Holiday Shores Interview
Holdiay Shores‘ frontman, Nathan Pemberton, is a young guy who’s just starting to explore what lies ahead for him. Everything has happened so quickly for him and his band that they are just starting to get their feet wet. After playing two well reviewed CMJ shows in NYC last month, Holiday Shores is in the middle of a few week tour with Evangelicals. Nathan stopped by a few weeks ago to talk about his music, college and the band. Interview below.
Colin: How did you come to be Holiday Shores?
Nathan: It was something I was doing in high school. I took a break for a bit in college but the last year and half of school, I started writing, recording and playing again. I asked my roommates to play with me, started getting this lineup going. It’s a fairly recent thing. I’ve been playing for a while, releasing music under various names.
Colin: That’s cool. Where’d you go to school?
Nathan: I went to community college in Sarasota then FSU for my last two years of college.
Colin: I guess you’re all done with that now?
Nathan: Yeah, I graduated in May so I’ve been kind of hanging out since then. Working and what not. Not using my degree (laughs).
Colin: (Laughs) So what’s the writing process like for you? I hear so many different instruments and noises, are they fixed like that in the beginning or do you add pieces as you go on?
Nathan: I guess a lot of the record I did myself. My friend Josh helped me a lot, he plays in the band, so does my friend Ryan, who also plays with us. But a lot of it started with one layer and more and more layers would get added. Nothing was really set in stone until the recording happened. I’m not good enough of a songwriter to have a complete idea finished before I start recording. The writing takes place during the recording process, for the most part. Things kind of get stacked on each other and more ideas get added until it feels like it’s complete.
Who or what influences your music?
Colin: Uhh.. I don’t know. It’s kind of a hard question to answer. Pretty much the typical stuff. I guess the record was kind of written in a really hectic time with school and everything. So I was to some extent a huge influence was just the pressure of trying to get something done. As far as the influences go, we try to add as many elements as possible to it. One thing I can safely say about the record is you can’t pigeonhole it too much to one sound. Each song is like kind of comprised of all these ideas and different feels. Something like that.
Colin: How did the whole process of the record getting picked up happen? You just graduated in May so it had to of happen pretty quickly.
Nathan: Yeah. The way it worked out is that the label that we’re on now, twosyllable records, had contacted me last summer and they had asked me if I wanted to do anything because they had heard an EP I put out. We kind of just made plans to do something and it evolved into doing a record then putting it out. I told you I kind of had a dead bind which helped me focus and get the work done for it. So we had an agreement to do something before I had finished the record so it wasn’t like I was shipping out the record looking for people to put it out.
Colin: That’s sweet how it all happened for you.
Nathan: Yeah. I’m not lazy but it’s kind of hard to be super motivated to like create a really… It’s really hard in my mind, especially with school, to finish something or push myself to do tons of music stuff without an end where it’s released. Luckily having the deadline from the label kind of gave me the excuse to blow off school and bury my head to finish the record. I don’t think it would have worked out too well if I hadn’t had that offering to put it out.
Colin: Deadlines always help me get my shit done otherwise I’ll keep blowing it off.
Nathan: That’s exactly how I feel as well(laughs).
Colin: So have you guys ever played in or visited Philly before?
Nathan: We haven’t but we were just in Philly a week and half ago. Our friend Scott is doing a music video for us and we were in Philly doing a music video at some warehouse. It was like an old meat packing factory. It was really weird. We were in there for like 7 or 8 hours, it felt like, just shooting this video.
Colin: Do you know where in the city?
Nathan: Uh… 2nd and Oxford. I think that was the street. It’s on a street close to this club called The Barbary. It was right down the street from there.
Colin: I know exactly where that is. Is that video out yet or will it be out soon?
Nathan: No. I think he’ll be finishing it up in a week or two and it’ll come out a week or two after that. I don’t know if you’ll be able to recognize anything cause it’s all doors and there’s a bunch of green screens and stuff. At least you’ll know it was pretty near(laughs).
Colin: (laughs) Definitely. So after you guys get done touring with Evangelicals, do you have any plans? More touring or anything like that?
Nathan: Um… not at the moment. Probably write some more music, take it easy and I think February/March, we’ll probably be back out touring and stuff like that.
