Surrounded by a lot of hype and anticipation, Grey Holiday recently released their debut album, a six-song EP loaded with bonus content and promise. I thought it would be a good idea to have a chat with the group about The Glorious Revolution, their music in general, their partnership with Mocha Club and more.

It ended up being a rather enjoyable interview filled with laughter and mayhem. I even managed to get the group to admit that. . . well, read the interview below and find out more.

What's up man?

How are you guys doing today?

We're good.

Good. Well, why don't we go ahead and start off with you guys telling me a little bit about yourselves. Let me get your names all down, so introductions, please.

Matt This is Matt and I play piano and I sing.

He's 6-5

and I am 6-5.

Josh: This is Josh. I'm the drummer and I'm the best looking.

(laughs)

RT: I'm RT. I'm the bass player and I'm by far the funniest one.

(Computer) Hello Brenten. This is Stephen.

And Steven is on the computer.

Steven is on the computer...

(laughs)

We're not allowing him to use his actual voice for this interview.

Now that's funnier than RT, actually.

Ooooh!

It was my idea.

Yeah. I'm sure it was.

(laughs)

You'll know Steven's voice. He sounds like a girl on the computer.

(laughs)

Nice. So you guys are Grey Holiday. Friends in a band, a band of friends. What aspects of being a band have most strained your friendships?

As a band, it's kind of odd when you mix business and friendships. I mean, when you get serious enough into music, it really does become a business. So, it's really just learning how to function as a business that's been kind of a tough learning curve for us, because we've been friends since so long before we were a band and it's just a different kind of dynamic. I feel like we've adapted well. I mean, we've had a couple arguments here and there, but we've learned how to do it and I think we're functioning kind of well now.

You settle it all with food fights or wrestling matches.

We have pillow fights a lot. . .

That is untrue, why would you say that?

(laughs)

We hit each other with wrenches a lot.

(laughs)

Pillow fighting. Noted.

(laughs)

Okay, to flip that around, which aspects of your friendships have been the biggest strain on your ability to be a band.

Well, you know. As friends, you don't want to have to tell another band member that his looks have become a problem. . .

(laughs)

Now, you're just trying to be funny.

That was actually the first thing that popped into my head when I looked at Matt over here.

And you're bringing this up publicly right now.

(laughs)

No. Actually, just as men, we have trouble sometimes being honest and up front, but we're learning to be a little more vulnerable with each other and to be completely honest with each other. That's really helped our friendships and it's helped us as a band for sure.

You better watch out, I think i saw Matt reaching for a pillow.

(laughs)

And by "pillow" of course, I mean wrench. . .

(laughs)

Of course.

Yeah. Matt drives a motorcycle. We're tough.

(laughs)

The album is called The Glorious Revolution and I'm guessing that the title has to do with the connection between the glory of God as you describe in the song "Glorious" and the rigors of the world as you describe in the song "Revolution." Is that accurate?

That is correct. You have made the connection.

We don't even have to answer that question anymore.

Yeah, it took me all afternoon to connect The Glorious Revolution with the songs "Glorious" and "Revolution."

(laughs)

Really, what this album is all about, the message that we're trying to spread is that people need to slow down and see God's glory all around them. And particularly, these songs that you mentioned - "Glorious" and "Revolution" - both talk about this. Just slowing down our pace and being in step with God instead of the world and that's our revolution. So there you go.

Do you guys feel that this album is an accurate introduction of you to the world?

Yeah. I think it's a great introduction. It portrays different elements of our music style and it gives the nice video stuff. And the lyrics are definitely on pace with what we want to be talking about and ministering about. So, I think it's a great introduction.

I think it's a good introduction, but I also feel like, because we're getting to put out more music. . . We have a lot of different directions that we're going in musically. So, I think it's a good introduction, but we have a lot more up our sleeve, you know?

Fair enough. Is it too early to ask when to expect a full-length album?

Yeah. We don't actually have details quite yet, but it'll be sometime between. . .

now and forever. . .

(laughs) Yeah, between now and the end of time. Actually, we think we'll put out some new material sometime between ten and eleven months from now.

I felt like it was safe to guess that it was in the works, you guys seem to keep yourselves pretty busy.

Yeah.

Now with all the special features packed into the CD - video blogs, backstage, behind the scenes action, music videos that you've done yourself, even an interview that basically did my job for me. . .

(laughs)

I guess it's safe to say that you guys have control issues and have to pretty much do everything yourself?

(laughs)

Yeah, we really don't want anyone to ask us any questions, so if you can just stop. . .

(laughs)

No, I'm kidding, please don't stop.

Okay, why don't you tell me about the features that everyone can find if they buy the CD?

Well, there are, like you said, there's a bunch of video content, the blogs and some videos that we made, but kind of something I'm really excited about and hope people check out is the song journal. There's some really early videos of some songs, which is how i demo stuff, and it just kind of gives you some insight into how I feel about songwriting and how I'm growing in it. I think it's just. . . I wish I could see that from some of the artists that I look up to. I would love to continue to do that. I love talking about songwriting, so I think it's a pretty cool feature. And there's a bunch of pictures and buddy icons and stuff, but mostly videos.

Actually, I read through that song journal and I've learned enough to tell you that I'm going to be writing the next Grey Holiday album.

(laughs) That's what I was going for. (laughs) Whenever you get some songs ready, just send them on over.

The race is on.

(laughs)

And the two music videos. You guys shot those yourselves, right?

We did. We spent a lot of time of time doing that. Not so much money.

We spent a lot of time learning how to use Final Cut Pro and iMovie, basically. RT and I got together in his garage and made the "Where You Want Me" video over several weeks. It should have taken roughly about an hour for us to do that, but it took us forever.

(laughs)

Yeah, it took us a long time.

Matt did the "You Belong to Me" video entirely in claymation during a weekend. He spent the whole weekend basically moving these clay models a little bit at a time. But it was a lot of fun. We did it just to put it up on the internet and it was another outlet for us and we really enjoyed doing that. We have other ideas in the works. We're always cooking stuff up.

That's good, but I'm not sure what to do with the fact that you have pillow fights and play with paper dolls. . . you guys are coming out of this looking just great. . .

(laughs)

Now, I noticed that you guys worked a lot with Jason Ingram on this project - he co-wrote on all the songs and produced the album. What was it like working with him?

We don't recommend working with him at all.

(laughs)

No, Jason has been really instrumental with helping us grow as a band and helping us become more professional about some stuff. And definitely with the songwriting stuff. He's kind of a genius and I've learned a whole lot from him. I think I'm going to be doing some more writing with him. It was overall a really good experience to work with him.

Yeah, he's been around a while and he's done some good things.

Yeah. He's talented.

In your bio, it mentions that you weren't looking to sign a record deal. How did you end up signing to Essential [Records] despite that.

Well, we really started playing music - all four of us - because we wanted to keep hanging out together after college. It was just something fun to do, but when we recorded our independent album, it was with a guy named Mitch Dane out of Nashville, and just from knowing someone who knows someone who knows. . . The CD got placed in the right hands I guess, because they came calling to us. It's really a blessing. We definitely didn't start this whole thing to get a deal and have a national release. All this stuff is just icing on the cake right now.

And how does that icing taste? What's it like to have an album out in the stores.

It's pretty surreal. It's pretty crazy. Just the other day we went over to Best Buy and places like that and you can actually see your album in the store. It's crazy.

RT and I actually stayed up until midnight hoping that it was going to come out at our local WalMart, but it didn't.

(laughs)

We were pretty unhappy about that.

They were like, 'Come back at 9 AM.' And we're like, 'But it's supposed to be out RIGHT NOW!"

Overall, though, we're pretty giddy about the whole thing. It's a new experience for us and it's been a long time coming. I mean, we've been working on it for a while now and we're excited that it's finally in people's hands and people are interviewing us. It's all been pretty crazy.

You guys get mobbed every time you go outside now?

Pretty much.

We have a lot of fake moustaches and costumes. Bear suits.

(laughs)

The day it released, I woke up just feeling famous.

(laughs)

No, honestly nothing's really changed.

You always wake up feeling famous?

(laughs)

We're just basically the same.

God continues to humble us in a ton of ways. It's not more now than before, it's just kind of an extension. I think we have more responsibility now, with an album out. So we get humbled daily.

Okay, well taking a look at your website, one can't help but notice the big banner advertising Mocha Club. Obviously, you're all into coffee, so what's your standard Starbuck order?

Sure. We have a deal with Starbucks and we try to sell as much as we can. They're kind of hurting for business and we're trying to help them out.

(laughs)

But Mocha Club is an organization that we teamed up with that serves a purpose that we really believe in. . .

I like Caramel Macchiato, to answer that. Steve doesn't like to have caffeine. Josh doesn't like coffee and Matt is dumb.

(laughs)

Alright, back to Mocha Club. . .

No, he asked what our drink was. . .

That was a joke that clearly failed. Please tell us about Mocha Club.

(laughs)

Basically we've partnered up with them. The whole idea of Mocha Club is that you give up a few mochas a month which is about seven dollars. So you commit to give seven dollars a month and you can make some really significant differences in people's lives. Our specific project is in the Darfur region of Sudan in Africa. And what's really cool about this whole idea is that we're really trying to branch out to our own community, to our audience, and we can join together with our audience to do something that's outside of the band. So, we create a community with our audience and we support specific projects. It's just a really cool idea. We're really excited that we get to be a part of it and we hope that it grows so that we can change some lives in Africa.

Sounds good. Now to completely change the tone and get to the crux of the interview. This kind of ties into the pillow fighting and the paper dolls and such. . .

(laughs)

Assuming that Grey Holiday is a "boy band," which of you is the "bad boy," the "nice guy", the "babyface", etc.?

(laughs)

Well, Steven's definitely the one that has the mystique about him. He's in the background and you can't even see his face. The shadows are always covering his face.

(laughs)

I am easily the best looking one in the band. There are typically girls all around me at all times. Josh is the one that is pretty crazy and he's always in the newspapers and getting into trouble, so he's the bad one. And Matt is the one that we keep kicking out, but he keeps coming back.

(laughs)

So that's pretty much our dynamic.

Okay, and now I have it on record that you admit to being a boy band.

(laughs)

How about man band?

(laughs)

Alright guys. Was there anything that I missed? Anything you'd like to add to this conversation?

No man, I think you covered all the big stuff, for sure.

Such as, boy bands and pillow fights.

Exactly. Thanks for calling us up and talking to us.

It's been fun. Have a great day and I wish you the best with your project.

Thanks. Bye.

For more information, visit GreyHoliday.com - MySpace - PureVolume - EssentialRecords.com