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| Welcome to the Exclusive Interview With Holly Long |
| Q: Holly, thank you very much for joining us here for this interview! I wanted to start off here by asking you about your current projects. What's keeping you busy right now? A: You're so welcome first of all. Thanks again for asking me. The material I've been working on since City Girl is this looooooooong work in progress that first took form as an EP last year called Six Sided Woman. Those five tracks were songs that I penned in 2001 and recorded in October of that year. Since then, I've been writing a vast number of other unfinished tunes, and actually a few new FINISHED numbers that I'm hoping to include on my second full-length album along with some of the tracks on Six Sided Woman. I'm thinking the new album will be recorded hopefully by the middle of next year. That's the hope anyway. 2002, besides being a year of introspection and writing, has more significantly been the year of my first pregnancy and birth of my daughter, Josephine Adele Petunia Lieber in July. (My married name is Holly Long Lieber, just to clear up any confusion there ;-) Q: You began playing your grandmother's piano at the age of seven, which gave you your first real taste in what was to come. How instrumental was your grandmother in your early musical development? A: My grandmother was actually not particularly instrumental in my musical development (no pun intended), other than in giving my mother her piano, and in passing on the genetic propensity. But that doesn't mean I didn't grow up around music. Though no one else in my family is or ever was a professional musician, both of my parents can sing, and all the aunts and uncles on my dad's side can sing and some play instruments. My cousins are very musical, and my other grandmother- Dad's mom actually thought for a time about being an opera singer when she was young- before the marriage and the five kids! Me and my brother, Brook Long, (who just came out with his first indie album this year under the name Greentrials) are currently carrying the name of our family into the music industry. As far as training goes, I Started taking piano lessons at the age of 7- mostly classical training. I entered a number of piano contests when I was young and performed numerous recitals, etc. etc. But I quit lessons when I was 15 to pursue more of an acting bug in high school. I did a bunch of musicals and community theater productions until I went to college here in Los Angeles. SOmetimes I really wish I had kept up the formal piano training- it sure would have helped my chops. But then again, I don't suppose I was ever bound for the symphony anyway... Q: Where did you find the inspiration to begin writing and performing music? A: I used to sneak into the music department practice rooms at UCLA just to play the pianos there (I didn't have my own at that time in my little college bachelorette pad.) It felt like I had this constant yearning need to make music- I guess my inspiration then - as now- really came from the inner workings of my own heart at that point. I felt compelled to work it out- get it down- somehow outside of myself in a story format. I still work that way quite a bit. I get inspiration from my own trials and tribulations, and the hurdles I see my close friends struggle with. I feel inspired to tell the tale, or offer a ray of hope, or more like a note of supreme empathy. Like, no matter who you are, I'm human just like you, and I can relate to your pain and your pathos on some level. Q: In 1996, you went through a terrible struggle after a battle with Endocarditis, which left you in a coma for a short period of time, and left you with a two year fight to learn how to walk and move again. Do you have any idea to this day how you were afflicted with it, and how did it change the way you approached not only music, but your life in it's aftermath? A: That period in my life is just far away enough now that I've started to romanticize it a little bit, which I think is a shame. Because it was so seminal for me,I want to keep the lessons pure and simple like they were. But that's hard because life marches on and you learn new things over time, or the same things along stops on your path and the past gets distorted. My bout with Endocarditis came on so suddenly and so unexpectedly and bespoke of a congential heart condition I never knew I had. To this day no one really knows exactly what brought it on- though I feel like much of what brought it on didn't reside purely in the physical realm. I was living a life that was so emotionally arid- so full of longing and pain, that to some extent, my disease was a message to me from my body that I couldn't live like that anymore. The struggle to live and learn to walk and be normal again changed my life so profoundly that I lost almost every person who was important in my life at the time. Relationships were severly altered, my path was diverted, and my music was suddenly revealed to be the necessary thing for me to do to feel present and real and purposeful. It was all very heavy, and even reading what I've just written here sounds a bit over-dramatic, but I can't think of how else to describe it. At the time, things suddenly seemed very simple, because I had just fought death and won. Now, I wish life looked as crystal clear, because in the six years post-illness of walking this path of a singer/songwriter, life has always been many things- but never never clearcut! Q: How long did it take you to complete the City Girl CD from start to finish? A: The album itself took about three months to record, and another couple to mix and master. I wrote a lot during the recording process, and grew a lot because of the whole ordeal. It's been three years since City Girl was finished, and honestly, I feel I've come quite a long way since as an artist. I go though phases where I can't even listen to the album, though I'm very grateful and happy for the incredible production value I think the record has- it sounds like very few indie albums I've ever heard. I was incredibly lucky to be able to have at my fingertips all the professionalism in Chris Horvath, Talley Sherwood, and every musician who worked on the record. As far as my performance and the songwriting, I'm my own worst critic, so I'm a tough person to ask about the record. On my good days, when I can listen to it all the way through and leave my critic voice behind, I think it holds up. But mostly, after three years, the album for me is a wonderful reminder of where I was then, and it has some lovely authentic songwriting on it, but still I so yearn for my next album to sound different, (I guess it can't help but!) and be even truer to who I am. In making City Girl I was really just learning the ropes. And with that in mind, I guess I think it's a pretty damn good record. Q: Holly, thanks so much for taking the time to join me here to talk about your music and your life changing experience. It was a pleasure having you here. I want to wrap up by asking you what other projects you are looking to tackle in the near future? A: Thank you Billy- I'm actually surprised you found me out there among the whole horde of fantastic (and let's be honest, not-so fantastic) independent musicians out there on the web. There are so many who have worthy things to say. I appreciate you singling me out. I also hope other people can get inspired by my songs- that's really the bottom line about why I write. At the end of the day, it's not about fame or dough or what label-what awards show- whose list you're on. It's about the music, and about truth, and touching people with your own story and your own perspective. My immediate goal is to continue to move forth on my musical path- no matter how murky it seems at times- to create art that is worthy of my true self and real enough to move the listener. I keep writing and listening. I keep living. |
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