“We finished touring the last album and we said, ‘Look we could do another album that sounds like this relatively quickly or we could spend a bit more time trying to find something new again,’” he explains. “That takes time and takes experimenting, so we set about doing lots of experimenting.”
Real Feel might be the result of deconstructive experimentation, but the record isn’t a radical departure from its predecessor. Last year, fans of Post Paradise gleefully embraced the optimistic pre-album singles Voices Drifting and All Time High. So, does the stylistic continuity mean the quest to break into new ground failed?
“A big part of why the album took so long – you think, ‘I don’t want it to sound like that, I want it to be dark and I want it to be this and this’,” Jones explains. “You end up listening to it and think, ‘It’s fine, but it’s not The Holidays.’ That’s a big part of it: trying for a while to be something else and then realising that’s not actually what you want.”
Recognising that changing your sound for the sake of it isn’t always an optimal move supports the notion that artists can’t choose their sound, rather it chooses them. Indeed, a band called The Holidays seems pre-determined to favour relaxed arrangements and warm tones. Jones muses on what might explain their defining characteristics.
“Our default setting for sound is somehow this breezy, happy sound, which is kind of weird. I don’t why that happens,” he says. “I think once you’re an adult, you’ve got your things that you like. I like slow percussion, I like buzzed-out guitar, I like weird synth pads and stuff like that. If I put all the things I like together, it makes our sound.
“Sometimes if I’ve got a song that’s half-baked I’ll go, ‘Well what if I take the guitar sound from Jesus & Mary Chain and put it on this really kind of cheesy synth thing?’ You end up with these kind of Frankenstein-ey things.”
It wasn’t just Jones’ musical preferences influencing the songs on Real Feel. Taking time off from the frazzle of touring, the band members became acquainted with everyday living and thus gathered some crucial life experience.
“When you’re in a full time band and what you do is tour and then you make a record and then you tour and then you make a record, you get in this sort of suspended animation. You don’t grow up or anything like that. So, taking a long time on this album, what incidentally happened was I bought a house, I got in a serious relationship – got a bit more mature really.”
Thankfully, taking on adult responsibilities hasn’t sucked the youthful spark out of The Holidays. That said, Real Feel does possess a contemplative shimmer, which distinguishes it from the band’s earlier work. “I wouldn’t say [it] sounds like a different band, but knowing the ideas behind it, I think it’s a more mature album.”
Furthermore, Jones looks into the future with a relaxed confidence that’s surely informed by experience. “I’m not really worried about what people think. We like [the album] and I think after being pretty tough on ourselves, if nobody else likes it then that would be a bit weird. “
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
