Welcome to a very special edition of Radio Supernova only on RIOT RADIO.CA. Today, we have the privilege of being joined by the talented, insightful, fiercely independent, songwriting sensation and recording artist - Greg Holden.
Greg Holden has always felt really important to me. I’ve sort of taken ownership of him in a way . . . I found him; I found him first and since 2009 I’ve flaunted my discovery at every possible turn. Greg is my age - Like me, he’s an acoustic guitar player primarily, the first album he ever bought was Green Day’s “Dookie” like, enjoys whiskey, seems to have a healthy love/hate relationship with Twitter, Blood on the Tracks is his favourite Dylan record.
In 2009 Greg Holden released his 9 song debut album A Word in Edgeways and quickly followed it up with the EP Sing for the City in the same year.
Greg’s Follow was 2011’s full-length “I Don’t Believe You”. It was crowd-funded by $30,000 worth of donations from fans and supporters. An entirely acoustic version of the album was released the following year and it included a song called “The Lost Boy” - a song Holden recorded and released as a charity single. The song exploded in the Netherlands, topping the Dutch iTunes singles chart on Christmas Day and reaching No. 2 on the Dutch Top 40.
Then, it appeared on the hit TV - FX’S SONS OF ANARCHY as the emotional musical backdrop for the funeral of the beloved character “Opie Winston” (who will always be Gary Barteer for me!)
That same year, one of Greg’s songs was picked up by none other than Jimmy Iovine for the American Idol season 11 Finale. “Home” - Sung by Philip Phillips immediately topped the U.S. Charts and became a North American hit. It was one of the most performed Pop songs of 2013.
2014 saw the release of the much-anticipated “Chase The Sun” album. Now signed to Warner Music, Holden teamed up with Canadian producer Greg Wells and together they made one of the most compelling and solid records of that year. The album included anthems like “Hold On Tight” and also one of the most poignant and socially relevant songs of this decade “Boys In The Street” which was written after he was asked by his friends at the Everyone Is Gay organization, a group that helps supports LGBTQ2 youth.
Last year Greg put out my favourite song of 2018 “On The Run” and didn’t let up with the fantastic “Something Beautiful”.
In anticipation for Greg’s new album titled “World War Me” - available for Pre-order and being released on March 29th - Greg took a chance on an interruptive, overly excited, over-caffeinated first-year student; me. They say not to meet your heroes but, this time, they were wrong.
