Jasmine Burke speaks to Simon Jones, front man of The Holidays, about what they have been up to the past few years, their success, touring and the release of their latest album.

Contrary to their name, The Holidays have been working hard since their inception in 2007. Since their debut album, Post Paradise (2010), the Sydney-based band – consisting of Simon Jones (guitar and vocals), Alex Kortt (bass) and Andrew Kerridge (drums) – have travelled, toured, created a new album, and hit some of the big-time Australian festivals, playing at Falls, Splendor, Groovin’ the Moo and Harvest.

The reason for their quietness over the past few years is down to their work cooking up a new album. The new album Real Feel, released earlier this year by the dreamy indie pop band delivers fresh sounds from the trio, with a tweaking of style from their first album.

“We have grown up a bit more, our music is more detailed and deep this time around,” Simon Jones said.

Talking about touring, these guys have been everywhere. Touring for the new album on and off since November, they did a national tour in March and are now journeying along the east coast, visiting the cities, moving on to bigger venues and throwing a few university gigs in along the way (yay!).

“For the first album we literally went everywhere, twice at least. We hit all the major spots and this time around we are kind of still getting into the groove of it.”

Talking about the vibes during touring, Simon exclaims they have been really cool but diverse.

“Some of the regional places where we haven’t been in a really long time are always tough but worthwhile doing. It’s a lot of work to book a tour that’s big enough that it goes to all the places and not to mention the travelling, hiring and organising… it’s very tiring.”

We were pretty lucky early on, getting signed pretty quickly. After that the challenge was just getting to as many people as you can.

“This tour we are doing now is pretty leisurely. We are just doing some one off shows then heading back to Sydney.”

Seeing as the band is relatively new on the scene, we talked about the new album compared to the last, and how hard the process of getting recognised was. For these guys, they were a hit straight up!

“We were pretty lucky early on, getting signed pretty quickly. After that the challenge was just getting to as many people as you can”.

Taking some time off to travel and work, Real Feel was a few years in the making.

“It took a few years. In between touring, travelling overseas and working, we made heaps of different songs and then chose the ones that fit to a theme or sound that we liked.”

“We started out as a rock band. Guitars, base and drums, but as we’ve gone on and gotten more interested in producing we have become a band that uses all different sounds… a lot more piano organs and weird percussions sounds.”

“Nothing is really of limits anymore.”

“I try to use as many crazy sounds as possible, which makes it hard live because we have to somehow recreate that, but in the studio its kind of a free for all of getting as weird and unconventional sound as you can.”

More writing, recording, touring and festivals. Nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.

Favorite song from the new album? Japan Window. A mellow, spaced out tune which kind of strums to the overall feel of the album.

“It’s a song that’s never going to be a radio hit but I just like to zone out to it.”

So what can you hope for from these guys in the future? More tunes, of course! Stating that a lot of the songs they started didn’t make the album, Simon intends to go back and finish them.

“More writing, recording, touring and festivals. Nothing is beyond the realm of possibility,” he said.

The 10 track album wonderfully showcases groovy, hypnotising sounds.

You can experience the sounds of The Holidays live when they visit Bar on the Hill, along with support act Pluto Jonze on Wednesday, May 28.

Free entry for U members. Visit uonservices.org.au for gig info. For more info on their tour dates visit their Facebook or their website.

Read Jackson Langford’s review of the album here.