Get to know... Holly Head

Adolescent summers spent caravanning in North Wales, rehearsals in basement laundrettes, and nights spent detained by the law…The path followed by one of Manchester’s most intriguing up-and-coming live acts, Holly Head, has been anything but linear.

The talented four-piece have quietly been refining their sound since 2022, and are now beginning to catch the attention of music fans across the UK as they unveil their sonic creations to the world. But their origin story starts much earlier than that.

Frontman and guitarist Joe and bassist Liam first met in primary school, but it wasn’t until the pair graduated to high school that they became close.

“We played in bands together during our early teens before meeting Oscar (drums) at university. We met Josh later down the line, while playing with his various groups around Manchester,” Joe explains. “We first started making music as Holly Head in October 2022, sporadically rehearsing in the basement laundry room of Oscar’s student house, before playing our first gig in May 2023.”

Before the band could appear on any bill, however, they would first need to land on a name - inspiration for which came from childhood memories of summers spent staycationing in the UK.

“I went to Holyhead in North Wales a lot as a kid on summer caravan holidays, and I really look back on those times fondly, probably with an overly rose-tinted lens,” Joe recalls. “I took that idea of over-romanticising a thing, a person or a place, and used Holyhead - ‘Holly Head’ for search purposes - as a metaphor to express that. Initially, that meaning stuck, but as time goes on, I think it represents the significance of perception. Your experience of life is valid, but so is everyone else’s. Cross-referencing other people’s experiences is a healthy thing for all of us.”

Musically, each member brings a diverse catalogue of influences to the table, something that’s clearly audible in Holly Head’s sound and songwriting process.

“When we first started, Liam and I were really into the likes of Wu-Lu, A Certain Ratio and The Stone Roses. We tried to fuse elements from those artists with drum patterns borrowed from hip-hop acts like KMD, A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets, while also dipping into other rhythmic sounds like the afrobeat of Fela Kuti and the trip-hop of DJ Shadow and Cornershop. Eventually, we managed to combine all of our influences - the vulnerable emotion and abrasive soundscapes of ’90s emo, shoegaze and punk colliding with the driving rhythms of hip-hop and jungle.”

Beyond records and artists, the band also cite politics, activism and historically socially conscious musicians as major inspirations.

“We massively admire bands that have given more than just their music, such as Crass with their ‘Bloody Revolutions’ single, which raised £20,000 for a social care centre in Wapping, London, or Fugazi with their countless benefit shows for tenants’ associations, homeless and AIDS charities, to name a few. There are also current acts like Marital Arts and Westside Cowboy, who are doing their bit through their work with No Band Is An Island - a group that puts on benefit gigs for Medical Aid For Palestinians.”

When it comes to lyric writing, Joe explains that his own lived experience is now the primary influence.

“I think the thing that influences me the most now is just my own life. For example, we wrote a song together a few months ago about how train privatisation has made ticket prices extremely expensive while the service remains poor, and how that affects my trips to see an elderly relative in Lincoln who hasn’t been too well over the last eight months.

“I do try to write about politics more widely - the politics streamer nojusticemtg and stand-up comic Stewart Lee are both huge influences - but I also think there’s something important about people writing about how their own lives are affected by government decisions in almost unremarkable ways. Politics affects huge issues like Middle Eastern policy, but it also affects the day-to-day realities of people’s lives.”

Holly Head’s debut single, and their most-streamed track to date, ‘No Gain’, showcases the band’s intent to raise awareness of political and social issues through their music. The lyrics centre on a very real run-in with the law.

“In March 2023, I took part in a protest with the animal rights group Animal Rising. Along with around 20 others, I ran onto the track at the Scottish Grand National in Ayr before the race started, trying to stop it and draw attention to the cruelty involved in the industry.

“Getting arrested really makes you realise how powerful the state is. Being detained and treated like a criminal makes you feel completely powerless. It was the second time I’d spent a night in a police cell, and it made me think about how difficult it is to challenge systems that are tied up with money and established power.

“For people my age - born around 2003 - politics hasn’t offered much hope. We’ve watched years of cuts and individualism hollow things out, and ‘No Gain’ was a way of processing all of that, using my introduction to direct action as the catalyst.”

The band’s follow-up single, ‘Whatever Drags You Through It’, released last year, offers further insight into Joe’s writing, exploring themes of identity and philosophy.

“This song is more personal to me,” Joe explains. “It’s about how we justify the uglier sides of our behaviour to ourselves, and how we turn to things like organised religion or political groups - even when they have problematic elements - to find a sense of identity and belonging to make more sense of our lives.”

Holly Head are part of a seriously prolific live scene in the North of England’s cultural capital, surrounded by a wealth of talented acts on the cusp of wider recognition. One of those, arguably the buzziest band in the UK right now, is Westside Cowboy, with whom Holly Head are currently touring the UK.

“We’ve massively looked forward to it,” Joe says. “The Cowboys haven’t pulled up the ladder at all from the local Manchester scene. They pick their supports for nearly every gig, even if those bands don’t have the numbers behind them, and they’re all really sound people, so it’s guaranteed to be a great time.

“We’ve got two, soon to be three, songs out now, so people coming to the shows can expect mostly new music, and, of course, our customary energetic live show. There are a couple of new ones in particular that are starting to define a new section of our sound, which will be really fun to play live". One of those is called ‘No Country’s An Island’, the band's latest single, released on Wednesday 27th January via Akoustik Anarkhy. 

Asked why Manchester continues to be such fertile ground for emerging artists, Joe points not just to the musicians themselves, but to the promoters working tirelessly behind the scenes.

“Promoters like Max from Sweetface, Piran from Now Wave, Alexis from Sabotage, Joy Promotions, and Noel from Akoustik Anarkhy have all put in huge amounts of work to find small new bands and create opportunities for local acts to play and develop regularly. They’ve really laid the groundwork for what Manchester’s contemporary music scene has become.

“The city is small enough that people tend to know, or at least be aware of, each other and regularly bump into one another, which definitely creates a sense of community. It’s also big enough to be noticed nationally, with enough musical history to attract people to move here - especially students who want to start bands or simply be around music. Ultimately, though, there are just a lot of friendly people playing good music… or maybe the indie gods have chosen us to have our time in the sun one last time.”

Several of the city’s most cherished grassroots venues also get a mention.

“Fuel Café in Withington is like a second home to us. It’s been a pillar for small bands for far longer than we’ve been around, giving them a chance to play to an enthusiastic audience. It’s right in the heart of student land, meaning it’s only a five to 15-minute walk from most digs, and it’s cheap to hire, making it a great place for first gigs, which we did a lot of.

“Gulliver’s in the Northern Quarter is another favourite. It’s an old pub with a great 100-cap room upstairs, perfectly sized for both smaller local bands and decent touring acts. We supported Legss there a few months ago.

“The White Hotel is probably the coolest and best venue in the world. It’s an old garage in Salford - I think Björk’s played there, and I’m pretty sure Andy Weatherall played one of his last ever sets there, if not his last.

“Then there’s Brown Wimpenny. We played there once, and the bass didn’t work for the entirety of the first song, so we played it twice. Paddy, our guitarist at the time, and I both broke maybe two strings each. I also tripped over a cable and fell into Oscar and his drum kit at the end of ‘No Gain’. We all ended up in a heap on the floor - there’s a photo of it by the brilliant Richard Kelly, of Arctic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse fame.

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Having already landed several notable support slots in 2025 alongside the likes of Sprints, Welly and Fuzz Lightyear, and with the Westside Cowboy tour and a new single kicking off the year, 2026 is shaping up to be a busy one for Holly Head. With that in mind, we asked who else the band would dream of opening for.

“Wu-Lu would be amazing. He’s just a really cool music maker - sounds, lyrics, rhythms, all of it. I’d love to have a chat with him. I actually met Tag, his bassist, at work while setting up for Erykah Badu at The Co-op Live. He was playing with the support act, Greentea Peng, and was such a nice guy. They all seem like a sound bunch to spend time with.

“AC/DC is the dream. Muse would be alright too, just so we could have a go on Matt Bellamy’s jet pack. And if Fugazi ever pull their finger out and play again, that support slot would obviously be unbelievable.”

Holly Head's upcoming live dates are as follows:

Saturday 31st January: Leeds, Regtown

Monday 2nd February: Glasgow, King Tuts*

Tuesday 3rd February: Leeds, Brudenell*

Wednesday 4th February: Nottingham, Bodega*

Friday 6th February: Bristol, The Exchange*

Saturday 7th February: Brighton, Hope & Ruin*

Sunday 8th February: Oxford, The Bullingdon*

Thursday 19th February: Manchester, Whip Round at Deaf Institute

*with Westside Cowboy

Find tickets to catch the next big names on the live circuit across Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, London, Birmingham, Bristol and other UK towns and cities at Skiddle.com/live.

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