One expects bravado of, say, a blinged-out hip-hop artist, but it’s a bit more rare when it comes from a soft-spoken young folk singer. Then again, 28-year-old Jolie Holland would probably disavow being a “folk singer” at all. For one thing, she’s on Anti, the offshoot of legendary punk label Epitaph Records that they started just so they could sign the inimitable Tom Waits. For another, her dusty sound tips its hat to Americana but isn’t beholden or bound to it. So when Holland declares, “I was thinking that the first thing that got out there would do well,” when asked about her first album, well, you kind of have to take her word for it. The nomadic artist (born and raised in Texas, based in San Francisco) had many more words to share over the phone before her very first trip to Toronto.
The Varsity: It’s fascinating to know that your first album, Catalpa, wasn’t even actually supposed to be released. Were you surprised that the record really took off?
Jolie Holland: I was sort of thinking that the first thing that got out there would do well, but I think it would have caught people’s attention in some way or another. I definitely knew that San Francisco was ready for something, and that’s why I put that one out so quickly in that form. But at the same time I was working on a better formatted album at the same time. If it had been entirely up to me, I probably would not have put (Catalpa) out.
V: Spending only four days in the studio for the new album Escondida, was that sort of just the way everything worked out because of necessity or were you looking for something that was done really quick and off the floor?
JH: I like that really ‘alive’ sound-I don’t like the sound of a lot of people not playing in the same room together. But at the same time, I think that if I had listened to the takes a lot more I could have made some more informed decisions.
V: But all in all, are you happy with how it sounds?
JH: I’m happy that people like it, but I think that whenever you make something you are a lot more critical of it than other people are. I should hope so, anyway. (laughs)
V: You seem to have done a lot of travelling before you started playing professionally. Do you think all that travel played a part in your music?
JH: Yeah, definitely. It gave me a lot of stories to refer to. I was professional back then too-it just wasn’t much of a living to write home about!
V: In terms of your take on an “Americana” sound, how did you hit on that as what you wanted to end up playing?
JH: This is just something that I’m exploring right now. I play a whole lot of different types of music and actually I don’t listen to contemporary folk or Americana. I sort of thought that Americana was good because it sort of has a cool name (laughs), but when I listened to a couple of Americana radio shows I thought that they were terrible. To me, what most Americana sounds like is really boring light rock. I know that I do play American music, but it has a broad range of references. There’s definitely a lot of reference to traditional American music in my music, but there’s also a lot of randomness and peripheral influences.
V: So in this modern era, what does “folk music” mean to you?
JH: I like to keep the definition really strict. A “folk song” is something that comes out of a culture that doesn’t have just one author, or even if it has one author the song was written so long ago and it has become so important to so many people that the author’s name has been forgotten. It then becomes sort of a cultural creation. So… by that definition I play about one folk song. Some people think that punk music is folk music, but I think that if you’re going to know what real folk music is you have to understand that definition. This is because it is super powerful music and it has stood the test of time and it has meant a whole lot to a whole lot of people. The blues is folk music and the Georgia Sea Island Singers who have this gospel music that is ten times more powerful than rock and roll, that’s folk music. Just any guy with an acoustic guitar is not folk music to me.
Jolie Holland plays the Drake Hotel this Friday, October 16. Tickets are $15 in advance or at the door. Her new album, Escondida, is out on Anti/Epitaph now.
