Mike Montali, lead singer of Hollis Brown has stated: “Well, I guess naming our band after one of his [Bob Dylan’s] songs is kind of like wearing your heart on your sleeve. I personally think he’s the greatest artist of the 20th Century. It’s strange because although we are big fans, we also are influenced by so many other things that we don’t want to get pigeonholed as folk rock. We don’t really cover much of his music, I think because we have the name Hollis Brown, so we feel like to do his music would be a bit too much.”
The bandmembers are native New Yorkers and originally included Mike Montali (vocals and guitar), Jon Bonilla (guitar), Mike Wosczyk (bass), and Mike Graves (drums and percussion). Their first release is an eponymous album, Hollis Brown that came out on Vibe Theory Records at the beginning of 2009. In 2012, the band released a couple of singles and an EP, Nothing and the Famous No One; and then their new album, Ride on the Train (with Dillon Devito replacing Mike Wosczyk on bass) was released on Alive Records this year. For some odd reason, I have seen all three of these records described as their “debut” album.
(May 2013)
