want to be good. I want to be a good player, I don’t want to be a lousy player! I had no money; I lived in my truck off of Hollywood Boulevard for about two weeks before I made a few dollars where I could live somewhere. Not long after I moved there, I actually started working for Mike Tobias, who is a very famous bass guitar maker. We’re still friends to this day. I started playing Tobias basses because he let me work there and pay it off. I’ve been playing 5-string ever since!
RA: In addition to Kidsave, are there other charities you’re currently involved with?
HM: The last few years, I’ve been trying to
work. I have a kid in college so I’ve been working a lot. In addition to Kidsave, the International Anti-Poaching Foundation
is one I love. It’s an empowerment foundation, believe it or not. It’s a guy,
this former Australian Special Forces guy, who found the passion to try to
protect species such as tigers and elephants from going extinct and has finally
settled on a formula which is wildly successful. He’s training squads of female
rangers. James Cameron actually did a short
feature on the focus of the organization. What they found is that with
female rangers out there, the level of violence between the poachers and the
authorities has drastically dropped. The women are able to go in there and say,
“Hey, man, why are you killing this elephant?” whereas with men, it ends up
with fighting between them. If I take time to support anything these days, it’s
those two organizations.
RA: My gut is telling me that you have some exciting days ahead following the release of Sorry For Nothing. Congratulations on this excellent new album and I hope to be able to experience your music in a live setting one day soon!
HM: Thank you very much!
© Roy Abrams 2022
Great interview.
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