The Holland Brothers stopped by Live and Local this week, following the release of their new album “Bon Vivant Savants.”
Twin brothers Mark and Michael Holland have been stalwarts in the Triangle music scene for decades – dating back to the 1990s, when they played together in the seminal band Jennyanykind. Recorded last year in Winston-Salem, “Bon Vivant Savants” is their first full-length album in nine years – though the intent was to make it feel like a throwback to the distant past.
“We have a great partnership with Doug Williams at EMR Recorders in Winston-Salem, and our longtime bassist Billie Feather played with us,” Mark says, “and we decided we wanted to do something (with) vintage equipment. Doug had all this vintage, 1930s-era RCA gear…we were looking for something that sounded like it came from the past, and it actually came out to be a very awesome, warm sounding record. Maybe our best sounding record to date.”
Listen to “Bon Vivant Savants” and purchase it on Bandcamp.
The Hollands have been busy in the last year: not only did they record the album and celebrate it with shows, they’ve also been building a whole new audience with regular appearances on the HBO series “The Righteous Gemstones.”
“We met a music supervisor who had placed a song of mine in an show called Dickinson on Apple TV, (and) we became friends,” Michael says of how those appearances came to be. “And he knew we were into old blues and bluegrass and folk, and he said, ‘the first season of Righteous Gemstones (has) this church picnic (scene), and we need a couple of songs.’ So Mark and I got some other guys to help us with that – and then we were like, ‘you should get us to be in the show!’ And we were kidding around…(but) they ended up asking us to be in the show. And that was really fun.”
Mark and Michael Holland stopped by 97.9 The Hill to discuss “Bon Vivant Savants” and play two songs, “Mississippi Woman” and “COVID-19 Blues.” Listen:
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