Ahead of their May 5 Thebarton Theatre gig, Holy Holy singer songwriter Tim Carroll spoke with Upside.

Having just recovered from COVID and following lockdown delays around last year’s album release of Hello, My Beautiful World, Tim is relishing being back on tour.

“It’s so nice to be back on the road,” Tim says. “All the things that we took for granted in the past! Before that, it had just been eight years of touring and it just felt like it just was the way life was. And I never would have believed that there was something that could come along to stop it. And although that’s been really tricky and hard, it was good to appreciate how lucky we are to be a touring band in Australia and to have the audience we have. We love playing live! All the band love it; it’s our favourite thing to do.”

The tour is now in full swing after an initial COVID delay, and having bounced back, Tim and the band are now back in top gear.

“I get so much energy from the crowd. It’s super electrifying. I can still feel like my voice is a bit more gravel than normal, oftentimes when I wake. But with a few vocal warmups and few cups of tea and then the adrenaline of the stage, it’s fine.”

The album, Hello My Beautiful World, was a tricky one to craft, with Tim and guitarist Oscar Dawson living in separate states during periods of lockdown.

“We were able to be together for various periods of the record. Although it would have been possible to make a record completely separately, I’m really glad that it didn’t come to that. There are certain stages of the writing process where I actually think it’s quite important for Oscar and I to actually be together: you can make the songs better, you can edit the songs and you can improve the lyrics. There’s lots you can do separately, that’s totally fine. But when it comes to those moments where you are improvising sections or finding vibes, there is this thing that happens when we are together, where what each of us is doing is influencing each other.

“We did a session before the pandemic started where we had a bunch of sketches, and then it started and we were working on them separately in lockdown. And I was like, this is all good, this is all possible. But then there was a break in the pandemic, I think it was pre-Delta. There was a moment where I was able to like make a break from Tassie to Melbourne and we had four days in the studio. And we wrote a whole heap more of the record in that section. And so yeah, it is really important and valuable to be in the same room when writing.”

While also promising to play their established material, the songs from the new ablum are working well on stage.

“There’s this song called ‘So Tired’ and there’s this coda at the end of it, and I always look forward to that moment. It’s a bit scary because vocally it’s very exposed. I have to hold this like high note and there’s nothing else. Every time the note starts, you just hear this ripple through the crowd of people and then it’s this huge build up to this release. That’s probably my favourite moment.”

The single, ‘Port Rd’, with Queen P (who is also the support act on the tour) is also proving to be a highlight.

“Queen P is an incredibly charismatic person. She comes on stage and people haven’t seen her for an hour. The room’s full and the place goes off – that song absolutely slays live, it’s a fun one.”

So what else can audiences expect on this tour?

“We have actually kinda spec’ed up our production a bit for this tour. We’ve changed our approach to guitars. We don’t use use actual guitar amps anymore, we’re using these amp simulators and it allows a little bit more control. It’s a quieter stage, which means all the microphones are able to pick up the sound in a more like high fidelity way. And we’re also invested more in our lighting show. I’m really proud of the show that we’re currently touring, it’s really fun. We always want people to have like a holy experience with us!”

And you can be part of that experience on Thursday May 5 at Thebarton Theatre, with details and tickets available here.

Written by Matthew Trainor

Pictures supplied.