SAM HOLDOM of SKINNY HOBOS: Lost Chins and Celebrity Crushes
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
They are the duo who have taken the NZ music scene by storm, delivering their own brand of hairy alternative rock in a louder than life way. Based in Auckland, Alex ‘Elvis’ Ferrier and Sam ‘Texas’ Holdom are two of the hardest working musicians currently out there; completing more shows than there were weeks in 2015.
They have played with NZ bands such as Baker’s Eddy, Villainy, Blacklistt and the mighty Shihad and have even supported international acts Nashville Pussy, Radio Moscow and Kings Destroy. The Skinny Hobo’s have just recently released their lastest single ‘Suburban Living’ so I caught up with drummer Sam Holdom to discuss search engine optimization, kitsch words and man crushes. Oh and music, lots of music.
You’ve just dropped ‘Suburban Living’ on the country – feeling good?
“Yeah it’s cool man it’s nice to just have it out in the world, we have been working on the release process for a few months now, but it’s been really cool to just get it out there and get the recognition for the work that has been done by a whole bunch of people to make it happen!”
Let’s talk about the thought process behind the video, as Skinny Hobos are gaining quite the reputation for their epic visual representations. The storyline running through your music videos engages people far more than the usual stock standard fare.
“Most of the process was done by the director Stefan Coetzee who worked on the first two videos as well. The Suburban Living video is a continuation of the third part of the story. So we started with ‘Merchant of Tirau’ and continued with ‘Jokers and Fools’; this video doesn’t quite put the wrap on it but wraps up most of the story of how the man took over the world and tried to ruin good music but Skinny Hobos came back and saved it!
We definitely didn’t plan out the storyboard from video one, but Alex and I as a band had always talked about keeping a theme and keeping some kind of visual connection between every video. Once the first video got the success that it did we went back to the director and said ‘Hey let’s do something else for the second one, what are your ideas?’ and that was when the whole story arch of it kinda manifested from there.”
So it’s basically grown organically from the first video?
“Pretty much yeah and that’s kinda what we are about – we like to be very organic”.
The kitsch word for the year 2017
“Yeah right – the buzz word!” (laughs)
For those readers out there that are just getting to know you now – how did you come up with the name Skinny Hobos?
“Honestly we can’t remember (laughs, then puts on a deep voice) It all started with a late night drinking session… (laughs loudly) That’s exactly it pretty much!
I actually had nothing to do with it, Alex was in a band before Skinny Hobos started, called Bridge, which was a four piece instrumental, and they were trying to come up with a name for the band; and on a late night drinking session Alex came up with Skinny Hobos but it never really suited that project. So when we started jamming back in 2014 Alex was like ‘So I got this name and I have had it in my head for a while’. I wasn’t a huge fan of it at first to be honest, I mean I didn’t not like it, but I wanted to put a spin on it … but then it just kinda stuck. We started telling people the name and the reactions we got – it just worked really well. People remembered it, they laughed when they heard it, it got a good response so we were like ‘Yeah this works, we’ll stick with this’”
Well it definitely is memorable, and memorable is a good thing when it comes to the music industry.
“Not only that, it is incredibly easy to google – you google Skinny Hobo’s and we pop up and nothing else! It’s the hardest thing to do with a band name. Search engine optimization is real”
Skinny Hobos are listed under the genre of ‘Hobosexual’ – I need to be educated on this terminology immediately!
(laughs) “Hobosexual is just embracing who you are I guess. I did a bit of research on this; you got bums, you got tramps and you got hobos right? Those are your three kinda general classes of homeless people. Hobos are travelling workers, they go from town to town not necessarily living anywhere but working where they can and that’s kinda what our ethos has been. Since we have been gigging, we just go wherever we can and play where we can, as often as possible and so we embody the hobo spirit in that sense. Hobosexual is about getting out there and doing what we can and loving it all at the same time!”
You guys tour hard – does it ever wear you out a bit?
“We always have the energy and the enthusiasm to play shows, the hardest part is we have real lives outside of that. We come back home, we go back to work Monday to Friday – that I guess is where the toll is taken is in the rest of normal life. But we love playing music and that’s where we are very privileged to be able to go out and play shows and have people come and enjoy it. And we have a lot of fun in the process, it doesn’t pay the bills by any means but that’s why we have real lives and it’s finding that balance which is probably the hardest part”
There is only the two of you, why has it remained just the two of you? You can tell me, is the man-love just too strong that no one can come in-between? Or is it because you just realised that you can make a shit ton of noise between the two of you and you don’t really need anyone else?
(laughs) “A little bit of both I guess! It’s definitely the connection that we have; we didn’t get together and have a jam and be like ‘Right we’re gonna be a two piece’, but we just started playing together and making this music and the noise we made was just like … well we don’t really need another person. Eventually it kinda boiled down to a two piece has that – I hate using the word but – it has that gimmick factor about it. We are making as much noise as a three sometimes four person band you know? I remember the first time we played at Valhalla in Wellington we got off the stage and someone said ‘That was really cool but where’s the person in the back playing the bass guitar, are they going to come out at all?’ – and we were like ‘No its just the two of us!’.
We have been fortunate enough to play Rock the Park last year, a couple of shows with Devilskin over the summer and Homegrown this year on those big stages. But we have realised that we belong in clubs, in dive bars on small stages; on the floor with people right up in our faces! To have the big stage and the crowd barrier is cool but it takes the ‘Hobosexualness’ out of it because we don’t have that onstage connection”
This current tour with Decades is pretty exciting – what aspects of it are you guys looking forward to most?
“We are looking forward to getting back on the road and hitting the main centres again, especially down in the South Island where we haven’t been since the Villainy tour of October last year. It’s a very exciting time for NZ Rock n Roll I think, there’s a lot of good young talent that is just emerging. It’s not often that you see four bands all going on tour together, it’s normally one or two. We are looking forward to smashing out the single and getting out to see some new people as well. We haven’t played with Decades before so it will be cool to see their fans and play to a new set of people”
Will there be any surprise new material that might pop up at the shows?
“I don’t want to give too much away, we definitely have some new material that we may or may not bust out; I can’t promise one way or another. We like keeping things close to our chests sometimes”
To your hairy chests, yes
(laughs) “Exactly! It keeps it nice and warm and snuggly!”
But I hadn’t quite finished with Sam yet, I still needed to drill down further and reveal that true Hobosexual core by asking five carefully selected questions:
1. Pineapple on a pizza or no?
“Oh absolutely! Hawaiian ALL DAY! And anyone who doesn’t agree with me can eat a pizza without pineapple! People are like ‘Sweet doesn’t belong on a pizza’. Sometimes sweet totally belongs on a pizza! The Banana and chocolate dessert pizza from Hell Pizza is incredible!”
2. To Beard or not to Beard?
“Definitely to beard! For what it’s worth I have not been clean shaven since November of 2014, I’ve been dating my girlfriend for two and a half years and she doesn’t know what my chin looks like” (laughs)
3. Do you have any weird talents?
“I can stick my eyelids to the top of my eyes. Yeah you know that thing that you used to do as a kid, I can do that. That’s kinda weird, otherwise … I have a non-talent. I can’t whistle! I can’t whistle, I have tried! I did it once when I was a kid and I remember specifically sitting in my parents office and I was just trying and a sound came out and I was so excited that I stopped and I have never gotten it back since”
4. Do you have another nickname besides ‘Texas’?
“My mum likes to call me Samuel when I have done something wrong and I hate that. That’s why I hate being called Samuel sometimes because I only ever get called that when I am in trouble. When I was in high school I started sprouting chest hair when I was maybe thirteen or something. But by the time I got to 5th or 6th form it was pretty much there and so my band in high school came up with a chant for me; it goes ‘Sam is a hairy Beast’ and they would just repeat that for like five minutes at band practice, so ‘Hairy Beast’ became a nick name for a while as well”
5. Celebrity man crush?
“Awwww there are too many!! Ok, film would be George Clooney. Yeah, like George Clooney is my guy; he’s just the epitome of style in my opinion. He is aging incredibly gracefully and he’s a great actor as well so George Clooney is one of them. Uh in music it’s a tough call between Josh Homme and Travis Barker – Travis Barker for his drumming, Josh Homme because … well it’s Josh Homme! Enough said!”
Skinny Hobos are currently touring with Dead Favours, Bakers Eddy and Decades on the ‘All Our Truths Tour’, with a show in Auckland’s Galatos tonight, and further shows in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. You can find more info on the tour here, and you can buy tickets to all remaining shows from wearedecades.com.
