Introducing: Mars on Holiday!
Words and Interview by Sara West
Mars on Holiday’s most recent single, ‘We’re Gonna Change’ came out last month and is the perfect blend of psychedelic indie pop- think psychedelic Briston Maroney.
The song explores someone who thought they were in love but feels like they’re slowly fading away from someone. Even when you know change will happen, it’s never easy and maybe ignorance is bliss. We chatted with the band to learn more about them and this new release.
1. How would you describe your sound to someone unfamiliar with it?
Overall, we would say we fall under a general neo-psychedelic umbrella. When trying to get more specific though, we actually have quite a bit of trouble trying to describe it ourselves even! As a conscious decision, our sound so far has been more of a collection of our favourite influences, rather than a singular focused identity. So far we’ve been treating each song as an individual separate entity, rather than trying to ‘force’ them to fit in with a sound that may not suit. In the past we’ve tied ourselves in knots and given ourselves writer's block chasing a certain sound, and the second we relaxed on this we instantly were able to write both more freely and creatively!
2. 'We're Gonna Change' is only your 4th released single. What's it been like navigating the industry so far, and what have you learned between your first release and now?
As a musician in 2024 you need to wear so many different hats. You’re the marketing team, PR firm, videographer, photographer, graphic designer, songwriter, and producer. That’s the main thing we’ve all learned together - that it’s not just about writing, recording, and performing. It’s all the external additional tasks on top. It’s impossible for one person to carry everything, you need to work together as a team and effectively delegate according to everyone’s strengths, to all share the load. It takes a bit to get the groove going but once you have a good team all working together in sync, that’s where the magic happens!
3. The single discusses grappling with the common experience of love's sparkle fading away. Did writing the song help you cope/process this experience? Is songwriting usually an outlet for your emotions?
Writing is 100% an emotional outlet for me, the second I’m dealing with something my first urge is to pick up a guitar and jump in the voice memos app. It’s actually probably the main source of creative inspiration for me - I’d say maybe 80% of the songs I write start out as a gut reaction to something I’m working through.
We’re Gonna Change is a bit of an outlier in that sense though, it’s one of only a couple of songs I’ve written that didn’t directly start out from a personal place. I basically had a slot left over on the track list for a ‘single’, and only had a few placeholder lyrics for the longest time. It was only later once I worked out the song was about growing apart, that it dawned on me that my relationship was actually changing and we weren’t as close. I didn’t realise this until I started writing, but deep down my subconscious probably sensed it - which is why it came out that way.
To me writing feels like a way of accessing your subconscious. Everything you write inevitably has to come from you right? It’s all you. So in that way it’s almost like a bit of a self therapy session; throwing out questions into the abyss and seeing what comes back. Everything else your brain tries to ‘do’ when writing only gets in the way. It’s hard to do, but the times when I can get to that state of flow where it’s just my subconscious without any internal filters trying to ‘shape’ a song - that to me is pure creativity.“ - Dane
4. The music video features you all performing on sand dunes amidst colourful lights. How did you come up with this idea? What story are you hoping the video conveys?
During a group brainstorming session we had this visual of a sand dune washed in a sea of red light. That was simple enough, but as always the further we got in the planning process the more and more complicated it became - it never goes the other way! At one point we realised it would probably be super cool to have cycling/moving colours in the foreground, to be set against the background static colours. We knew this would take 1-2 massive LED’s for the background which was easy enough, but the cycling portion was another issue entirely. Our main challenge was learning how to program in a cycling/moving light show, as none of us had ever used any programmable lights before. As a result of budget constraints, we were only able to rent the lights for the day of the shoot; so we ended up teaching ourselves the basics of programming and then writing a lighting script before being able to test it. We were basically praying it worked once we got there and powered on the lights - thankfully it did!
In terms of a story, unfortunately there’s no deep or interesting meaning behind this one! To save time, we were all actually quite keen to try and shoot a (relatively) simple video in one location on one day - without a story. Two of our other videos for ‘Her and I’ and ‘Dreaming All Day’, had a fully written storyline & ‘script’. This required intensive shot for shot storyboarding and planning which took an incredible amount of time. From the start of the planning phase to the final export, the video for ‘Her and I’ took 5 months, and ‘Dreaming All Day’ took 6 months. This one in comparison we wanted to just be something that looked cool and had us all playing our instruments. What we completely underestimated however, was the difficulty of filming in sand dunes at night! The conditions made it an absolute nightmare and while it wasn’t a 5-6 month slog fest, this was almost just as difficult, just condensed into one night. For a view of this, check out some of our behind the scenes shots on our social channels which show a bit of this!
5. Outside of the music video, how does the place that you live inspire you and your music?
To be honest I’ve always been more interested in the exploration of the internal ‘environment’ more so than the external one - at least as far as the writing & music goes. Up until this point all our released songs were written solo by me, back when Mars was still only a solo bedroom project. Almost everything I write is people centred - feelings & emotions, relationships, internal battles etc. Quite a few of the songs on our upcoming album for example are about struggles with mental health. We’re writing collaboratively now though, so this all may well change for the next crop of songs we’re currently working on!" - Dane
