Fresh from playing a captivating set of luscious indie pop at Peats Ridge Festival, Simon and Will from The Holidays chat to Lucy Inglis of The AU Review about the magic of Peats Ridge, their upcoming album, possible tours and the thrills of being a part of Harvest.

So how have you guys been enjoying Peats Ridge so far?

W: Yeah it’s great. It has a really chilled vibe with everyone doing their own thing; it’s good!

Have you found your experience here very different to other festivals?

S: It is a little different isn’t it?

W: Yeah we were comparing it to Playground Weekender. I really like these sorts of festivals, it’s not too hectic, there’s no one running around in your face. Everyone’s off in their own world doing their own thing, but it has a big community vibe as well.

S: A lot of people getting together and organizing dances, carrying around big dragon or caterpillar things. It’s a good vibe.

It’s entertaining isn’t it? There are so many things going on to keep everyone happy.

W: Yeah there’s always something to look at. When we were playing, at one stage there was an overload of things to look at; there was the skipping rope thing going on, there was a guy chanting our drummer’s name…

S: There was a guy telling me he had a phone call for me holding up a phone.

W: And this big choreographed flash dance thing. And we’re trying to play our songs, its tough! (Laughs)

Absolutely. I noticed that you featured a few new songs in your repertoire tonight.

S: Yeah we try to fit some new ones in. Though the problem is that if we’re going to play a new one, it takes us a while to figure out how to play it. We don’t write our songs to play all at once, so the new ones are kind of scary.

We don’t know if they’re going to work or not. It always feels like you’re just on the edge of screwing it up. But that’s fun, it keeps it interesting.

Are you happy to road test your new material at these sorts of events?

W: Definitely, festivals are perfect because the majority of the crowd is just having fun and not really listening anyway. But they are still really appreciative, it’s a good audience.

So how are you guys going with the new material that you are working on?

W: Good. We were saying before that we just keep on writing and writing and already these two that we played tonight feel like old ones now compared to some of the others. We don’t even know if they’re going to make it onto the album.

S: We are just trying to get as many songs as we can and then pick the ones that make sense together.

W: That happened last time, we got to a stage where we were just like; ok let’s stop writing, the album’s done.

S: It makes it hard for time frames though. That could happen next week; it could happen in six months. It’s just one of those things.

Do you have a certain process that guides how you go about your song writing?

W: No it’s really disjointed! (Laughs) That’s why it’s hard.

S: We get bits and pieces from everywhere. We’re always trying to find new ways to do the same thing. But that’s cool, by the time we get a new method it spawns a few new songs, or we get a piece of new gear and it could lead to a few new songs. It’s good. We don’t just crack out the acoustics and sit around the camp fire; there are all sorts of different ways.

W: We tend to latch on to one cool idea until a song forms around that. Like our drummer Andrew comes up with a really cool beat and we think it’s a cool idea so we add synth to it, then we do it again, and it turns into a song.

S: Yeah we work on loops. Loops of things that build into other things. We have thousands of loops that someone will make into songs some day.

Are you hoping to have your second album stand apart from your debut album? Is that something that is informing your song writing?

W: Definitely. There are obviously elements that we want to keep and there are some things that we can’t avoid. Like Simon singing is always going to sound like Simon singing.

S: Yeah we were happy with our first album, but we want to push things further. I think we want get off the beaten path a bit more, for better or worse. It will be a bit weirder.

Can’t wait to hear it! Last year you did a load of touring, with your big national tour across Australia and overseas. Has that had a big impact on you in terms of your musical direction?

W: Yeah definitely.

S: Overseas we saw a lot of bands and it’s a bit of a reality check. It forces you to keep your game high. You have to pick your act up if you see these awesome bands overseas doing something that makes you think, oh I don’t know how to do that.

W: The last album was really studio based. As in we’d record one bit, then another bit over the top, then another bit. So going to play them live we suddenly realized that it’s not that easy. So as a result the new ones that we played tonight are a lot more fun to play live and that was a conscious thing when we were writing them. We know that we have to play these songs live and writing them is such a small part really.

S: They come to life on stage I think. The demos on the record have a different feeling. Playing those new ones, you really get a sense playing them live whether they’re going to work or not. Sometimes it’s hard listening to a recording a thousand times and you don’t know if it’s good or bad.

Playing overseas also, did you find your audiences’ responses different to what you get from the Aussie crowds?

W: Well all of those shows are completely different. Some of them were showcase type ones with lots of people from the media.

S: We had an entire spectrum of audiences.

W: Yeah. And then we played this Spring Break party in Vegas next to a pool and that was the most bizarre thing ever.

S: I think we just expected the worst, so we were really happy with most of the audiences that we had.

W: We just did our thing on stage and tried not to think about the audience too much because often the audience would just be like, whatever.

S: The English audiences were really attentive. They’re really keen.

W: Because none of them had heard of us really. We played a few festivals over there and we always had great crowds which is bizarre. They’re really supportive of up and coming bands.

So at some stage this year you’ll be releasing your new album?
S: Yeah, at this stage we’re saying mid year. I think that’s reasonable.

W: I was hoping early-to-mid.

S: Early-to-mid? That’s ambitious. I’ll say June.

W: The thing is even if we had it ready now it takes a while to get the wheels in motion.

S: They call it “delivering the album”. When we deliver the album and then wait two months it’ll be out.

W: We’ve got to pick a date some time in between Lady Gaga and someone else…

S: Which is frustrating, we could put it online right now! Let’s just do that.

Do it Radiohead style. Do you have any other plans for the coming year?
W: Well I’m hoping that if this album comes out in the middle of the year we might start all the touring again for the second half of the year. Go mental all over again.

S: Hopefully in bigger rooms with more people. We’re actually also going to go to L.A. to record a bit of the album in the next couple of months.

How did that come about?

S: Well we won an award last year and the prize was a week in a studio in L.A. or anywhere really, but I think we’re going to go to L.A. We kind of do our own recording but studio time in L.A. we’re not really going to say no to!

That’s incredible. Will you be working with people that you know of?

S: Possibly, yeah. Getting some guy you don’t know to produce your record is really weird. If it’s a guy I know that I’ve worked with before that’s cool, but if a guy you’ve never met comes in and goes, “right, we’re going to do this to your songs”, it’s a bit hard to trust him.

W: And it’s really hard finding a guy that’s taking it not just as a job but who really loves what you’re trying to do.

S: We got an email this week from a guy from The Mars Volta, who wants to produce our stuff and loves our first album. It’s really not an obvious connection!

W: But at the same time he loves our band. It’s better than paying for a hot-shot.

S: Who’s never heard of us and is doing it for the money.

So do you think you’d take on this guy?
W: We don’t know we’ll see what happens. We’re kind of control freaks (laughs). He can come and watch.

So would you use your last producer again?

S: That was me! Well Tony Espie was involved and we outsource mixing, that’s the thing.

W: And we did a bit of work with Burke Reid. We work with people and steal their ideas. We spent two days with Burke and then got rid of him. But he was good, he re-inspired us a bit.

I also wanted to talk about Harvest last year, which was an incredible festival.

S: It was and all the bands were so happy to be there. There were four reasonably small Aussie bands there and we were all really happy to be there. We were hanging out with The Flaming Lips a lot; we were hanging out with TV on the Radio and dancing at the after party with them which was pretty cool.

W: Portishead’s drummer has been drumming with Radiohead, they’ve had two drummers lately. I’m a big Radiohead fan and I was look aaah, one degree of separation!

S: We’re really into Portishead as well. We were too nervous to talk to them.

W: Everyone else came to the party except for Postishead, they went off and did their own thing. I remember I walked past them talking to Kip from TV on the Radio and what were they talking about?

S: They were talking about something really weird, I think it was about grapefruit. It was really cool, a really fun festival.

What an amazing experience! Thanks so much for talking to The AU Review and happy new years!