Welcome the feature where we ask musicians or bands five really tough questions about music! Today I speak to the musician Kiki Holli, who has recently released the new single Pretty Boys and also has an EP out that is called Chemical Love. Today we ask Kiki some difficult questions about the music industry.

What is the hardest lyric you have ever had to write and why? 

That is a very interesting question and I am not exactly sure how to answer it. For me sometimes lyrics can come very fast like lightning. It’s almost like you channel them from an unknown place. I think it was Keith Richards who said “Great songs write themselves. You’re just being led by the nose, or the ears. The skill is not to interfere with it too much. Ignore intelligence, ignore everything; just follow it where it takes you.” 

I mean, Keith has written some of the best songs in mass consciousness.

I’ve also heard somewhere along the way that it sometimes feels like all the songs that were ever going to be written already existed in the universe and your job was to pull them out of there and be the conduit. On my best days, it can feel like that. On your hardest days, it feels like sometimes you aren’t being creative enough or you’re saying the same thing over and over again, using the same words and phrases or melodic hooks. Those are the days where you have to dig a little deeper. There is reward in that too.

Sometimes you can be stuck on a certain lyric. When I was writing NEW HIGH, I was looking for another hook to the song. I happened to be driving downtown in Los Angeles and a little street called NEW HIGH caught my eye in Chinatown, I looked up and saw the sign and was like, “That’s it!” Sometimes it just happens like that.

Or for example, the other night when I went to see another band that I love called Sports Team from the UK (they are amazing BTW), and there was this really cool bartender dressed all in black with a sleeveless Roxy Music T-shirt (my first KiKi Holli release was a Roxy cover) and I just started writing lyrics, sometimes in comes like that by an image or how a person looks that can inspire.

Then there are times, like when I was writing SUN PLAYING TRICKS with Ethan Allen. I used a book for inspiration, that was sitting in Ethan’s Royal Triton Studios. It was a collection of William Blake’s writing and artwork. I started to search through the book and make notes on what I thought would inspire a good story or a good idea for a song, I had the hook, “It’s the Sun Playing Tricks on Me…” before we started recording the song but I needed to build a story around that hook and the book and his poetry helped with that inspiration.

My new song PRETTY BOYS isn’t too serious at all, it’s just a fun dance song and I really like it. I was walking around Silver Lake where I live and someone had spray painted “Pretty Boys” on something, and there it was! I wrote the first version about five years ago so it feels good that it’s finally coming out. The rest of the song came by just working at it, coming up with a hook and then writing the verses around it. I wrote it with a great writer/producer friend, Patrick Tully. Really you just have to open yourself up to the muses and sometimes/often it’s right in front of you.

What is the weirdest gift or compliment a fan has given you? 

When someone saw me perform recently, they said that I was like a mix of Donna Summer and Stevie Nicks! I loved the compliment and was happy to receive it, but it’s definitely a weird combination of artists but good weird. Also, someone once gave me M&Ms with my picture stamped on it and made a quilt with various photos of me. 

Again, I loved it but it was definitely weird. But again, a good weird.

Who is the best band or musician you have had the pleasure to share the stage with?

I mean this isn’t live but I count my lucky stars every day I get to spend in the studio with twice Grammy nominated producer, Ethan Allen. In my career, I have been fortunate to play with some phenomenal musicians. Recently, we put an amazing band together that I really loved. I was standing on the shoulders of giants really: Hunter Perrin on Guitar (Ke$ha, Elle King, John Fogerty, Little Richard) Lisa Crawley from New Zealand on Keys & BV (Neil Finn, John Mayer, Suzanne Vega) Keith Larsen on Drums (Porcupine, Oedipus) and Gabbi Coenen from Australia on bass & BV (aka Rvby My Dear).

What one of your songs has been the most difficult to rehearse for a live audience?

Wow. Well, all of them when you start working with Ableton and in-ears. I don’t think that musicians talk about that enough. I recently went to see one of my favorite bands, they are amazing live and have played all over the world. They just now started working with in-ears and they were like, “Man, it’s funky.”

It definitely takes some getting used to, that is for sure. No matter how much you rehearse with them, they are always going to be funky during your live show. My producer says it’s often like playing though a train wreck. But most everyone uses them now. I like to have one ear in and one out. The Sting way. The songs all become a little challenging to rehearse when you add those elements. It’s sometimes much easier to just belt out a cover where everyone is a little more free.

Dream Collaboration and why?  

Artists that are alive: Robert Smith, hands down. I just saw The Cure at the Hollywood Bowl. We actually weren’t going to be able to afford the tickets and my husband came home the morning of the show and said, guess what, I just won $300 in the lottery. Because the show was sold out, I didn’t know if I would get tickets. I ran over to the Hollywood Bowl where you can get same day tickets and stood in line for a couple hours. I got tickets that were reasonably priced and got really lucky.

We went that night and were right on top of the sound booth in the middle of the bowl and tears were streaming down my face for the first 20 minutes. The Cure are so emotional for me. And it’s just a super cool story.

I mean, if I could collaborate with Siouxsie Sioux, Stevie Nicks, The Foo Fighters, Haim or Garbage; if any of those collabs happened, I would think that I have died and gone to heaven as well.

Speaking of heaven there are artists who are no longer on the earthly plane who I connect with creatively and with whom I would have loved to collaborate with would be Prince, Dusty Springfield, David Bowie, John Lennon & Michael Hutchens. I got to meet Prince and it was pretty awesome!

I co-wrote and co-produced an Off Broadway musical and screenplay about Dusty Springfield called FOREVER DUSTY.  I played and sang the Dusty Springfield role. There was something magical and a bit overwhelming about getting that close to a person’s story and journey for that many years. Not to get to woo-woo but it can feel like you are collaborating with them from the great beyond. I honor her and her story so deeply. It’s almost like you are channeling what they want the world to know and understand about their lives.

It can get kind of SPOOKY…no pun intended (Dusty sang a really cool song called Spooky. Please check it out. There is awesome footage on YouTube).

I listen to all those artists I named constantly. They are my musical inspiration in many ways and they keep me going when times are tough.