BY SHALEEN DESTEFANO
When I first caught Holly Lovell perform at the Skylark Lounge, I was instantly mesmerized, not just by a voice, but by an atmosphere she conjured in the room. Described as an indie singer-songwriter bridging the gap between Neil Young and Feist, beautiful and haunting, her sound transcends easy comparisons. What I witnessed live went beyond that: her guitar referenced roots and wanderings, her lyrics felt like intimate confessions.
Your new album, Hello Chelsea feels both deeply personal and universally resonant. Can you share the moment that first sparked the idea for the album?
Hello Chelsea was never meant to be an album I released to the world, it was initially just a large databank of songs in my voice memos app that I had written while processing the loss of my only maternal uncle to a drug overdose. The morning I found out he had passed I had just finished a song processing some complicated feelings I had on a recent visit to check in on him in New York City where he lived. I had penned the words ‘I hate what you do to me, but I love you’ and then later that evening found out he was gone. I think because I started the grief journey in the middle of a song, I naturally walked the whole thing through song after song. It wasn’t until later that I saw the thread and decided to put it out as a complete body of work.
You’ve described the record as a “love note to everyone affected by addiction and grief.” How did those two emotional landscapes intertwine as you were writing?
I think that initial song, ‘I Love You’, which talks about hating the doing but loving the do-er, really set the scene for the rest of the songs to come. In my case we are also talking about family love. Flesh and blood love. A mothers love. A fathers love. A sisters love. When you mix in the reality-distorting effect of any kind of mental illness or addiction you’re suddenly ONLY in a world of love and loss intertwined. It hurts more because you can’t walk away, it hurts more because you chose to forgive or try again. The loss is tenfold because of the love. My hope is that people who know this path will resonate with the stories in the record and feel seen in what feels like an unknowable place.
You recorded Hello Chelsea in the Wisconsin woods with your husband and toddler nearby. How did that setting, the togetherness, the imperfection, shape the sound and spirit of the album?
We drove out to Wisconsin in our renovated school bus and lived out of it parked in the grass just outside the studio. Making an intentional pilgrimage away from Colorado to lay down my grief seemed right somehow. The removed feeling of being surrounded by tall dense trees and my family while singing about the isolated and oppressing feeling of New York City was such a balm of contrast for me. I allowed myself the gift of really sitting in what these songs meant to me, and I’m so grateful that the musicians chosen where 100% in for the ride that was. We made this entire record in 2 weeks so, we worked hard in the day and then gathered around big meals with candles and good wine into the evening. It was a really familial experience which I think comes through in the spirit of the recording.
I love that you left the “breaths and floor creaks” in the recordings. Was embracing that rawness difficult at first, or did it feel like a natural extension of the story you were telling?
Funnily enough it felt absolutely natural. I find in this age of digital perfection we are in and digging ourselves deeper into, I crave the human. I crave the vocal break because I know that there’s a human spirit behind that or the piano bench creaking as I adjust my weight between verses. This story is imperfect, the sonic landscape needed to mirror that.
Your journey has taken you from Colorado to Australia to New York and back home again. How has returning to Denver influenced your writing and sense of creative community?
Denver is where I was born, and no matter where I go I think I will always have these high altitude lungs and deep heart connection to Red Rocks. I moved to Denver from a smaller part of Australia called the Sunshine Coast with the simple hope of playing in real venues. Denver has given me that and more. The music scene in Denver and greater Colorado is pretty rare and lovely and I daily wish more people knew more about the local scene they have right at their fingertips here! I am so appreciative of publications like this one shining a light on the incredible arts community Denver has to offer.
You’ve been compared to artists like Joni Mitchell and Maggie Rogers, but your sound feels wholly your own. How do you navigate influence versus individuality when creating something new?
I genuinely admire both of those women and trust me, if I could emulate what they do perfectly I’m sure I would! Powerhouses! A lot of my sound comes down to being ok with what I can and cannot do and letting myself be expressed authentically through that. I can’t do what Joni Mitchell does, I don’t think my vocal cords would survive, and I’ve learned to accept that. The lyrics are my first true love and I aim to use melody to paint a landscape where those lyrics are best heard and felt.
As a songwriter who often explores pain, love and the human condition, how do you care for your own emotional well-being while diving into such vulnerable material?
This is something I’m still navigating and don’t want to pretend to have a polished answer for. I think I thought for a long time that the songwriting was the therapy, or the complete processing, and that once the song was done – I was done. Perhaps that could have been true for some of my earlier breakup songs but, with this heavier material I have been finding myself continually snuck up on by the grief that still hides in this record. I am currently working through what it looks like for me to perform this regularly. I think a part of that is learning to let the songs be symbolic of other peoples stories too, letting the songs be tried on by others and letting them detach themselves from me. Also probably REAL therapy, not made up self help.
Looking ahead, what does healing, personal or artistic, look like for you now that Hello Chelsea is out in the world?
So far it’s been looking like finding resonance with others in this story. I initially wrote a lot of this record because I felt like my grief was misunderstood or embarrassing. I felt alone. I’m now finding that more and more people are struggling with some aspect of their story in this way, whether directly or indirectly. I am healed by shared experience, by human connection, by someone telling me they are going to call their mom or their daughter after they hear a song.
What can we expect from you in the future?
I’m currently working on my next body of work. Since recording this record a lot of life has happened for me. However uncool or risky it is to say in the arts world, I’m navigating being an artist and a mother, and I don’t plan on being quiet or secretive about that. This should not be risky to say in this day and age but of course daily opportunities or deals are lost due to being a working mother in the music industry. The truth is I’m working slower because I have tiny hands that need to be held, but day by day I am making progress towards telling more of my story in the hopes that it resonates with the greater human story being told. You can also expect to find me playing shows around Denver, come find me!
Thank you for sharing your art and story with us, Holly! Visit hollylovell.com to learn more.