Tangled Magazine

Her Philosophy: An Interview with Hollie Smith

Written and Interviewed by Jamie Evangelista

A 25-year soulful voiced New Zealander is making the waves in music and her name is Hollie Smith. Already a sensation at home, winning “Best Female Solo Artist”, “Best Producer”, “Best Aoetera Roots Album” and “Breakthrough Artist of the Year” at the 2007 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards, she is ready for the world to hear her with the release of her anticipated solo album, Long Player, heavily influenced with the elements of jazz, R&B, reggae and blues. At the age of four, she found an old James Brown tape and watched it extensively for three years. Then she began writing songs at the age of 11 and earned accolades from jazz festivals, which was the first step to her career.

Putting together her album, Long Player, didn’t seem to take that long. “I started writing and focusing on getting an album out then just started to develop the songs more and the actual making the album was resonably quick. I sort of wanted to keep the momentum of creating a new album then releasing it. Basically got it all together and ready to go, starting and it came together in a few months.” Although naming it was a no brainer. “I released an EP in New Zealand probably a few years before, just a small album to introduce myself. Basically I’m just not that creative and I went from EP to LP and called it Long Player.”

The video for her most recent single, ‘Philosophy’ depicts re-creations of famous paintings such as the Mona Lisa and Mary Magdalene. “I’m pretty useless when it comes to videos and you’ve got to trust someone’s vision. You’ve got to really hear them. The closest thing you can do is read it on paper and hope it’s in the way you want. It was a last minute treatment that came through from New Zealand and we’re running out of time to get some things done and hear other ideas which had fallen through unfortunately but this one came through and we all kind of agreed. It happening really quickly. It was a day shoot and it took 15 hours just a lot of costume and make up and it turned out pretty well.”

Life on the road for Hollie definitely has its up and downs, “Touring is one of things where it’s harder than it looks. You do a show a day but not being in your neutral enivornment becomes quite exhausting. You wake up very early and travel all day to get to the next place and do it all over and over again. It’s not definitely rock n’ roll as some like to think but touring is amazing, seeing new places and be with different audiences hearing your music which is great. I don’t drink or go out when I’m on tour so I’ve got to look after myself and stay healthy so I’m a bit of a nanna on tour.”

One of the big achievements in her career so far is supporting Bob Dylan for his New Zealand tour, calling it “an amazing opportunity”. “Just to share the stage with someone with that callibre is obviously very humbling. It was in a beautiful theatre and very intimate to what he would normally do opposed to tens of thousands whereas it was in a little theatre with 2000 people was just a beautiful way to see him. It was really awesome to see him in that kind of environment.”

Usually describing her as the smoky voice tattooed singer, the first tattoo she ever got is on her forearm. “It’s a bass clef surrounding a pregnant woman with another bass clef on her stomach. It was an idea behind giving birth to music and creativity. It was all orientated around the idea of birth.”

Besides being immersed in music as a child, hockey was also one of her passions. “I played a lot of hockey when I was younger and representative playing around Auckland for a while. I was doing a lot of music at the same time so it became quite obvious that I had to make a decision. Music was the one that was a lot more reasonable.”

We’re glad she has stuck with music as well!

Long Player is in stores now

Check out Hollie’s official MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/holliesmith