The Nautilus Studio M31 Files interview singer-songwriter Leigh Holmes.

Studio owners Mr Bill (Nautilus Studio) and Yves LF Giraud (Studio M31) interview singer-songwriter Leigh Holmes.

Leigh's YouTube channel, please visit:
https://youtube.com/@Leighholmesmusic

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Mr. Bell, why don't you do it again? That was awesome last time.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Peace and love. We're here at the Nautilus M31 Studio uh podcast here, and today we have Lee Holmes. And uh he's uh a uh musician and a uh real estate mogul. And uh uh I've I've heard you play bass and you play guitar and you write music. That's what we're all about. We're we're into people that are creative and but anyway, we want to find out more about Lee today. Uh uh and um my good colleague here, Mr. Eve, he's really good at interrogation, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Let me get the web a couple of jewels, a screwdriver. So Lee, welcome and thank you for joining us first of all. Appreciate having me. Appreciate it. Thanks so much. Um we'll start real simply with asking you where you were born and where you were uh if you're from there or if you've moved around.

SPEAKER_06 1:38

Yeah, so I was born in Wales in the UK. Okay, and uh that's where all my family's from, and my mother moved to um the island of Malta in the Mediterranean. Oh, when I was two years old. Oh, when you were two. Wow, okay. Do you remember anything from Wales? I don't remember anything from Wales. Yeah, I went back to visit all my family's still there, so I I go back to go back to visit them. But I grew up on an island called Malta, which is uh in the Mediterranean, just south of Italy. South of Italy, north of Africa, it's right in the middle. It's the most uh southern European country, most densely European co um densely populated European country too.

SPEAKER_07 2:18

It is really wow.

SPEAKER_06 2:20

A lot of people on top of each other. This place where we live now is the absolute opposite. Yeah, you know? Yeah, yeah. Because the island of Malta is um I think it's around half the size of Mesa Verde. Wow. There's pushing a million people now.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

It's gotta be, you know, there's gotta be such a beautiful place. How uh uh old were you uh when you finally left there, or how long did you get to stay there?

SPEAKER_06 2:46

So I traveled a lot back and forth, but I left when I was twenty-seven, twenty-eight.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

So you could you're a Malton. Is that what we're called?

SPEAKER_04 2:55

Yeah, we all know it'll be Maltese. Maltese, yeah. Or in its Maltese Falcon, is that Malt Malt. Malty. Malty.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Yeah, that's I I you know read a lot of biblical stuff and uh of course uh all of those Malta's in there, yeah. Yeah, it's yeah, they're your Paul was shipwrecked, I believe. Uh yeah, anyway. Uh uh just sounds so beautiful. And uh are there a lot of uh Americans that have kind of filtered in there or do you keep them out?

SPEAKER_06 3:26

A few Americans, not not many, but um definitely some. I think it's a m it's a melting pot. It's definitely a melting pot. So after joining the EU in around 2010, uh we started seeing a lot of people from Europe come over. So you know, a lot of my friends were foreign growing up, uh a lot of Europeans and people from Asia and um some Americans, not so many though.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Not so many. So that's an amazing other side of the planet here. Uh he was gonna ask uh what brought you over here?

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Well uh well yes, yes, that will be one of the questions. Um I I can see you've paid attention. You read the memo. But no, the the first thing I was gonna ask you is uh what triggered your interest in music?

SPEAKER_06 4:16

Okay, so my dad is a musician. Okay he played guitar and to be honest with you, I never really thought about playing music until I was sixteen and he said, you know, this is a right around the same age that he started and he said, Do you do you want to be guitar for your sixteenth birthday? And I was I never thought about playing music. It was never never thought in my mind. And I was like, you know what? Yeah, I'd like to play music. And I got really into it. I got really into it. I um I was going to call I just started my first year uh college at the time and um I got so into music that I c I couldn't think about. I was studying pure ma pure math and physics and um just got in the way of my music playing to be honest. I I I expressed the interest and uh you know, the part of me wishes I I'd continued my studies, you know, but um a big part of me is very grateful for doing what I did. Uh I went to my mom and I said, Listen, I uh I don't really want to continue college, I want to play music. Um No, I I said, I I don't really want to go to college anymore. And she said, Well, you know, you're gonna have to do something for eight hours a day, you know, instead. What are you gonna do instead? Are you gonna work or are you gonna study something else? And I said, I want to play music. And she was like, Well, okay. She said, Okay, she said, I'll make you a promise. I said if you play eight hours a day, you know, and commit, we'll get then we can do it. You could do it. And I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Eight hours a day Monday through Friday, or did you get weekends off? I I did I did it through the night.

SPEAKER_06 5:58

So when I didn't get my hours in in the day, I stood up playing guitar. But I remember, you know, um uh different to here, there's a lot of people in in a c in a small space in Malta. So you gotta be quiet. You can't blast an electric guitar. You know, my parents would be sleeping in the evening, so I remember playing an uh an electric guitar, not plugged in.

SPEAKER_05 6:21

Really close to it so I could hear it, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:23

And I'd practice all the scales um in in the evening. But I I did commit, I did commit and I played it eight hours a day. And uh after a few years it paid off because I was able to I I was a professional musician for around seven years before moving into real estate. And uh, you know, I wasn't um well off by any means, but I made I made ends meet, you know. I always ate, I was able to pay for my housing uh through my passion, which was quite music.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

That alone is amazing, it's all cool to be amazing.

SPEAKER_06 6:55

So while my friend and you know, there's also thoughts like if I'd have done what I'm doing now back then, maybe I would have been further along. But uh at the same time that my friends were stuck in a nine to five job, I had the freedom to kind of explore the world. I traveled all over Europe and um played music, took my guitar, I went on a two-month trip once where I just took a guitar in a backpack and had no no idea where to go. It was a time where couch surfing ha had started. You do you know that website, couch surfing, had just started coming in. And you know, if you'd have told my parents what I was doing at the time, it was like, you know, just reach out to someone online and say, Hey, can I sleep over at your house tonight and join you at the jam session? And they're like, Yeah, come over. We don't know these people, you know, but I I ended up meeting a lot of cool people and had some I I was searching what I wanted to do was play with other musicians. That that was the way that I figured that I because I never had any like formal training or lessons or something like that. I did a few lessons in the beginning, but mainly I learned to play music by playing people like you, by playing with other people. So I wanted to kind of break away from the the little bubble in Malta, which incredible music scene now that I'm looking back at it, um which I didn't appreciate at the time. Uh but going out of there, meeting other musicians and playing kind of helped me explore different styles.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Yeah, what did you get playing? And bars or restaurants or um yeah, busk a lot of busking actually in the in the squares.

SPEAKER_06 8:32

You know, in in Europe they have all uh these like piazzas, these like huge squares with the tall buildings where all the businesses are and people walking by. So I did a lot of busking. I was able to gather a few gigs from that, that people that paid me. Or even like, hey, listen, you know, we'll we'll give you room and board for the night if you play. Yeah. So I did a lot of that. Did a lot of that.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

And um you um I know you do, you you eventually you started doing looping, probably because you were by yourself at times and thinking, hey, you know what?

SPEAKER_06 9:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

How did it uh how did it come along? Did yeah, did did you know somebody who was doing it, or you just kind of came across it on the other side?

SPEAKER_06 9:17

Well the loop the looping started um I had a band called Iri Flow.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 9:23

Um and it in at its peak it was a 10-piece band, and we played a couple of festivals. It's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Like uh how can you find it? Ten people that can play music together. What do you have like four women singers and uh homes?

SPEAKER_06 9:41

Well what kind of what kind of music was was it because the foundation was reggae, okay, but then it wasn't like roots reggae, it was um um incorporating other other genres. So we uh had a really, really technical drummer, so we hit a lot of like hip-hop beats in with the reggae rhythms, and we had like um backup singers and uh trumpet player, trombone player, keys player, percussionist alongside the drummer. It was it was pretty cool. So we we um I'll get to the looping question in a second. The ending of that band is what led me to the to the looping. Um so and we were three three people that met, like the rhythm section, the drummer, uh the guitarist, and myself who I was um the cool rhythm rhythm rhythm guitar and uh lead co-lead singer that we kind of both sang, me and the other guy. Um but we uh wrote the songs together and then session musicians came in for the bigger shows and we taught them all and stuff. Anyway, I I was dating someone who was in the band and we broken up and the band kind of fell apart at that point, and I was I had a little um you know when you're hurt it's it's it's hard to kind of go back to the thing that hurt you, you know? So so there was a little hesitancy there to kind of join a new band or find new people. It was like it was it felt so good to me, so like this was the band, that when it went away, I was like, okay, I need to do something different. So that's when I bought a looper, I bought a boss RC50, and it had three three pedals so you could do three different layers. I used to have beatbox and then sometimes use the guitar as a as a bass, and then I'd turn down the highs, turn up the lows, and have a bass line on a guitar, you know. So I I was playing like this um full band um style but alone because I was looping everything. Shaky egg, um with this specific looper, you could like cut the bass or cut the drums. Right, you pick the sections, layer voice. Yeah, it's definitely a a lot more to think about, and when you think about music, you know, the best kind of um times where played music is when you're able to just like close your eyes and just go and no thinking. With the looping, that kind of goes away a little bit. So when you're playing in a band, you know, you kinda you you can literally stop and and the music keeps going.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

So can you tell us um from Malta to the US?

SPEAKER_06 12:24

Uh I I know I met you not too long after you landed here, but Yeah, so um I was in Malta and um I was day off, no, not supposed to be working that night, and uh friend called and said, Hey, listen, I um a friend of mine was supposed to play this gig with me, but he cancelled, pulled out last minute because he was scared, it's like their first gig or something. And he's like, and I'm a lead guitarist. He said, I I need someone who can like play the songs and sing, and I'll just play the lead. Um and he said, Would you be willing to help help me out this gig? And I said, sure, you know, when? He's like, Well, I'm kind of setting up right now. Do you think you could be here five minutes ago? I'm like, okay. Okay, so I took my food out of the oven. I was like having my roommate, I remember my roommate was out. I was like ready to have a night in uh on my own, no work that night. Anyway, this guy called me up, I'm like, yeah, sure. Uh it was a local bar, so grabbed my stuff, went down there, and that night I actually met my wife. Um, we ended up chatting after the gig outside and hit it off, and she's uh American from uh Michigan, and long to cut a long story short, fell in love two years later, decided to get married, and uh she has a big big family, and we decided to have the big wedding here in the US. And uh our plan was to do a two-month road trip to the US. We're trying to think like what do we do for a honeymoon? Do we spend all our money in a one week at a resort somewhere, or do we like just open it up and go longer and like camp, do national parks and that's the plan. That in my mind was like, I can't wait to see all all of America. I've traveled all over Europe, I'm ready to to see something new. And um we started the road trip and um two weeks into it the lockdown happened. So the COVID lockdown. Um and we we just got to Mancus. It was three three days we were here in Mancas, and um we couldn't go to our next destination. We got our um call from the airline saying your flight's been cancelled, don't bother rebooking because the borders are shut. What the hell's going on?

SPEAKER_02 14:48

What kind of stuck in Mancus? What a Manchus Serendipity I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 14:54

Out of all the places we could have got stuck on the way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

What were you uh renting an RV and stuff?

SPEAKER_06 15:00

Uh we had a we had a car and we had a tent and uh just like an RV. Yeah. Yeah. Um but we found a couple, I don't know if you you guys know them, Ted and Susan. They live up up here on road thirty-seven. They have like a little gar like a garden, a home little homestead thing, and they needed help, and we that's how we found this place was through a website called Workaway, where you kind of go and put it in a little bit of work on the farm and in exchange for food and accommodation. Sure. And that's what we were gonna do for two weeks. Okay. After two weeks, we're like, what do we do? We can't go to our next destination. Her m my wife's family were like, you can come stay with us in our basement, and we're taking a call looking at Mesopard.

SPEAKER_05 15:46

And then I turned around and I see the La Plata Mountains, and it's like, I don't think I could live in a basement in a cold city right now.

SPEAKER_06 15:53

So we're just gonna and we talked to these guys and they said, you know, stay as long as you want. We really bonded with them very well, and uh they they it was beneficial for them that we were there, it was beneficial for us that they allow to stay, and we stayed with them for a year. We stayed for for a year, and that's kind of what solidified our So when I met you, were you still there? Okay. I think when I met you we were there. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 16:19

Yeah. And then a year later we ended up buying a house in Cortez and with uh perfect timing because it's uh you know, I wouldn't say doubled in value since then, but it's increased a lot since we bought it. We actually bought at the old prices and we were able to negotiate on it, and then it it's just shot up since then. So we're very, very lucky that you know you can't I mean real estate, you can't people say you can't time the market, but that that was well timed. Yeah. And we we we didn't know, we were just making putting our best foot forward and we knew we wanted to to live here, we knew we wanted to buy a house.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

I mean, so you know it's in hindsight, and you know, people look at it differently, but yeah, yeah, like you said, it's you do the best you can at the time and hopefully it's a good thing. Uh I'd like to ask you about your songwriting. How much ashamed when when did you start actually songwriting rather than just putting music?

SPEAKER_06 17:17

Or did you start with like creating No, I didn't I didn't write songs in the beginning. Um, and that's mainly because I didn't sing in the beginning. I only played guitar, and if you'd have asked me in the first couple of years, I wasn't a singer, I was a guitar player. And then there was one time where I was at the beach and we're some friends, and uh, Malta's a very kind of open place, so if you're chilling at the beach, it's like very okay for people to look by and they're like, Hey, you want to join us? and that happens all the time. So there were these guys that on vacation that you know were like, Oh, guitar player, let's sit with these guys. So we had a beer together on the beach, and uh he's like, You're such a good guitar player. He's like, Do you sing? And I said, Well no, no, no, not well. And he said, Come on, try, you know. He was just and I s and I sung and he's like, You were right. He's like, You can't sing. Should stick to playing guitar. Are you serious? And that that triggered that made me want to sing. Okay, so that that I was like, okay, prove this guy wrong. You know, I'll prove you wrong.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

Hey, that's a good that's a good what a good shave, man. He helped me out.

SPEAKER_06 18:35

He helped me out because uh, you know, it took me a couple of years until I could sing, but three, four years of of trying, practicing, doing some vocal coaching like with friends. Um, you know, I sang a song one day that I wrote and someone was like, Oh, you have such a beautiful voice, and I'm like, Really? That's developed. You know, it's not people say some people may be born with it, or uh it comes a little bit more naturally.

SPEAKER_07 19:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:03

But for me, I I put in a lot of effort to to learn how to sing, and I was able I was able to. It's not something un unreachable if someone wants to sing.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

I think it's amazing what we can do with our minds. I mean, it's it's really it takes the right attitude and the right uh you know if you really want to do something, you're gonna get close if not on target. So yeah, no, that's awesome. In talking about it, why don't we get you to do whichever song you decide to do? Yeah. Uh we're looking forward to it. So we're gonna just set very easy setup and then yeah, we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_06 19:40

Okay, so the song I'm gonna play is called Journey of a Lifetime. And uh I wrote it with uh with a friend in mind, uh friend of mine who passed away uh a couple of years ago. And you know, we are on a journey of a lifetime, however long that life is. I think we need to cherish that time that we have um on this earth. Um especially with the people that we love because they're not always gonna be around. So I wanna make sure that you know, uh really cherish those moments. Here's Journey of Lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

On a journey of a lifetime. On a journey of a lifetime. On a journey of a lifetime. Journey of a lifetime. On a journey of a lifetime. On a journey of a lifetime. On a journey of a lifetime, I give you awesome.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Mr. Bill, do you have a question for the How old are you?

SPEAKER_06 23:46

I'm thirty-seven years young.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Wow. Well congratulations on coming to Mancas and finding your well, you already had your sweetheart when you came here. I brought it with me. Yeah. What was that outside?

SPEAKER_03 24:02

Monkeys? No, we have this thing that sprays like some kind of ale fresh, and I was in there. It's misty stuff. Lee. Awesome to have you, man. Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_04 24:11

Nice to meet you and learn about you, man.