If you’re a fan of Americana or country music and spend any amount of time on social media, you’ve likely heard Zandi Holup sing. Countless people first heard her beautifully rough-around-the-edges voice and stellar songwriting while swiping through short-form content on their phones. This early exposure gave the young singer/songwriter the momentum to land a deal with Big Loud Records. Last Friday (August 1), she released her debut album, Wildflower.
Videos by American Songwriter
Ahead of the album’s release, Holup sat down with American Songwriter to talk about her new album. During the conversation, she opened up about the importance of vulnerability in songwriting, finding the perfect sound for Wildflower, and more.
Zandi Holup on the Impact of Social Media on Her Career
Like many other listeners, I first heard Zandi Holup while scrolling through reels. Her voice stopped me in my tracks and made me a fan almost instantly. So, I had to know how big of a role social media played in her career.
“I think social media has played a massive role in my career,” Holup says. “When I first moved to Nashville, I got told no many times. I was told that my music was really dark and not radio-friendly, and sad. That’s pretty much what I was told constantly,” she recalls. “I’ve always been a little bit of a brutally honest person, and I wasn’t going to pretend I was someone I wasn’t when I wrote songs. So, I wasn’t going to change who I was just because someone told me no.”
Being told “no” by Nashville wouldn’t stop her from sharing her art with the world. Fortunately, her phone gave her access to millions of potential fans.
“I ended up starting to put my songs on social media, and I began to find people who connected with them,” Holup says. “That showed me that there was an audience that enjoyed the type of music that I like to write. So, I kept going. I feel like that’s the only reason I have a professional career these days is because I put my music on social media and gained fans there.”
The Bravery and Vulnerability of Wildflower
Zandi Holup doesn’t pull punches in her songwriting. Listening to Wildflower feels like picking up her diary and flipping through the pages. The album’s 11 tracks are packed with stark truths and deep emotions wrapped in poetry for all the world to hear.
“It feels very vulnerable at times to open up my soul to the world. As a songwriter, though, when I’m writing, I’m not thinking about where the song is going to go and how many people are going to hear it. I’m more so experiencing an emotional expression,” she explains. “Sometimes, I feel like it’s scarier after the fact when I go, ‘Oh my gosh. I’m putting a piece of my heart into the world.’ But I think there’s a lot of bravery in vulnerability. So, it gives me more confidence as a person when I put pieces of my soul into the world through my music,” she adds.
“I think you have to be respectful to the people that the songs are about. Everyone has a different way of going about things as a writer. For me, I wouldn’t say it’s my own truth that scares me. It’s more telling someone else’s truth that scares me. So, I try to be really respectful in my writing to those in my life, to those I could be talking about before I release a song,” she reveals.
Zandi Holup Worked Hard to Find the Right Sound for Her Debut
Zandi Holup wanted to put her best foot forward with Wildflower. It was important for her to find a tone that didn’t just sound great. It needed to mesh with her songs and, more importantly, her vision for her debut album. She and her co-producer, Ryan Hadlock, worked hard to create the sonic atmosphere of the record.
“I would say that I’m kind of an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist, to be frank. I think that my weaknesses are also my greatest strengths, and I try to embrace them in the moments that they can give me strength. But it has also hindered me in a lot of ways,” Holup begins.
“I was on a quest to get what I consider, for me, a perfect tone, which is also an imperfect tone. There’s so much beauty in reality and honesty. So, I was looking for someone who could help me capture a very real, almost live performance quality in the record, but also having the bells and whistles of a fully-produced project,” she says of the tightrope they walked while producing the album. “The way I really garnered the guitar tone, specifically, is that we recorded the guitar into several different microphones. We also plugged the guitar into a very distorted vintage amplifier that was mic’ed up. There were actually several layers of the same guitar part to give it texture. That was something I was fascinated by,” she explains.
Making her guitar sound just right for the sessions was only a part of the quest for a perfect sound. She also needed to capture all facets of her voice.
“With my vocal tone, I wanted to get a microphone that I felt was really expressive of my voice,” Holup says. “My voice has a lot of cracks and flaws and skips to it, almost like a record. It’s just not a perfect voice. But I’ve learned to find the beauty in the imperfections in many areas of my life, including my voice. I wanted to find a microphone that wouldn’t smooth that over.”
Discovering a Whole New World While Recording Wildflower
Before Zandi Holup moved to Nashville, she lived in Pennsylvania. So, she has spent the bulk of her life in the far eastern part of the United States. At the same time, she had countless studios in Music City to choose from while preparing to cut her debut album. However, she chose to travel to Bear Creek Recording Studios, just outside of Seattle, Washington.
“I was looking for the perfect partner to produce this record with. I had met with many talented producers that I would love to work with in the future. When I met Ryan Hadlock, who co-produced this record with me, I felt as if he understood what I was doing and what I wanted to achieve and the type of art I wanted to create,” Holup explains. “Also, I felt as if our brains worked the same way, in the sense that I wanted to capture a raw sound, but I wanted to capture it in a way that was a little more pop. Every single piece of the record was overdubbed,” she adds.
“For this specific record, I had a vision that I wanted to kind of carefully mold and execute. What Ryan does that drew me in is he knows how to capture raw, honest sounds, but in a way that you can take your time and really focus on each of the instruments,” she says of how she knew Hadlock was the perfect co-producer for Wildflower. “Also, his studio, Bear Creek, is absolutely incredible. I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest after going there. It made me honestly think about moving there.”
Zandi Holup’s Favorite Song from Wildflower
“One of my proudest works as a songwriter, to date, is ‘Mary Jane.’ I’m extremely proud of that song because I admire a lot of folk songwriters that use a lot of metaphor in their work. And I wanted ‘Mary Jane’ to be very metaphorical and poetic,” Zandi Holup says when asked to name her favorite song from her debut album.
“It’s a song I wrote about a friend of mine who struggled with her*in addition off and on, for 15 years. Then, they ended up in recovery and got sober,” she explains. “It’s a very personal song to me. And it’s a story I wanted to tell because I believe in bringing darkness to light. I think I want to talk about things like addiction in my music,” she adds.
“I’m proud of it for many reasons. Obviously, the craft of the song, but also how it affects the people who listen to it,” Holup reveals. “I’ve gotten many people after shows who tell me that they’ve been touched by the song in one way or another, whether it’s that they had a family member who was an addict, and this helped them to understand that family member. I’ve had people tell me that they were an addict, and it made them feel like they could stay sober for one more day after hearing the song. I could go on and on about the wonderful feedback I’ve gotten from the song, but that’s my favorite song on the record.”
Wildflower is available to stream across all digital platforms
Featured Image by Anna Schaeffer
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.