I caught up with Holly Rose Webber from The Holly Rose Webber Band last summer.
Keren - How are you Holly?
Holly - I'm good thank you.
Keren - Are you having a good weekend?
Holly - I'm having a fantastic weekend so far.
Keren - Wonderful. Its nice to see you at a festival cos you don't do that many do you but you say you are enjoying this one.
Holly - Yeah, Well it's never been out of choice, we've just really not been at a stage where we are available to do one and we've done 2 in 2 weeks. It's been brilliant.
Keren - So you've got the bug now?
Holly - Absolutely. (laughs) absolutely.
Keren - Good. So if you were to choose a well known non country song and put a country twist on it, which song would you choose?
Holly - Well I would probably choose something like Suspicious Minds.
Keren - That's a good one.
Holly - Yeah Suspicious Minds cos I love Elvis Presley. I do my own arrangement of it in the band, put a nice pedal steel on it.
Keren - Yeah. Oh that sounds wonderful. Did you do that yesterday?
Holly - Yeah we did it in the set.
Keren - Yesterdays a bit of a blur (laughs) it really is. There are too many people talking to me all the time (laughs). So you say you're based in Harrogate?
Holly - Yes we are all based in Harrogate.
Keren - You do a lot with Bob Harris' Apple Tree Sessions don't you?
Holly - We do. So my dad co-owns a recording studio in Harrogate called Warehouse Recording and we have the last Friday of every month have an Under The Apple Tree where Whispering Bob comes down, compares the evening, brings Under the Apple Tree artists we will record over a couple of day period and they play in the evening.
Keren - That's great
Holly - Yeah. We've seen some fantastic acts.
Keren - Yeah. Is that where you met Dexeter?
Holly - Um no I met Dexeter....How did I meet Dexeter? It wasn't at an Under the Apple Tree Session I think it was just at a gig or something.
Keren - Yeah cos you did backing vocals to one of their songs.
Holly - Yeah, I just happened to be in the studio at the time they were putting "I Hope It Hurts" down and they said do you fancy singing some backing vocals on it. It was great.
Keren - Well that was nice and a bit of a change for you.
Holly - Yeah definitely. It was good fun and they did so well with that track, it was a real success.
Keren - Yeah. So how long have you been writing?
Holly - I've been writing for probably about 12 years. I've always found songwriting quite easy but I'm not, shall we say, a competent musician to be able to put it down as I would like and I map songs out with basic chords, I mean I can play guitar, but not anything like these guys here today, so I'll go to the band with a song and we'll map it out and put it down that way.
Keren - That's great cos everyone writes in different ways so what comes first the lyrics or the melody it just varies on the song doesn't it.
Holly - Definitely. And most of mine are about heartache and real life experiences where it's a lot easier to write from. For me anyway.
Keren - So who have been your influences?
Holly - Well I come from a more country rock background. More rock 'n' roll predominantly so I grew up listening to Beatles, Stones and then emigrated to people like Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Eagles, but I also like Sheryl Crow, Reba McEntire and Brad Paisley so a bit of everything.
Keren - Well thanks for talking to me today Holly, it's been lovely to meet you
Holly - Thank you. It's been lovely to meet you too.