Freya Josephine Hollick bringing blues and honky tonk goodness

“For myself, my band and a lot of other musicians who’s music I respect, ‘Americana’ has become a bit of a dirty word, as ‘Alt-Country’ was before that. It’s just a popular word for people to use to describe music when they haven’t thought about it long enough to describe it.”
If you are one of the few who haven’t come across the enigmatic Freya Josephine Hollick, let’s get one thing straight, she is not an ‘Americana’ artist. But, she is a critically revered country singer from Ballarat who’s latest EP ‘Don’t Mess With The Doyenne’ has highlighted yet again how the talented songstress won’t trap herself within a genre.
“There are so many words and genres nowadays. For us, we aren’t ‘Cosmic Country’ but it’s probably the closest thing we could be labelled as,” laughs Hollick, before expanding on her EP which nearly never made it to a release.
“I never really had any intentions of releasing it to the world, but the guys did such a great job that I couldn’t help letting it out for people to hear.
“I released a record at the end of 2016 and it was recorded over three years ago now and it just wasn’t representative of how we sound live now. Initially I went into the studio to record a demo of five tracks to use to get festival slots and other kinds of gigs through my booking agent, and then I loved it so much I decided to release it as an EP.”
The EP was recorded at Brunswick’s Union Street Studios with long time producer and friend, Roger Bergodaz, which Freya has described as a “symbiotic relationship” when working together. It’s no surprise that they have already started working on ‘Don’t Mess With The Doyennes’ full-length follow up.
“It is definitely leaning towards what the album will sound like, but the new album is much more electronic. There will be a bit of synth stuff, some really cosmic sounding pedals, it will be quite a step away from the first release I made,” she says. “It’s still country, but it’s stepping outside the box a bit more and is more representative of what I want to be doing.”
With the incorporation of electronic instruments being quite a change of pace for Hollick, she has some firm words for the naysayers and genre-snobs.
“Anyone who clings to a genre name is never going to evolve. If you really love making music all different types of music excite you and you want to emulate different kinds of music in what you do.
“It all comes from a place and genre that’s evolved over thousands of years and then people come along and try to give it a shit label, but, really they should just enjoy the music and understand where the influence has come from without the need to label.”
Freya’s new album is set for release mid-2018, but in the mean time she will be playing a string of shows around the country with her full band.
When & Where: 23rd Feb : Bridge Hotel Castlemaine – February 23; Northcote Social Club, Melbourne – February 24; MEMO, St Kilda – March 15 & Spotted Mallard, Melbourne – March 24.
Freya will also be performing at the newly announced festival in Ocean Grove – Grove Is In The Heart – on Saturday 31 March.

Written by Alex Callan