Hollie Rogers latest album is simply superb, it is packed with pure class, with so many standout songs it is a thing of breathless beauty. It is fun, ironic, sexy and delicate.

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It is her latest outing follows on from All That Fire (2014) & Criminal Heart (2022) - making it her third studio effort. I chat to Hollie in the knowledge that she is either in London or somewhere in her home County of Cornwall, clearly it will be in the sparkling, bright blue sea and golden sands of Kernow.

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Paul: Hi Hollie, I guess you are soaking up the sun in glorious Cornwall, I am so jealous.

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Hollie: No, I am not there at the moment, I am in Sussex.

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Paul: I better start with your stunning new album.

Hollie: I’m glad you like it.

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Paul: It is quite funny I nearly didn’t review it because I had so much on and I just didn’t think I had time to give it the attention it deserved, I like to give everything 5 – 6 listens before putting pen to paper and formulating ideas. The Claire Lloyd (P.R) got in touch offering me some other stuff, in doing so she asked how I was getting on with Everything’s Fine, I told her that I had missed the release date and could not do it.

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Claire responded by saying, don’t worry about that, doing the review a bit later gives the album an extra promotional push, I thought okay I better get on with it. After the first play I thought I like this, your voice, the songs, the arrangements, there was an instant quality. Then the lyrics started to catch my attention, fortunately I had been sent the lyrics, I could hear the passion the fun, the naughtiness, the grace under pressure the humour.

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Hollie: Wow Paul that’s great, thank you.

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Paul: ‘Spaceman’ is so great it just sends shivers. Sorry I’m going on a bit.

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Hollie: No worries everything’s fine.

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Paul: How did the writing and inspiration come about and how did you get to work with the wonderful Elles Bailey?

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Hollie: Elles and I have been friends for a long time, so we just wrote a song together, we happened to be on a writing retreat, we had been on the same circuit since about 2018, we crossed paths a lot and became friends. We share the same fanbase, it made sense to write together.

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As for the songs, it really depends how personal the song is, whether it’s a co-write. My last album (Criminal Heart) came out in 2022, was mostly songs I had written by myself, it was a more personal album, this one is half and half. The writing process is therefore totally different. When I am writing on my own, I don’t feel I have any control over it, I know that sounds weird, I never sit down and decide to write a song, if I do that nothing happens, it just doesn’t work. The songs just come at the most inconvenient times, when I am really sleepy, when I am laying in bed. This idea just appears in my head, I think oh know if I don’t get up it will be gone. So I get up at 3am writing something, those will be the ones that are personal, cathartic.

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With a co-write it’s totally different, it is not going to be 3 in the morning, unless it’s with a very close mate or something. If you are on a writing retreat you might even be writing with strangers, that makes it unlikely to be about anything deeply personal, you might be writing someone else’s story, or even something completely invented. By the same token a collaboration can go off in a direction you wouldn’t have taken it in. The opening track ‘Bad Woman’ was a co-write, that chorus and cord progression is not something I would have done or chosen. So, my writing process is two very different things but equally valuable, I think.

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Paul: I think you are right about inconvenient times, I write prose, poetry and the ideas just come when you are nodding off, if you don’t get that thought that line, ideally the next line down it just disappears and dissipates.

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Hollie: Exactly, the number of times I have had that, I think I’ll remember it, I never remember it.

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Paul: The song ‘Every Thing’s Fine is so clever, you are dealing with adversity and everything the day has to throw at you. When I was young, maybe 15 – 16 I developed this idea, when things are not going as planned, you feel down, maybe it’s something at work, a disagreement with a parent, a friend or a partner, it is easy to walk with your head a bit down, your shoulders droop, you slouch, that affects your movement your posture as you walk. I found that if you just put your fingers on your chin and raise it up you instantly feel better, actually suddenly everything does feel fine.

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Hollie: That’s lovely I like that.

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Paul: How did ‘Spaceman come about?

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Hollie: It’s quite a funny story actually, this was written by Ed Blunt and myself Ed is my Keys player in the band, we were at a writing retreat that we had organised ourselves, 5 good friends, the other 3 were in a different room and they had already written a song, Ed and I were really struggling, we were frustrated and eventually we gave up, let’s have a cup of tea it’s not working, we started chatting about a different writing experience we had a few years earlier.

 

We were sitting around a camp fire around 2 in the morning, when suddenly out of nowhere there was this enormous bang! It wasn’t like any kind of sound we had heard before, it was so loud car alarms started going off, all the animals woke up, there was mooing, the birds were singing, it was just weird, just after that this huge flaming green orb shot across our heads, we could see orange tales, I think all of us around the camp fire thought we are all going mad or we are about to die. Somehow after getting some sleep, the next day we discovered what we had heard was a sonic boom, what we had seen was a meteor which landed just a few miles from us.

 

So, flash forward to when we are struggling to write a song, Ed said, do you remember the night we saw the light in the sky? That became the opening line to ‘Spaceman’, the song took on a narrative that was invented, I am not sure what the song was meant to mean at the time, sometimes the meaning comes after, we didn’t even like it much, it was written on guitar, then we went into another room where there was a piano and Ed started playing it, we both just looked at each other and went ahhh.. Then we added the orchestra and it just took it to another level, so beautiful. I like the fact the people have different interpretations of the song, it could be a metaphor for grief, that wasn’t the intention, it is certainly something like that.

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Paul: That is a great story, sometimes it is great to have an open ending so people can read into it what they feel. On ‘Spaceman’ your voice is so different, you hit new heights.

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Hollie: It is such a different style of song, I almost thought maybe it doesn’t go on the album because of that. I use to do more ballads, stuff like that, then I thought it’s still , it’s my album.

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Paul: It helps create the diversity within the album, a bit like ‘Sunday Rain’, which has such a cool vibe you can feel the intensity and emotion.

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Hollie: We have a video coming out for that which was recorded live. Actually, there are 3 songs on the album that we recorded live, what I mean by that is we were in a studio, not with an audience, but the band were all together. So those 3 tracks do sound different. ‘Some Kind Of Lover’ was done like that, ‘She’ was the other one.

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Paul: Another song I really like is the coastal drive from Penzance to St Ives.

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Hollie: Oh, you mean ‘Coast Road’. We are re-releasing that, there is another version that has a verse that is sung in Cornish, which has not been released before, so we are putting that out.

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Paul: There are many great, beautiful coastal drives in Cornwall, one that isn’t is Penzance to Falmouth, that is horrendous.

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Hollie: I agree, it is terrible.

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Paul: ‘Unholy Trinity’ is quite interesting, with what appears to be the subject matter.

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Hollie: I can tell you exactly about that, it is not what you are expecting. Me and Ed, who I have mentioned early and a good friend of ours, Daisy, (sorry didn’t catch the surname), were writing or attempting to write a song together, the only reason Daisy wasn’t late was because it was her house. We hadn’t seen each other for quite a while so we spent about an hour catching up, then I said we better write a song now.

 

But Ed said but I’m hungry though, I need food, Daisy said I haven’t got anything, she didn’t even have a banana! Ed said I can’t work while I’m hungry, Daisy said there is loads of restaurants on the doorstep, these proved to be a 30-minute walk away, so off we went, having reached the area there was everything to choose from, up and down the street we went before settling on a Vietnamese, we then had a 3-course lunch which took a while to decide on.

 

Then I said we better go back and write this song now, we walk back and it is now about 16.15, when Daisy says, by the way I’ve got a gig tonight, I have to leave at 5! So, we start writing the song, we are not taking the process seriously at all. Somehow, we wrote the entire song in that time, I don’t know why it ended up being about what it is, we certainly did not have a threesome, well not with each other anyway (laughs). That’s the story behind ‘Unholy Trinity’.

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Paul: I suppose inspiration has to come from somewhere.

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Hollie: Yes, sometimes when there is no pressure things just happen. We had a nice lunch though.

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Paul: What has been the biggest turning point in your career so far?

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Hollie: That’s a good question, I would say it was when I went on my first writing retreat, that would be 2019, I hadn’t ever done any co-writing before. This was a retreat I was invited to by Chris Difford from Squeeze, he invites emerging people like me or independent artists, he will also invite big names who might even have won grammy’s. He then mixes you up, puts you in groups, in this big house and you write songs together.

 

I nearly didn’t go. It was such an exciting opportunity, but I felt I would be so out of my comfort zone. I mean you are not going to know anybody at all, I just felt so nervous. I made myself go, I am so glad I did because I met so many people and so many connections, people who are quite renowned. Not only did I write with them, it is where I learnt about co-writing it was so valuable. It is those connections that drive your career forward, unfortunately it is only 5% about how good your music is, the rest of it is about networking, who you know and who can help you.

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Paul: It is tough out there. In my role it is almost like promoting, you try to let as many people know about new talent, your latest discovery, get friends, acquaintances involved. There was one show I covered where 25% of the people in attendance where there because of my recommendation, doing what I do you have to feel it and have the passion.

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Hollie: If it wasn’t for people like you spreading the word it couldn’t work, because it almost doesn’t work with that help, it is so difficult, especially as an independent artist. It used to be you could just about make a living, but all the art centres have to program in a lot of tribute acts, there is nothing wrong with tribute acts, as it seems to be the only thing that will sell now. Everyone is hard up, money is tight, for a lot of people if they don’t know they are going to like the music and know the songs they maybe think I don’t want to risk £15 on the unknown.

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Paul: I think local venues, small venues are so cheap and you get that intimacy that you never use to get, the artists meet the fans, talk and sign everything and anything.

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Hollie: I like meeting the fans, it’s nice to hear their thoughts, find out their favourite songs, it makes it a community.