Hailing from the small town of Mudgee, New South Wales and now living in the even smaller town of Mungindi on the New South Wales/Queensland border, skilled multi-instrumentalist, Jess Holland, has been very busy of late, touring and promoting her excellent debut album, Introducing Jess Holland.
Jess Holland: The Voice of Urban Country
Two thousand and eleven was certainly a year to remember for the supremely gifted vocalist. After finishing in the Top 20 of the Toyota Star Maker Competition in January, Jess was named The Voice of Urban Country at the Urban Country Music Festival (named after Keith Urban) in Queensland in May.
"Yeah, that was really great - it was such a great opportunity," recalls the talented twentysomething. "I headed up to Caboolture (Urban's hometown) for The Voice of Urban Country and I’d never been to the festival before, so I had a really great time there and went in for the competition and won. The opportunities that came with that were fantastic, so I was very lucky indeed."
Jess Holland: "True-to-Self"
The singer whose voice has been described as being able to "peel paint off walls" has an exciting, refreshingly hard-edged sound and possesses the kind of earth-shattering, Janis Joplin-esque, vocal abilities that immediately make one sit up and take note. But would Jess be willing to change her bluesy, 'down home' style in order to make it more commercially viable?
"Look, my style is the Jess Holland style," she replies, "so really I don’t write to be pinpointed into a certain style; I just write my music and however it comes out, it comes out. I love instruments such as the fiddle and the mandolin, so the mandolin I put in there because that’s an instrument that I play.
"I’m writing for a second album and am definitely looking towards a bit more of a commercial sound, but I’m whoever I am and I’m just writing as myself really, so whatever comes out is the true-to-self."
Suite 101: So you leave it to other people to categorise your music?
"Yeah, look, I don’t really say, 'Right, well I’m writing a bush ballad this time or I’m writing country rock' - it’s just what comes out and generally it’s all very similar - in a very similar style - so really I categorise myself as a country rock artist, but I’m not purposely writing to fulfill that category, if that makes sense."
Jess Holland on Country Music in Australia
"Personally I think country music itself is definitely becoming a lot more popular," muses the young rising star, reflecting on the Aussie country scene. "Back in the day, people would look at country music and think, 'Twang' and very old-school, but these days it’s a lot more modernised and a lot more commercial.
"These days, you’ll see Kasey Chambers on Max TV and on all of the television and radio stations that you wouldn’t necessarily have seen them on 10 years ago and the genre itself has a lot of sub-genres within it. These days there’s not just country, there’s alternative country and there’s blues country and so it’s definitely becoming a lot more commercialised."
Suite 101: How is it different to American country? Do you think it maintains more of a traditional flavour?
"I do. I think American country music is a lot more mainstream, whereas Australian country music is just writing about very different things; about the land and about different themes and I think that’s probably the reason why Australian country music still has its heritage pretty firmly attached."
Australian Country Music: Less Pressure?
Suite 101: And would you say there's less pressure on Australian artists to conform to certain demands, such as being told what to eat or what to wear?
"Absolutely and I think that’s where the Australian country music is great because it lets you be who you want to be and portray yourself as whatever country artist that you fit into, rather than what they are making you. So I think that’s where it definitely benefits.
"It’s a lot more of difficult road over there (in the US) because everyone wants to do it, whereas in Australia, though you've still got quite a few contenders, I guess it’s not quite as popular a thing to do as it would be in America."
Aussies in Nashville
Despite the artistic freedom that many Australian purveyors of 'America's music' appear to enjoy, many Antipodeans - most notably Keith Urban - have made the big move to Nashville. Is joining the growing Aussie ex-pat community over there something that interests Jess?
"Oh look, not in the close future anyway... I’m pretty interested in making a name for myself here in Australia before getting too ambitious to move overseas, but I’d love to go over and play at festivals and make a bit of a name for myself.
"But I definitely would not have any plans to permanently move over there, like Keith Urban, or anything like that."
Jess Holland: "Mudgee to Melbourne"
Suite 101: Finally, what do you consider to be your proudest achievements in your career so far and what are your plans for the foreseeable future?
"Look, my proudest moment to date has definitely been recording my debut album because it was quite a long time in the making and it was one of those things that I wasn’t sure if it was ever going to happen and once it did, I was extremely proud.
"In the future, I’ve got quite a few plans up my sleeve. I’ll be doing a tour called 'Mudgee to Melbourne', the band and I. They’re called The Silver Spurs and we’ll be doing a bit of a tour around from Mudgee to Sydney and all the way down to Melbourne, so that’s going to be very exciting.
"I’ve got my new clip coming out, so I’m very excited about that and hopefully that’ll be on CMC very soon and yeah quite a bit of gigging and getting myself out there - and also hopefully a bit more recording down the track.
"As I mentioned before, I’ve been writing and fiddling around with some new stuff, so that’s definitely on the charts."
Adrian Peel - Adrian is an English freelance writer and journalist currently living in Mexico. Over the past eight years, he has had articles, features ...
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