Acclaimed alt-rock/folk troupe HOLY MOLY & THE CRACKERS kicked off 2019 touring and they’ll see it out doing much the same – bringing their riotous party music to the masses. Their recently released third album, Take A Bite (released April 5 th 2019 on the band’s own Pink Lane Records), captured the band’s concise, passionate take on folk, blues and indie rock, rammed with melody, energy and positivity.
Take A Bite saw the band further adorning their naturally expressive take on British folk with sizeable dollops of rock’n’soul, sharp indie-rock, vulnerable balladeering and festival-ready psychedelic trips towards the Middle East, Take A Bite sets its stall confidently in the previously unoccupied space between the Gossip, Arctic Monkeys, the B52s and Gogol Bordello. It is the sound of a band who have been searching and experimenting for several years; arriving at a place where they can say “this who we are and this is where we want to go”.
The band’s most recent single, the effervescent Upside Down, crystallizes this approach to performance and songwriting over a thrilling 3 minutes. And now the band have captured all the elements they’re famed for – the performance, the passion, the sonic ingenuity and their classy feral energy – in a live-in-studio performance of Upside Down, shot at Newcastle’s Loft Studios, shot by Craig Newton (Counterfeit., Hello Operator).
Of Take A Bite itself, it’s seen the band go from strength to strength in 2019. It afforded them a European tour alongside peers Skinny Lister, saw the band headline festival stages up and down the UK including closing Cambridge Folk Festival on the Friday night. And this October they tour the UK again, after a sell-out headline run in the Netherlands and Germany. The band’s dates in October are their biggest and best yet, including the Sage in Gateshead and London’s legendary Scala venue.
“This album is asking the audience to take a chance on us,” explains Ruth. “Obviously we’ve got a bit of a daft name and we look a bit mad, but I think once people actually come to a gig, they’re always swept up in the music and the energy. We get kids, old people, Goths, hippies, whatever. Everyone’s invited, everyone’s part of it. And people seem to lose themselves. No one’s like, “Oh, how do I look?’ while dancing. They don’t care. It brings everyone together.”
“All roads lead to the stage,” Conrad continues. “The arguing, the loving, the making, the listening – it boils down into one manic, riotous party. That’s where we connect with the audience and with each other and that’s what we’re all about.” It’s an all-systems-go mentality. “We’ve arrived at a place here, with this album, where we can start the journey that we want to be on. This is who we are now; this is what we’re doing.”
Catch them at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on October 18th and The Crescent in York on November 3rd.