Trevor Holmes

SSW: We know that you started in music relatively early. What was the catalyst behind wanting to play instruments?

Trevor Holmes: I got my first guitar when I was 13. My best friend James got a guitar for his 13th birthday, and he is 6 months older than me. He taught me “ Smoke on the Water”, which is the first song that everyone learns; and I was hooked! So I said to my mom: “I need a guitar for my 13th birthday!”. I got it and I haven’t put it down ever since.

Were you around music as a child? Do you come from a creative family?

No one in my family plays music at all, but I have always been extremely drawn to it and influenced by it. I just always had a connection with music, like many others. I didn’t start writing and singing until my senior year of high school.

Really, that’s surprising! Didn’t you know you had a great voice?

I didn’t know I could sing. When my mom would drive me to school, she’d hear me singing to the radio and say: “I think you could sing! Have you tried singing?” and I was like, “No”.  She goes, “Well,  try singing with your guitar!”. So I went home that day and I tried. My mom thought it sounded really good and even though I didn’t think so, I kept practicing, and here I am now, I just never stopped and that was it.

What kind of music was on your playlist growing up?

Mostly classic rock. I was influenced by bands like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and I also listened to a lot of early 90s gangsta rap- N.W.A, stuff like that.

When was the first time you performed for an audience?

As I said before, none of my friends knew that I sing. So my senior year we were having a graduation ceremony and there was this thing called The Graduation Seminar; all of the graduating class get together and do different events, so this girl goes, “Hey, would you mind coming and bringing your guitar, we will set up on the side and you can play for people. It’s nothing big, there will be a few students”. And I thought: “Alright, I’m gonna try it”. So I showed up, met her in front of the gym and she said: “Ok, you are on the stage in 5! Follow me!”. I followed her, she opened the gym door and it was my entire school in the audience and a little stage and a microphone.

What were your thoughts at that moment?

I was freaking out! It was my first time playing in front of anyone and it was my entire school! So it’s not just playing for strangers, it’s playing for all my peers, all my friends! It was scary, but that was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I ended up playing and I remember after I finished the first song I strummed the last note and it was dead silent. It felt like forever and I thought, “Oh my god, they hated it!” and then all of a sudden 3 seconds later the whole audience stood up and they were yelling and screaming, that’s when I knew that music is what I was going to do. That was the moment. That was it! It doesn’t get any better than that.

Sometimes the best way to learn and overcome your fears is to have no choice- being thrown in at the deep end, so to speak.

Yes! That’s exactly what happened and I’m grateful for that.

I’ve read that you’ve been street performing for a few years in Venice, where Artsurfer Magazine is based. Tell us about that experience.

I played on Venice Boardwalk, so Venice holds a special place in my heart. First my friends and I would go down there on a weekend just to hang out, we saw people playing and we were like, “we should come down here, put out a tip jar and see if we could make any tips”. And so we went down the first time and we made enough gas money to get us home and enough to buy lunch and we thought that was amazing. So then we started bringing a battery powered PA system and part of my friend’s drum set and next thing we knew- we were making a couple hundred bucks in a few hours just jamming on the beach. And it became our full-time job in the summer.

Performing in places like Venice boardwalk or Santa Monica promenade is such a great way to test your original music. There are people from all over the world and if your performance makes people stop and dedicate a few moments of their lives to watch – you know your work is good.

It definitely is a great way! And actually my friend and I were just talking about it and we are gonna start going back there! I didn’t even think about it and he brought it up. Now when we go back it’s gonna be a whole different dynamic, because I get recognized from Vine, so on the boardwalk I’m curious how people are gonna react. That will be interesting for sure. It was the best time of my life and I miss it! So I’m excited to go back! When we were playing there we had a sign with Instagram, Twitter links, people were tagging us and they kept coming back to see us playing, it was really cool!

What was your first ever original song about and looking back how do you feel about it?

I’m sure it wasn’t any good! Oh, I remember, actually the very first song that I ever wrote was for my girlfriend at the time and it was called “I miss you”. Here is the sad part, when she came back from a trip that she was on, she dumped me and I didn’t even get to show her the song! It broke my heart [laughs].

You never showed it to her?

I actually did give her the lyrics like 6 months after when we were friends and she was like, “ Oh my god, I feel so bad”.

That sounds tragic!:)

Yeah, I was like, “By the way I wrote you a song the day you dumped me!”

Where do you see yourself in music? Any specific goals you want to achieve?

I used to think that the goal was to be a rock star, to be a famous musician, who doesn’t want that? But then I realized, music is what I love and if I can be playing music for an audience that wants to hear it- that’s the ultimate goal. There is nothing better then that. So if I can continue to do that – that’s it! Obviously, the larger the audience the better, I’d love to get my music out to as many people as possible.

Would you consider being part of a band?

I’m doing the artist development deal right now, so how that works is – it’s just myself as a solo artist and I’m writing the songs and once we have this EP done, then we are going to shop to major labels. Once that happens we’ll build a band. So I’m not really with a band now, but I was before! We used to play at bars all over town, we were called Slooza Palooza, and it was like a reggae/rock band, something like Sublime. It was fun!

That style of music is perfect for your voice! Is that the genre you are focusing on?

I would say, my heart is with Sublime and that kind of stuff; I grew up playing in Venice, the beach scene has influenced me a lot. So I guess it would be that and a little more of Alternative pop, kind of like Ed Sheeran. So I’d like to do music like that: Ed Sheeran, mixed with Jack Johnson, mixed with Sublime. Somewhere in there.

I heard some of the original songs on youtube. The “Instagram” song was very cool and funny. Can you tell me more about it?

Thanks! I think I wrote it 2 or 3 years ago. I was on Instagram and I saw the girl that I knew posted a picture of herself and one of her friends. I thought her friend was really cute and I was like, “Oh, she didn’t tag her friend in there, probably because her friend is cuter than she is”, which is mean to think [laughs]. But then I thought that it would be funny to have a song about things on Instagram. And I wrote it in like 10 minutes.

You have a large fan base on Vine and Instagram, but I’ve noticed that you don’t have much of a Soundcloud presence. Are you planning on sharing more of your original music?

I have almost a full album recorded of original music and I can’t release until I get signed. I always get tempted to just put it out there. A lot of my following from Vine don’t even know that I write music. But I feel like I’m in a very fortunate spot, because the team I’m with is extremely reputable. My manager is Sheryl Lewis, she represents Stevie Nicks, which is one of my favorite singers of all times, and she also represents Chris Isaac. So I’m honored.

In a bigger spectrum, what do you think is your purpose in life?

If I see someone great performing or hear a great song on the radio- it gives me chills and inspires me so much, it has so much impact on me. So if there is any way that I could do it to other people – that would be it. I couldn’t ask for anything better. It’s almost like if you see an actor, and they’re playing a role and they’re so intense and it inspires and affects you – I wanna inspire people like that. I had people writing to me saying: “it looks like you enjoy playing music so much and it inspires me to do what I wanna do or to play music or to act”. So if I can affect other people in that way  – that’s what I wanna do.

It’s amazing when people do things they love and inspire others to be fearless in pursuing their dreams. One of the goals of our magazine is to inspire through stories of people like yourself.  We want to show that impossible is possible and even though it can be scary at the beginning, you can achieve everything you dream of.

Yeah, definitely! And you brought up a good point, that I always think about. People are always asking me, “Isn’t it scary to play up on stage? Isn’t it scary to put up a video of you singing? Aren’t you afraid?” and yeah, I am afraid, but when you find something and your passion for it outweighs the fear – you have to go for it! You have to get outside of your comfort zone and start pursuing your dreams.

Doing something new can be intimidating. Since you have a fan base that supports everything you do as an entertainer, do you feel more confident with your posts now , than  when you started out?

Like you said, if I put out a video on Vine I know that most of my followers are gonna like it. But the thing is when you are an artist and you are creating something, there might be a hundred comments that say, “Oh, this is great!” and one comment “This sucks! You should stop” and it’s that one comment that will get to you. But that’s part of being an artist – being vulnerable.

Sometimes when I post things I don’t think that half a million people are gonna see that. If I thought that I wouldn’t post anything, because I’d be terrified.  I went to a show at the forum, that’s 18 thousand people,  that’s a lot and to think that more than 500 thousand people are going to see what I post is mind-boggling.

Have you played any LA music venues?

The Troubadour was the first club in LA that I ever played. That was actually really special because my great grandma (she passed away at the age of 96), came out to the show and was front row at 96 years old, which was amazing!  I’ve played the Whiskey too.

The Troubadour is a pretty big club. Usually beginning bands start at smaller venues like The Hotel Café or Foundation Room at House of Blues. You have to be sure you can bring a lot of people if you are playing The Troubadour!

Like you said, jump in at the deep end! And to play at the Whiskey and The Troubadour and to think of all of the legends that have played there before you is just crazy.

Yeah, every time I go to the Whiskey I think of Jim Morrison. I can’t even imagine what it feels like to be on stage there!

I was standing on the stage and I said  “Just so everyone knows I’m standing in the spot where Jim Morrison played and I’m freaking out”.