Total Tommy has stumbled across her dream festival line-up. In London for the month, the Sydney-based artist born Jess Holt is explaining to NME how Mitski’s All Points East show has fallen perfectly on one of her days off, in between catching up with old friends and rattling through studio sessions. “I will get a ticket, I have to go,” she declares, sipping away at a can of Beavertown Neck Oil in Soho Square. It’s a scorching summer’s evening, and the thought of Mitski, Ethel Cain, TV Girl and Wasia Project in a sun-drenched field – with a drink in hand – doesn’t sound too bad at all.
“London’s nice for that, I love sinking beers,” she grins, studying the line-up and running NME through her festival itinerary. “I’ve never seen Beabadoobee live before. There’s a song on Arlo Parks’ last record called ‘Devotion’, which is crazy inspiring for me. Ethel Cain, I’m really fascinated by. Mitski too, obviously!”
Equally rich indie-pop flavours seep out of the Total Tommy sound, whether it’s the uber-catchy ‘Adeline’ or the grungier tones to her debut single ‘Microdose’ which make you feel underwater. Vocally, she can seamlessly glide from Billie Eilish-esque whispers to gleaming highs. After abandoning her old “electro-pop” project Essie Holt, two solid years of songwriting gave birth to a clear body of work – her debut album ‘Bruises’.
“It’s [about] all the little mistakes I made that I learned from along the way, hurting other people and hurting myself,” Holt tells NME. “Taking stock and accountability for that stuff. I was gonna call the record ‘Whiplash’, actually, but it wasn’t quite right.” Blissful and murky in perfect balance, the album nails each and every side to a coming-of-age record, be it bittersweet ecstasy (‘Real’), delicate uncertainty (‘Soda’) or unfiltered joy (‘Girlfriend’). Holt’s resultant three-word explanation provides an appropriate summary for such contrasting, coexisting sentiments. “Bruises heal, right?”
Holt speaks to NME about the path to her debut album, the inception of Total Tommy and her experience moving from Melbourne to Sydney.
Why did you decide to leave your old project behind and start afresh as Total Tommy?
“Essie Holt was a play on my name – it started out, like, singer-songwriter and turned into an electro-pop thing. I had a good time, but it just never really felt like me the way that Total Tommy does. I was a little bit directionless, I stepped back from releasing, and just wrote solidly for two years. I ended up having a bunch of songs, and making the music I was supposed to be making.”
What is it about Total Tommy that makes it feel quintessentially like you?
“It’s the music I grew up on and always loved. Maybe that’s not cool, or it’s not what people are listening to now. So, yay for indie music!”
What’s the story behind the Total Tommy name?
“I was gonna be called Thomas if I was a boy, and I always thought I really suited that name – more so than Jess, like, I’m definitely a tomboy, blah, blah, blah. Then, I’m obsessed with symmetry, so it had to be [perfect], syllable-wise. I had a list of 200 names… it actually delayed the music coming out. I was out for dinner with my wife, reading a few of the ‘T’ names, and she said, ‘What about ‘Total?’’ The next day, I woke up and was like, ‘that’s the one.’”
Were there any notable close contenders?
“I liked Tell Tommy, it kind of sounds like a weird helpline. It’s not super sexy. But Total Tommy has problems in itself. Every time I say it to someone in a bar, they think I say ‘turtle’ – it happens all the time. I should just say it in a British accent!”
You should own it – what about some turtle-themed merch…
“Well, when my wife was growing up, [her family] had a pet turtle – and the story goes that it got out, and got run over. She’s still really fucked up about it. I would be too, that’s so traumatising.”
“I’ve always believed that a good song should work acoustically… you can’t hide bad songwriting with production”
At what point in the two-year writing period did you realise you had a full body of work?
“The first song we wrote was ‘Soda’, but ‘Microdose’ was the one. When those guitars came into the project… every song that came after that, ‘Microdose’ was the reference. I always thought we’d do an EP first, but these were real moments in my life, and parts were missing. I wrote songs about those parts, and then it felt like a body of work – it can’t be split up now. A lot of my favourite records are 11 tracks, but the last track – ‘Shark Attack’ – I had to put on. It’s a little vulnerable moment.”
Which types of artists were you listening to that informed the sound of the album?
“I love Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Strokes and ‘driving’ music. Slow Pulp, Fontaines D.C., Momma – and heaps of British rock, too. Guitar was my first instrument. When I used to write on guitar, I’d just always write a folk song, so I pushed away from the guitar for ages – but then I came back to it.
“I was listening to a Beabadoobee interview with Rick Rubin, and he made Beabadoobee [learn] to play her own songs on guitar. I’ve always believed that a good song should work acoustically, it’s so cool to hear a song stripped to nothing. You can’t really hide bad songwriting with production.”
You grew up in Melbourne, but have since moved to Sydney – how did you find that transition?
“I love Sydney, but I’m always Melbourne at heart. My high school had a really cool scene with youth gigs. I made a lot of friends in uni that lived in the city, and I started going to gigs with them and discovered heaps of artists. It also was part of the reason I came out as queer – ‘Oh my god, there’s people that I relate to!’ Music was that thing for me.
“Sydney, music-wise, is a little bit sad right now. I’m watching more and more venues close down, and Melbourne’s opening new ones. The massive rooms are great, obviously, but who’s at that level? The top 2 per cent. There’s a bit of competitiveness, which I don’t love… everyone’s in this weird position [with] tall poppy syndrome. It was so humbling not releasing music [for two years], being constantly surrounded by musicians. I felt like a fraud!”
Beyond London, is there anywhere else you’re keen to explore in the world?
“My whole year is kind of planned [ahead]. I’m worried for the point where I can’t keep my day job anymore – I’m losing too much money! I do want to be on the move. I’d love to be in Berlin or Amsterdam for a bit. I have a song [on the album] called ‘Amsterdam’. I had the best 24 hours by myself there…”
What’s your overall mission statement for Total Tommy?
“My biggest self-discovery moments were around going to my first gigs. Even if I’d go by myself, the community that I was just in the same room with – that’s always a testament to the artists and their fans. I’d love to cultivate that. I might never know that, but if someone makes a friend at a show, or thinks ‘maybe I’m queer too, maybe I can do this.’ I always wanted to be a musician. Watching other musicians, the flow and effect of what they do, just always makes it worth doing properly.”
Total Tommy’s debut album ‘Bruises’ is due out November 29