Born on December 27,1975 in California, Scott Holiday was introduced to music at an early age. His parents, both music enthusiasts, played a vital role in nurturing his passion for the guitar. At the age of 12, Holiday discovered the blues and was immediately drawn to the soulful s blues-rock sounds of legends like Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Keith Richards of The Stones, Paul Kossoff of Free, and Jimi Hendrix. These influences would later shape his distinctive guitar style.
Scott Holiday's musical journey took a significant turn when he met Jay Buchanan, a vocalist with a powerful voice that resonated with the blues-rock sound Holiday adored. This encounter became the catalyst for the formation of Rival Sons in 2009. The band, with its fusion of blues, rock, and soul, quickly gained attention for their electrifying live performances and their ability to transport audiences to the golden era of rock 'n' roll.
One of the defining characteristics of Scott Holiday's guitar playing is his ability to channel the energy and rawness of classic rock while infusing it with his own distinct touch. His soulful, blues-inspired guitar solos, coupled with his impeccable sense of timing and dynamics, have become a trademark of Rival Sons' sound. Holiday's use of vintage guitars, such as his iconic 1999 re-issue of a 1965 Gibson Custom Firebird VII, aka “Bluebird" or his Goldtop Les Paul, further enhances the band's retro aesthetic.
Holiday's contributions to Rival Sons extend beyond his exceptional guitar playing. He is an integral part of the band's songwriting process, collaborating closely with vocalist Jay Buchanan to create the band's signature sound. Together, they craft powerful and emotionally charged songs that resonate with fans worldwide. Holiday's ability to blend intricate guitar riffs with infectious hooks and melodies has helped define Rival Sons' discography. A discography that has been expanded to seven (plus one EP) with the release of 2023's 'Darkfighter'- to be added to further with the release of a second (!) album, 'Lightbringer' tentatively set for release in fall 2023.
Article © 2023 Keith Langerman NM Museart
Interview © 2023 Mark Skaar for The Skaar Kaard/103.7 The Fox
NM Museart: Mark Skaar on the Skaar card on 103.7 The Fox. It is my extreme pleasure to bring in the fuzz lord himself, Scott Holiday from Rival Sons. Scott, how are you, my friend?
Scott Holiday: I'm very good, thank you, Mark. It is, even more, my extreme pleasure to be here talking with you today!
NM Museart : Aw, well, how's the tour going?
SH : Great, it's fun. We put a record out right in the middle of it. 'Darkfighter' just came out, so it's been fun kind of playing songs at the first half of the tour that nobody had really heard yet, except for a few of them. And it's been fun to like release a record and then play the same songs after people have heard them.
NM Museart: Great. Congratulations on Darkfighter. It's a great record.
SH : Thank you very much.
NM Museart: Produced by 9 time Grammy Award winner Dave Cobb. (Chris Stapleton, John Prine, Sturgil Simpson, Brandy Carlile) You've been with him pretty much the entire time. I don't think he really needs any introduction, but he does wonderful work for you guys.
SH: He's a great friend. And we've done every record with him. It's been a long journey with him and a lot of learning, kind of meshing together and learning each other's nuances and how to work together better and better.
NM Museart: You've been quoted as saying that this album sounds like a band, your band, and not your influences anymore. It's just the natural maturation of you said, getting to albums eight and nine.
SH: Yeah, I think it's not that you can't hear the influence in our playing, I think that's just gonna be, they don't forever, you always are gonna hear influences of different players, but it just feels really natural, and like a real progression and step forward for the band.
NM Museart: Who did the album artwork?
SH: That album was actually done by Martin Whitson. He did the last two covers as well.
NM Museart: And you've done several music videos. Let's talk about "Nobody Wants to Die".
SH: Sure, what would you like to know?
NM Museart: A little bit about the storyboard maybe for these videos this time out?
SH: We didn't have a storyboard across the three videos as it could seem possible.
Our first single, "Nobody Wants to Die"... when it was about to drop, we received a bunch of submissions from producers and different directors, I'm sorry, and different treatments, and nothing really stuck. Everything we saw looked really cookie-cutter, really typical.
The music video is... the art of music video, especially with rock bands. It's just not being highlighted these days. And you can tell with the budgets record labels are giving them too. So we didn't like what we were getting shopped and both me and Jay just had a different idea. We had the same idea really that we wanted to do for that song. So we kind of traded stuff back and forth in hotel rooms and came up with that treatment that ended up being that video.
NM Museart: Let's talk about vocalist Jay Buchanan. His wonderful singing, his soulful singing that just makes you feel it. It's just like so few bands, you guys have soul in spades.
SH: He's pretty good... He's all right (Laughs) He's in here standing next to me. You can't make me talk about him while he's standing right next to me. Jay and I have worked together for a long, long time now. What can I say? He's my right-hand man. I love him.
NM Museart: He's fantastic. I tell you, Scott, one of my favorite songs on this record so far is "Bird in the Hand".
SH: I just love the groove on that. Yeah, man. That shuffle was fantastic that drummer Michael Miley was laying down. I have an interesting factoid for your show that I talked about that song. That main groove, that really dirge-y groove, That's mainly what we had, the chorus and that dirge-y groove. That was really what we recorded.
We took all that stuff home and we actually co-produced this record with Dave Cobb. So there was a lot of work we did at home, a lot of work I did out of my own studio, a lot of guitars, track, a lot of things kind of organized at home. And on that song in particular... I felt like the song was good and I thought there was something there, but it was missing a little ribbon of color that I like to like to wrap into a lot of our songs. That ended up being the intro you hear and the re-intro into the second chorus and the bridge. I actually ended up cutting all that into the song and creating the whole bit from my own studio at home.
NM Museart: Hooks galore on that one. "Guillotine" is another favorite.
SH: Yeah, I'm really happy with that. That first riff is kind of where that started. It was something I had very early. I think everyone's fantastic on it. Jay came up with that chorus also while we were in the studio. And I think it really is a keystone to the downward spiral, but you know, in the arc of the story, of the like, kind of the feelings of the dark kind of enveloping us.
NM Museart: Something else I really love. I mean, I love a ton of your work, but going back to the album 'Feral Roots', I need to talk about "Imperial Joy" and the gospel tinges that are in that song. I just adore that song.
SH: I love that. Nobody ever wants to talk about that song. Lost in the shuffle, that song is really close to my own heart. All that music that I came up with, and was very special to me and felt like a really inspired movement. movement, that chorus, those very fuzzy, dirgy verses, but mainly that big wide open chorus with that big 7 chord in it and I was really excited about it and I just loved what Jay came up with for it. When we laid it down, I just felt like it really lifted up that song in a really beautiful way.
I think we're gonna bring that song back into the live show. Everybody's been kind of talking about playing it, we've been hitting around at it. I think it's gonna come back.
NM Museart: See, I brought it up, so now you must.
SH: I like that. That's cool, thank you.
NM Museart: You've alluded to it. There's not one, but two records that were put together during the pandemic. This one, of course, is called 'Darkfighter'. In the fall, we're going to have 'Lightbringer'. Can you give us a little preview of that?
SH : We didn't intend for them to be two parts, I'll tell you that initially. They were the group of songs that we wrote and we could feel a story arc. I think, as we were writing, Jay and I, got to the end and really put the whole cinematic story arc together.
These were the songs that were left, but it would have really been a big fight, I think, not only for us but more importantly for the listener. It would have been a very long record and that's not really what we wanted to do at all. When we finally could listen to it all together, we could see, this feels like part one and you can see where the story arc breaks off, this feels like part two.
I think everyone's really going to love this second part. I think it's going to be something a little bit different. We really pushed ourselves. There are several very important pieces on that record that we're very proud of.
NM Museart: Is it sort of like Led Zeppelin III?
SH: In which way?
NM Museart: Well, maybe because the title would lean toward maybe mellower acoustic pieces in places? I don't know, I'm just speculating.
SH: Yeah. No. There's light/shade on both. You're not getting only dirty, darker-themed songs on 'Dark Fighter'. That doesn't mean that it's not going to be all like fun and bright lighter stuff that happens on 'Lightbringer'. They're both complete albums and there's going to be light/ shade with both we didn't separate them that much sonically like that because it would just it didn't feel right like I said we didn't write it in that and that's not how the story arc moves but there's a very particular Led Zepp-ism maybe not in the sound but in the titling of some things that's all okay. There'll be a hint there and you can just pick up on that when it comes out.
NM Museart: Ooh, a Scott a Scott holiday tease Yeah...
SH : Let's have fun with it that way. Let's not just give everything away exactly.
NM Museart: I think you'll be touring Europe when that record releases. Is there a plan Scott for another run in the States after that record comes out?
SH: Absolutely. The tour we're on is predominantly northeast, east coast, east, and east coast to the middle. And we will be doing in 2024, we'll be doing a west coast over to the middle. So stay tuned for that.
NM Museart: It's going to be a busy year or two for you guys. The nice thing about back-to-back records like this in the same year is you can stay on the road and do your thing, which is where you excel.
SH: Yeah, I mean, you make these songs to perform them. That's really the idea, to create a moment with audiences all around the world. And it's fun to create studio albums, but it's imperative that we share that exchange those nights where we're together and the songs kind of evolve and take on their own new life, even beyond what we wrote the studio or we could have hoped for once we get in front of an audience and the audience makes them their own, something different happens with them.
NM Museart: Scott, if people want to keep up to date on you and Rival Sons, let's tell them how they can do that.
SH: We have everything everywhere. We have all the social media outlets. We have the dot com. We have an app. The app is a good one. Everybody go get the app. I have it. That's going to be the most centralized, get everything on that one spot. But other than that, you know, the Instagrams and Twitters and TikToks and Facebooks and the yada yada, bing bang.
NM Museart: Scott, thank you so much for your time. Continue all the best to my favorite rock and roll band, Rival Sons.
SH: Hey, Mark, thank you for having me, and a big thank you to everybody out there listening right now at home.
For more information on Rival Sons, to buy merchandise, or to find out when they'll be in your area go to https://www.rivalsons.com/
Thanks once again to Mark Skaar from KLKK THE FOX 103.7 for so generously allowing me to post this interview. A music industry veteran for over 35 years, he's still flying the flag for real rock. Catch his show, "The Skaar Kaard" for the finest in new rock every Sunday evening at 7 PM CST
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