The Handshake Interview with Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs
Since her debut solo album was released in 1995, Holly Golightly has released fourteen long play solo records and countless singles; she has toured extensively in America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand; and she has collaborated with the likes of Billy Childish, Dan Melchior, The Greenhornes, Rocket from the Crypt, and the White Stripes. Most recently, though, the reigning queen of pre-rock electric country blues has been keeping it simple. Holly and her long-time band mate Lawyer Dave have released four albums since 2007 under the guise of Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs. They live on “a scratch of land” in Georgia with a family of barnyard animals, tour two to three months a years, release a record once a year, and tend to their horses on their time off. Their newest album, No Help Coming, was released on April 26, 2011, on Transdreamer Records. I sat with Holly and Lawyer Dave after their show at the Beat Kitchen in Chicago on May 13, 2011, and talked about touring, bad jobs, horses, and life in the sticks.
Dan Duffy: How long is this tour you two are on right now?
Lawyer Dave: It’s not that long. About a month. We’ll be done in two weeks. In the past we’ve done eight, ten week tours. In Europe we usually do three months at a time. So we’re really taking it easy. We have for the past couple of years.
DD: Why do you suppose that is?
LD: It’s hard to tour nowadays at the level that we are, because some nights are really good, but there are a lot more that aren’t. I mean, it’s fun to do it on this level for this many people, but it’d be so much more fun to do it with a full band. We just can’t afford it. And we’re probably never going to be the next big thing, which is actually good because the next big thing is usually done by next week.
DD: You definitely come off as being more resilient than that.
LD: A lot of bands that do bigger and bigger shows over time, once that is done for them there’s no way they’re ever getting in a van and doing shows like we’re doing anymore. Their egos have been destroyed. But this is the way it’s been for us, and we’re going to stay here. Holly’s been doing this for so long that the trends don’t really affect her all that much. That’s probably for the best.
DD: Holly, how would you say this tour going so far?
Holly Golightly: So far so good. We haven’t had any bad weather, really. We had a couple of weird shows, though. In Boston, we didn’t realize that we were playing in the early slot, and we arrived just in time to load in and sound check in front of a room full of people. The crowd had already arrived, and the support band had already played, and there we were. It was alright, though. They were diehard fans. They knew something was wrong, too, because we didn’t have time to get changed into our outfits. We took the stage looking really raggedy.
DD: Wait, you were playing as an opener? For who?
HG: Oh, no, we were just the early show. There were two shows that night: they had us in an early slot, and then they had some Battle of the Bands punk rock thing later in the evening.
DD: (laughs) Did you hang out for the Battle of the Bands?
HG: No. (laughs) I can’t think of anything worse.
DD: What do you two listen to on the road?
LD: We don’t listen to anything in the van.
DD: Nothing? At all? Silence?
LD: Well, if anything, Holly’ll listen to the BBC News. See, on tour, we’ve got a lot to listen to anyway. There’s our own set, every night, and then we have to listen to the opening bands, who aren’t always very good and are definitely not always very...um...quiet. (laughs) By the time we get in the van, we don’t want to listen to any music at all. In that way, being a touring musician really sucks for your listening habits, when you really think about it. I think a lot about how if I wasn’t a musician I would like so much more stuff. As I get older, I continue making noise of my own pretty much every day, but I listen to less and less.
DD: Most of musicians I know listen to a ton of music.
LD: I reckon if I was younger and still excited about music, it would be different. And I should say that once in a while I’ll surprise myself. We’ll turn on the radio and I’ll actually like something and think, “Wow! I’m not such an asshole after all.” But really, the world is so oversaturated. Everybody’s in a band, and there’s always the next big thing. The older I get, the more I like musicians who are dead. I’m never gonna get to see ‘em, but at least nobody’s talkin’ about ‘em. The talk is what gets me. It’s just music. It’s not solving anybody’s problems. Anyone who expects it should be more than that is crazy. For me, music is just something that I do to avoid going nuts.
DD: What kind of jobs were you two working before it got to the point where you realized you could make a living making music?
HG: Well, I’ve always had a day job. Even while I’ve been playing music. I actually still have a day job now.
DD: What’s your day job?
HG: I work in a Feed and Seed.
LD: Sometimes. You don’t have to.
HG: I don’t have to, but I do. I like the job. I like to do it when I can. Music has never been my main source of income, actually. Thank god. I would have starved to death.
LD: I’ve had all kinds of jobs. I worked carpentry. I worked any kind of waiting job you could think of. I wrote trivia questions for a website for $25 an hour.
DD: (laughs) Really?
LD: Anything you can think of. I even used to be a construction diver in San Francisco. We used to do concrete underwater. It’s amazing to me to think back on the jobs I’ve had, and the jobs I’ve walked away from. Some of them were so good and high-paying and easy, and I was still a fuckin’ malcontent.
DD: What would you say is the worst job either of you have ever had?
HG: Well, I wasn’t there for very long, but I worked for an agency taking overnight deliveries across country, going out early one night and getting back in the morning. That sort of thing.
DD: You were a truck driver?
HG: I’m qualified to drive a truck. I have a Heavy Goods Vehicle License. I remember one occasion where I had a fridge on back—it was a supermarket truck, or something. I can’t even remember what it was. It was food. All I remember was that I had to plug the thing in. But anyway, I was having a cigarette and waiting for these kids to load the truck, and a dwarf... Am I allowed to say that?
LD: A midget.
DD: (laughs)A small person?
HG: A very small person who it turns out was the supervisor of the whole operation came up to me and crossed his arms over his chest and said “You have to clock off while you’re having a cigarette.” I had to put my cigarette out. Then this little person marched me through the bowels of this huge cold storage depot in the middle of the night, which was a weird experience because I was walking really fast, and he was having a hard time keeping up with me.
LD: Short legs.
DD: (laughs)
HG: And in the time that it took to walk to the machine and walk back, I could have just had the cigarette. That was the worst job I ever had. I worked two shifts. Then I quit.
DD: Were you playing music at that time?
HG: Yep.
DD: So then you went home and wrote a song about the midget?
LD: (laughs)
HG: Oh, no. I probably went home and went to sleep. But you know those jobs. The bureaucracy sort of makes it seem like you’re in a Kafka novel. Like I was being marched through this factory...
DD: ...to the machine that’s eventually going to kill you.
LD: Now touring is basically the only job we have, and we get a lot of time off, but we live somewhere really cheap, so we don’t have to make a lot of money anymore.
DD: Where are you two living right now?
LD: In Georgia.
DD: Whereabouts? What town?
LD: It’s not a town. It’s acreage in the middle of nowhere. We bought it with cash, so our $700 a year property tax is all we have to come up with as far as rent goes. So we can tour two to three months out of the year, release a record once a year, and then sometimes get commercials or whatever and get a little bit of money that way. We’re not rich in any sense. In fact, we’re probably way down there below the poverty line. But because we don’t live in a city or anywhere where you need to make X amount of money, we end up with a lot of time off.
DD: What do you do with all that time off?
LD: Holly’s into horses, so I’m into horses, too, now. They can be a bit expensive, but even they’re not really bad. All in all, you don’t end up spending that much more on one than you would a dog.
DD: How many horses do you two have?
LD: Well, we have two on the property itself, and then Holly has a foal that she kind of got on accident. He’s over at a friend’s house. It’s kind of a long story, but he’s a superstar horse that Holly ended up getting for $150 because of the economy being what it is.
HG: I have a little wonder horse in the making.
LD: He’s bred really well. His grandfather was this horse called Dash for Cash that earned a ton of money. So he’s living at a trainer’s house so he can keep his nuts and not be an asshole. Stallions can be really dangerous if you don’t handle ‘em right when they’re babies. So he’s getting trained so that he’s the type of horse that anybody can ride on, even though he has his nads. Most people wouldn’t even bother doing that, but Holly here is really particular about horses.
DD: Where did you get your horses?
HG: One of my horses I got from a neighbor who I’m actually very close friends with now. He’s an older guy, and he was actually my first real friend in Georgia. He holds horses for a living, all across the country. He goes all the way up to Alaska. People want the horses moved, and then they disappear and don’t pay him, so he ends up with a lot of horses. All the time. One of ours came that way, and then I bought a horse for Dave’s Christmas present a couple of Christmas’s ago.
DD: How about that. You got a horse for Christmas, Dave?
LD: Yep. His name’s Coal Miner.
HG: They just come to me, though. I get offered horses on a daily basis. It’s not difficult to find horses in Georgia.
LD: It’s hard to find a good horse, though. One that broke and will do what you ask him to do and not give a shit.
HG: Finding a good horse is the job. I’ve worked very hard on one of the horses I have to get her where she’s at. She was kind of a wild thing. Dave’s horse, on the other hand, is perfect for someone who doesn’t have a lot of horse experience.
DD: Have horses been your passion for a while?
HG: Since before I could walk. I can’t remember not being able to ride. I remember learning to ride a bicycle better than I can remember learning to ride a horse. I don’t remember not being able to ride.
DD: So your parents were obviously big on horses.
HG: My dad rode, and my mom did ride a little bit, but she was never that keen on it, I don’t think.
LD: Get drunk and go hunting. That’s the English pastime.
DD: Sounds like a good time.
LD: Go hunting on horseback and fall asleep on your horse.
HG: Yes, it’s more about the pub than anything else, really. But I was born in London, and then I grew up in East Sussex living with my Welsh grandparents. I was surrounded by the country, and people rode. So it’s just what I did. It wasn’t that we were particularly privileged or anything like that. Everyone did it. My nearest neighbor was two years younger than me, and there were no other children within several miles, and there were horses on his property, as well.
DD: That’s great, and now you have a few of your own.
HG: Well, I’ve always had them, but keeping them in the UK is a real labor of love. It’s very expensive.
DD: Keeping them in Georgia is cheaper?
LD: It’s free.
HG: It’s free if you have a scratch of land.
DD: Do you have a stable?
LD: We don’t need a stable in Georgia because it’s so warm. In the winter we have a shelter set up because my horse doesn’t like getting wet. He doesn’t even need it, really. He’s a jerk.
DD: Is this place you live incorporated?
LD: No. The closest town is called Danielsville, but only 400 people live there.
DD: (laughs) You’re kind of making me want to move down there right now.
LD: Well, it’s a good idea if you like the country. It ain’t for everyone, though. I pretty much grew up in the country, and the I did the city thing for a long time. You kind of get addicted to the city because you end up making so much money, but you don’t really think about it, but your rent is so much higher and all that.
DD: Oh, I think about it. My friends and I...we’re all just barely breaking even.
LD: In the country, there’s no work. Unless you’re farming and know what you’re doing, or you know somebody out there who knows what they’re doing, you’ve got nothing. And even if you know what you’re doing, you won’t get paid very much. People work from home, or they do what we’re doing and go on the road and make their money there. But despite all that, the living itself is really cheap. Which is why Holly moved to the States from England. In England, if you have land, you’re rich. You need to be, because land over there is at a premium. But out here, some of those land-owning people in England could come over here and buy land on their credit cards.
DD: So you’re touring until the end of the month, and then you’re going back to Georgia, and you’re going to hang out with your horses. Do you write songs from your...what do you call it? A farm? A ranch?
LD: It’s a petting zoo.
HG: Yeah, a farm suggests that there’s money in it. There’s no money being made. It’s our little world, you know? Our little world of animals. There are dogs and goats and geese and ducks. Sometimes we have chickens and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes the chickens get killed, and then I get some more, and then we have eggs for a while, and then they get killed again. We have kind of an endless cycle of chickens. And I’m actually trying to get a mini cow.
DD: I didn’t know there was such a thing.
HG: Yes. A miniature cow.
DD: Do you want it for the milk?
HG: No, I want it so we can get an agricultural exemption certificate, so we don’t even have to pay property tax. We have enough of an acreage to warrant that sort of thing. You need a cow though. Goats only count if you are using them for dairy. I don’t want to get into that. I don’t even like goat products. I grew up on a goat farm, I don’t need any goat products.
DD: I like goat cheese.
HG: Well, I don’t.
DD: (laughs) You’re burnt out on it?
HG: Just the smell of the fucking shit. That was my job as a kid. I just can’t be doing it. But if we had a cow I would milk it, and I would use the milk. I can’t get a full size one, though, because we can’t spare the pasture. I’ve got too many fucking horses. I can’t bring something in that’s going to eat the place bare.
DD: It is kind of blowing my mind right now to be talking to you about this.
HG: (laughs) Why?
DD: Because I used to listen to “There Is an End” almost every single day. Truly She Is No Other is one of my favorite albums. And now we’re sitting here talking about fucking milk.
HG: It’s not that outlandish, really. What’s sad is that most people who grow up in cities never get the opportunity to learn how to do these things. How to grow shit. I mean, I just grew up doing these things. It’s not that outlandish. The obvious progression if you’re a punk rocker is to eventually just fucking get off of it and look after yourself. That’s what I’m doing. I’m just not doing it with, you know, a green Mohican. It’s not a fashion statement. This is just the obvious thing to do. We’re never going to be rich. But we can exist without relying on anybody.
Dan Duffy is a Chicago-based bartender and freelance writer. He is currently finishing up work on an experimental novel entitled I Am Not the Dog. He is founding editor and publisher of Handshake Media.