Holly & The Woods fights for rock

The band has seen the industry change since they first appeared on the scene back in 2006: "The past few months I've seen so many fellow musos and music industry friends on Facebook complain about how hard it is to get Rock music played on major radio, and that there's no real channel or TV show to get local Rock music videos played on. They were expressing how they had no idea where to get any commercial exposure for Rock," explains Melissa Conradie, lead singer of Holly & The Woods. 

 

"I wanted to give voice to our struggle as a Rock band and let our fellow SA bands know we're fighting back and Rock is still very much alive."

 

Can’t depend on radio

 

Keeping it loud and alternative, Holly & The Woods have been making noise as a band for over eight years. They've tried making music suitable for commercial radio, but have admittedly never succeeded. With their latest single, their brief to producer Dale Schnettler was, "We're not recording for radio, give this track what it deserves. The radio who support Rock will play the track regardless." Unsurprisingly, Conradie tells us that in two days since its release, "Fighting Back" has already been rejected by three radio stations because it's too Rock. 

 

"At the end of the day the stations who play Rock will play the song, but we've learnt not to depend on radio, we're just too loud!" says Conradie.

 

On that note... have a listen to the latest loud and proud rock sounds from Holly & The Woods - "Fighting Back": 

 

 

"Fighting Back" was released in resistance to the 'rock is dead' sentiments, but the lyrics are very personal.

 

"Yeah, the lyrics pretty much cover all aspects of life when you reach what you think is your darkest moment and you fight your way back. We've seen so many people go through hard times, whether it's a break up, losing your job, death of a loved one, etc. that we wanted a song that expresses everything will be OK and you are strong enough to get through it," explains Conradie.

 

Pushing against popular culture

 

As for Rock music, resurgence has been predicted for the near future by artist manager and chair of The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, New York University, Jeff Rabhan. Though some would say resisting the ebb and flow of popular culture is like pushing against the tide.

 

"I'm sure hipsters weren't trying to make 'not-conforming-to-popular-culture' a cool thing and it ended up being popular! *LOL* It feels a lot like that with Rock - like you’re pushing against a tide, but as with popular culture, there's always some band or artist that releases a hit song and makes a genre cool again, which is why the trend is always changing. You can never predict what is going to be the 'it' sound, which is why artists and bands should never be making music to fit in with what's popular... At the end of the day we just want to continue making the music we love, regardless of whether it's the current popular trend or not, and give our fans new songs to listen to," says Conradie.

 

 

Genre-specific radio

 

Looking at the South African music industry, Conradie believes that our biggest downfall is that we don't have rock-specific radio stations as there are in the US and UK. 

 

"I look forward to the day we have a great internet connection, especially on our mobile phones, so that we have more independent online radio stations, like Grind Radio emerging. We need a platform like radio to promote new music and artists. Our current saving grace is that we have great festivals for Rock music with the likes of RAMfest and Oppikoppi!"

 

"Fighting Back" is the third single Holly & The Woods have released over the last two years. While the band currently do not have enough material for a new album, they're definitely looking at dropping a follow-up to So I Rage once they have all the songs together. In the meanwhile, a music video for "Fighting Back" will soon be filmed, followed by a national Fighting Back tour.

 

For more info, go to www.hollyandthewoods.com.