Photo via Facebook / Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors
Drew Holcomb
The past three years have been an especially wild ride for Americana artist Drew Holcomb. Backed by his band, The Neighbors, the singer/songwriter has experienced the highs of their 2019 album, Dragons, debuting at the top of the Billboard Americana/Folk charts. The pandemic would ultimately halt the tour supporting the record, along with the rest of the world’s plans, but Holcomb and the band are back on the road, including a stop on Wednesday night at Turner Hall Ballroom. Prior to the show, we had a chance to catch up with Holcomb while on the road.
Dragons debuted at number one. Describe what an artist goes through when they see that.
Honestly it's just gratitude, because you put a lot of hard work into the whole process of writing a record, recording, and then putting it out and touring it. At this point in my career, I'm so grateful that people have lent their ears, and lives, and stories to our music. They have us on their playlist as they're going on their road trips, or in their kitchen while they’re cooking or whatever. I am so grateful that what I'm doing means something to a lot of people. I’m honored by that.
What went into making this record?
This record was put out right before the world fell apart, and it’s amazing because it has the longest shelf life. We've been putting out songs sort of in the wake of it, including a new single, “Dance With Everybody,” which is honestly the first song of a new record that we're putting out. We’ve already recorded two new records, so I've found myself coming out of the pandemic just being more prolific. I write songs so that I could tour and play them live. I love the experience, being in the room, playing songs for strangers and all that. It feels like a really fruitful time. I've been doing this a long time and missed it with the forced break from the hustle and grind of touring.
Is it hard to gauge the shelf life for the album cycle, and does that make you more eager to put out new material?
In today's world, you release three to four to five singles before you actually drop the whole album, and we are lucky that we still do actually have a lot of people that want our physical copies, especially the vinyl. The album process is still important to me, but at the end of the day, most people consume their music nowadays by adding songs to playlists. It’s honestly kind of like a new mixtape era, you know? That's what it feels like to me as someone who kind of grew up in the actual mixtape era of burning CDs. So music now gets passed along one song at a time, and so I think it's okay to focus on a song at a time. We keep putting out music, slowly dripping new stuff out, but there’s still a wanting to make a complete album project that has a sonic cohesiveness to it.
You’re back on tour. Is there any part of being on the road that you didn’t realize that you missed?
Honestly the thing I missed the most is just seeing the faces of the crowd. We did so many live stream shows. Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Zoom. There's just nothing can replace the room full of the beating hearts, you know? While I'm glad that we were able to pivot and get music out there, I really missed that. It was really disappointing and soul sucking to not be able to play these songs in front of the people, so to get that back on this side of it. we have really missed it. I also missed just traveling with my band in new cities. It's a great time of year to be on tour. The weather is great, people are back in the middle of their busy lives. It feels, in this weird era that we live in, a little bit more normal.
Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors play Turner Hall Ballroom on Wednesday night. Find out more about the show here.
