Welcome back to Part II of my conversation with Scott Holiday of Rival Sons. In this part of the interview we talked about the positive irony of touring with goth/emo rockers Evanescence, getting on and moving forward without long time bassist Robin Everhart, and Scott’s early beginnings as a young musician that got him to where he is today.
Again, this was one of my favorite interviews and I can’t thank Scott enough for being such an awesome person to talk to. Enjoy this y’all!
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I was lucky enough to see Rival Sons here in Atlanta when you opened for Evanescence. It was such an odd pairing but you guys absolutely killed it. Did that tour, being that it really wasn’t a “rock” tour, do anything for you guys or was it just more of a “just put us on the road” type of thing?
Man, I turned down that tour five times [laughs]. I kept saying, “Why in the hell are you talking to me about this? Why are you asking me to do this? They’re a goth/emo band and this sounds like a terrible idea [laughs]. We’re a blues based fuzz rock band. Our manager finally asked and said, “Here’s the deal. Amy (Lee; Evanescence front woman) is asking you directly to open the show. She’s a huge fan of the band and she wants you to do the dates.” Once I learned that it was her request and not agents and other bullshit I said, “Ok. We’ll do it then.” We got out on the road with them and pretty much became best friends with them and I still keep in touch with them. They were fantastic to us and we had a lot of fun. They were the nicest, coolest kids around. Amazingly, every night we’d play to pretty full houses and people were standing up and getting into it. We got huge responses from their audience, we did great on merch, and people really responded. Now we get people who come up us at shows saying that they saw us on the Evanescence tour so did it help us? Absolutely.
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Long time bassist Robin Everhart departed the band recently. Did Robin’s departure change the dynamic in the sound or even the creative aspect of the band?
Whenever there’s a discontent personality in a group it makes things harder. He’s a great musician and he’s a fantastic player. I will contest that as far as rock n’ roll bass players go he’s a pretty tough one to step to. He really knows his craft really well, maybe even a little too well [laughs]. He probably knows that hence he’s no longer with us. I think it’s going to be better personally. I love him but I think it was time for him to go. He was having a tough time and that energy just poisons the well. Everyone’s having a hard time being away, everyone is having a hard time as we’re trying to make advancements on our career and things aren’t going as fast as we want to maybe. Everyone’s missing everybody at home. You get one guy in there that’s going to be the black hole and he’s going to start spewing that all over your camp and the next thing you know everyone’s in the black hole.
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So with Robin now gone you have a new guy in the mix.
We’ve had a couple of tours with our new bassist Dave Bestie. He hasn’t been initiated yet but he’s so damn close [laughs]. He’s a great friend and we’ve been friends with him a long, long time. He’s great. He has a really great vibe and he’s a great player. Doing tours with him made us realize that we didn’t see how dark it was getting.
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At what point did you know you wanted to be a musician?
From a pretty young age I was sure that this was the path I was going to go. Realistically, by the time I was 15 thought in my life that this might be my deal. I just felt that I could do this and that this was a feasible thing for me. By the time I was 16, I was playing all over LA and at 17 I left high school and went on home school so I could finish school a year early so I could live with my band. At 21 or so I quit working odd jobs and just decided that I was going to live only on music. I made a samples CD for a samples company and got an advance for that. I engineered in the studio, I did session work, and after that I signed a deal to Atlantic records that’s kind of been linking me deal to deal from there.
No, I was in a band at the time that signed a really big deal with them. It was like a 10.5 million dollar deal. We did that and way too much time making that record.
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What was this band called?
That band was called Human Lab [laughs]. Atlantic froze that record and they didn’t give us the record. They kept everything in what they call “putting it in the freezer.” They had to pay out the ass to keep that record so we made a lot of money off of that thing. They were so up their own ass. We just wanted our own record back so we could go somewhere else with it and they looked us in the face and said, “You will never have that record. You’re suing us to get that record back after all the money we put into it? You’ll never have that record. Here are some more thousands. Bye.”
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You recently had the opportunity to hang out with Jimmy Page. Did it meet your expectations of what you thought he would be like?
I didn’t set crazy expectations on him. I just adore him and obviously we all love what he’s done and how he’s affected us with his contributions. My expectations were already fulfilled. I very much live by the idea that these people aren’t even like normal people. They’re practically demigods. How can they even be normal people? How can you make that collection of records? How can you be that double neck wielding Stairway to Heaven writing, Whole Lotta Love violin bow wielding, Theremin using cat and just be a normal dude? [laughs]
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It’s so true I mean, there’s a reason why guys like Page and other greats have written the insane shit that they’ve written and we’re sitting here talking about them.
[laughs] Let’s take it to another level. People who thought that Miles Davis would be normal. You’re not going to just meet Miles and have him be like, “Hey man, nice to meet you. Wanna get a soda pop?” No dude. He’s not normal. He’s way more far out than you. That’s why he made this shit because he’s on another level. He’s working with some crazy set of ideas. I mean, that’s why he made Bitches Brew and you’re in tech support [laughs]. There’s a distinct difference between you two [laughs]. But as for Jimmy Page, he was very charming and very present. I got a lot of one on one time with him backstage after our show and it was cool. Everyone just left us alone and we had a great conversation about records and Storm Thorgerson who did the artwork for Pressure and Time. We talked about clothes and wardrobe fashion [laughs]. It was just really pleasant and very cool. I just didn’t go into the dork zone which was hard but man, that’s maybe for the 2nd hangout [laughs].
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Did he hang out and watch the show and if so how did he dig it?
He stayed for the whole show and we obviously made some impression on him. I could see him rocking out and having a good time during the show which was great to see. He ended up mentioning us in a Rolling Stone article where he mentioned that we were one of the new bands he had been listening to which was really cool.
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You guys have obviously done a shit ton of touring overseas. How does touring extensively in a foreign country differ from touring in the US?
A lot of different currencies, a lot of ferries, a lot of trains, a lot of little jumper planes [laughs]. I mean, there’s a whole lot more short travel involved. Over here in the states it’s just way more road travel. Over there it’s like one day you’re in one country and the next day you’re in a whole other country with a whole different currency and differently kind of people. Each country is very much its own country in that they have their own radio, their own media, everything so the mood of what’s happening is pretty much changing from day to day. We could be selling out theaters in London and the next day in Paris we’re playing this tiny club. The venue sizes change dramatically because of how we’re accepted in each country. Everyone’s speaking different languages and the different currencies.
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What’s the biggest misconception about life on the road?
That it’s a huge party [laughs]. That it’s a huge party and that it’s all girls with their shirts off and buckets of money getting dropped on you and everybody’s on drugs and that it’s a big rad time. It’s much more realistic than people think. It’s just a job. How much substance abuse and girls with their shirts off can you really take? I’ve got to go do radio at 9am and I have 3 live performances to do. I’ve got sound check, a meet & greet, and then the show and then after the show we’ll do another meet & greet with everybody. Then we’ve got to travel. Then you start realize that you’ve cut into a lot of your party time [laughs]. When you’re actually winning and you’re starting to do well in territories, you’re working. That list can just go on forever. The better your band is doing, the more work you’re going to have and you’ll even have to turn down tons of work just to keep your sanity. The misconception of life on the road to me is that it’s a huge party but actually its work you and you’ve got to be present. I refuse to not be present for the fans and for the media. I refuse to not be present so that requires a certain amount of energy on the day to day that people don’t really understand has to be there. It takes a lot.
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Do you feel kind of beat up when you get off the road and if so is there a sense of relief to be home or are you jonesing to get back out again?
Hell yes we’re beat up every time we come back. We are beat down. Absolutely, undoubtedly, and unquestionably [laughs]. The funny thing is that we’re so transient. We belong nowhere. I have a wife and two kids and we live here by the beach. I love it here and I love what I’ve got here but after about a month or so, if I’m home for that long ever I start to have slight panic attacks. “Oh my God. I need to get back on the road. I can’t take it. What if that goes away? What if I can’t play rock n’ roll for people?” and then its like, “I can’t breathe!” [laughs] So if we go out on the road I’ll be out there for about a month, a month and a half and as soon as that happens, I miss home so much and there’s that black hole. We belong nowhere. This is the thing I’ve discovered after years of touring. Touring musicians belong nowhere.
[laughs] Two things you said that couldn’t be more true. “You could never understand what it’s like to be me” and “Yes, I’m always fucking on!” [laughs]
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I mean, if this is what it’s like for me, I can’t even begin to fucking imagine what it’s like on your level. I mean, that level of stimuli would just make me explode. I mean, I get amped playing in front of 12 people.
[laughs] Man, I’m not too far off. I almost die every night. It’s pretty great [laughs].
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What are you hopes for Rival Sons?
I hope to make better records and I hope to keep the group happy and together. I want to grow it. I want to be able to create a freedom so we cannot compromise things. The ultimate idea is to make everybody happy. Not just ourselves. I also want to make the show the best that it can be. That costs a lot of money and a lot of manpower so if we have success we can do all these things. We want to put out the quality and artistic releases that people see and say, “This is how you do it right. This affects me on a deep level.” If we can become that successful to be able to do those things and make a living doing it, that’s really my wish.
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What is one album that changed your life unlike any other?
That’s probably pretty difficult to narrow down to just one. It’s become such a mishmash of albums these days. I think I could probably pick one album from any of my early guitar slinging rock n’ roll heroes and say one from each of them changed my life. Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys. Zeppelin III. The Beatles Rubber Soul. Absolutely life changing albums. Coltrane’s Love Supreme. Dark Side of the Moon and Meddle. The first time I heard those all the way through. Man, what a mental breakthrough listening to those records. There’s a whole bunch. I could probably do this with you for another 4 hours [laughs].
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There’s something so powerful about albums like that. How they change our lives and just take us places unlike any other.
Yeah. They turn you inside out, man. They make us remember where the beauty is and they fascinate us. It’s just too far out and hearing that Rival Sons have some effect on people to some degree and they compare what we’ve done to some of these records is really humbling. It’s less egotistical pumping and much more humbling.
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Scott, I really enjoyed talking to you today. Thanks so much for taking this time and thank you for putting out some of my favorite music. It’s been really cool getting to know you.
I’m glad we did this too, man. God bless you dude and thank you for starting my day off right. Thanks again and keep in touch brother. Be good.
- The Brainfart & Rival Sons – Atlanta, GA 2012
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