Delta Rae Blends Harmonies, Instrumentation to Create Unique Sound

There is strength in numbers, as evidenced by The Valory Music Co.’s exciting new group, Delta Rae. The band just recently rolled out a new EP and single, both titled A Long And Happy Life. Spend any amount of time with Brittany Hölljes, one of four lead vocalists of the group, and you can’t help but be impressed with her exuberant personality and sheer delight in all of the things that is going on with the band currently.

“I can’t even describe how excited we are about getting the EP out,” she tells Sounds Like Nashville. “It feels like it’s been about two years in the making. I feel so grateful that we can give our new fans more music, and our older fans get something they have been asking us for, so it’s great.”

The band has released a couple of albums in the past (their “Bottom Of The River” became the theme song for the season six trailer of True Blood), but for their Nashville-label debut, Delta Rae left nothing to chance. For the four-song EP, the band penned seventy songs. Hölljes says that she is quite confident in the songs that made the final cut.

“My brothers and I wrote over seventy songs for the record. That was highly unusual. In the past, we’ve written about fifteen or so. It was a testament to how focused we wanted to be on this album. We felt we owed that to our fans. We really wanted to focus in and make an album that shows who we are as a band and where we come from. It’s a southern EP and a southern record, so I think that everyone is going to be excited and pleased. For people who are just discovering us, I think they’ll be able to ‘get it.”

To “get” Delta Rae, it’s important to know where they have been – and where they come from. Brittany and her brothers Ian and Eric all hail from the south, with time spent in Georgia and Tennessee, they also spent time in California, where Brittany was a student at the University of California-Berkeley.

“I think it’s part of what makes us so joyful when we travel around the country. Growing up, we saw the value in all of the different places that we lived,” she shares. “I think we had a really wonderful childhood, so moving around wasn’t traumatizing. It was an adventure. It also has made us feel like interlopers no matter where we went, because nothing was really a hometown. We had attachments everywhere.”

Eventually, the Hölljes brothers left California to return to their native state of North Carolina. Soon, they invited their younger sister and Liz Hopkins to join them. It’s a move she doesn’t regret.

“It’s nice to claim North Carolina. It’s when you get to the point that you choose where you live, we chose North Carolina to start the biggest project of our lives – for the thing we care about the most, so it’s a bit of a gypsy lifestyle, but I think that all in all, it was training to be a touring band,” she explains. “Our parents didn’t realize bringing us up just how helpful that would be later in life.”

The story of how the band came together is an interesting one, and serves as the impetus for the track “I Moved South,” which Brittany stresses is very much autobiographical.

“That is a direct telling of the story of the band – line for line, it’s the truth. Liz and I were living on different ends of the country, and Ian and Eric invited us down to North Carolina to start the band. As the song says, I met up with my brothers and then I met a couple more in Mike McKee (drummer) and Grant Emerson (bass). We then bought a van that smelled like Armor All, and we took it out on tour. We’re still touring in a van,” she says, but adds that it’s a different one now – minus the scent. “It’s not the same van, but the one we have now is still just the second one we’ve been through.”

Hölljes is excited about how the single came off, stating it’s a perfect marriage of the instrumental style and vocal blend that makes Delta Rae unique. “The harmonies are our signature thing. I think that all of us are so grateful to have had Dann Huff as a creative partner to make the EP because he really knows how to capture harmonies. You’ve got the blood harmonies in Eric and I, and Liz is the special sauce that makes it all come together. I think that really comes through on the song. The guitar parts are kind of a new thing for us. We’ve always been a harmony-driven band, but in the Country world, you’ve really got to step up your guitar game. We had some great players on this record. Tom Bukovac is amazing. He laid down some really beautiful guitar parts on it. We were really thrilled with how that came out.”

Perhaps the cream of the crop on the EP – from a lyrical standpoint – comes on the brilliantly-written “No Peace In Quiet,” of which Brittany says, “On that one, I have to thank Eric and a couple of other Nashville writers in Tiffany Goss and Adam Wood. I just like the twist of that phrase. From ‘no peace and quiet’ to ‘no peace in quiet,’ there is so much truth in that. I think that we all walk around filling our lives with noise to try and drown out feelings of loneliness. I also think it can apply to someone who is grieving over someone who has passed away, or a relationship that has ended – or even a pet that they miss. Fans have been all over the map with what that song means to them. I think that’s the hallmark of a great song that no matter what your circumstance is, you hear your music reflected in the music.”

With their diverse musical background, incorporating Folk and Pop into their sound, Delta Rae have played on a variety of stages – including Manchester, Tennessee’s yearly musical showcase, Bonnaroo.

“Bonnaroo is awesome,” she gushes. “We’ve done a lot of festivals and intimate theaters – all kinds of venues, all over the place, and Bonnaroo is a vibe that is hard to describe. There is so much great music going on. Everyone is in such a fantastic mood, and that’s something that I can’t say is true of every festival. A lot of times you might have bad weather, or tough logistics, but Bonnaroo is a really well-run festival. We got to see some of our favorite acts while we were there. I hope we can go back.”

As for their band name, the group borrowed Delta Rae from a book that their mother has been writing. “My mom has been working on a book for seventeen years, and between working and raising kids, it’s hard to write a book in your spare time,” Hölljes explains. “Having an empty nest now for a number of years, she has finished her first draft. When she was finishing it, she said ‘I finally have the name for my main character. It’s southern. It’s epic. It captures the spirit of the south, but is also has Greek elements to it, so it’s mythical. The name was Delta Rae.’ When she said that, we asked her if we could borrow it for however many decades we can do this.”

“All of this is just promotion for her book, which we hope comes out pretty soon,” she adds with a laugh.

 

A Long and Happy Life is available now.