The last few years have seen Kris Barras shift his sound away from the blues based material that was the foundation of his musical career. Recent albums like ‘Death Valley Paradise’ and ‘Halo Effect’ have been heavier, and more anthemic – and the band’s live shows have been accompanied by a production that is more fitting with their larger arenas and festival appearances across the world. Alongside KBB, Kris remained true to his roots – performing with the international supergroup, Supersonic Blues Machine, but with schedules largely keeping that band at bay, Kris felt now was the time to re-explore those Americana / Blues sounds with collaborators close to home. The resulting project, ‘Hollow Souls’ was put together to showcase the diversity of Kris’ musical sound – and with one live behind him, and a forthcoming UK tour in the Autum, he’s energised about the possibilities, and getting up close and personal again.
Kris Barras, Phoebe Jane and Josiah Manning spoke to MyGlobalMInd.com backstage after their debut performance at Made in Stone.
Interview by Mark Lacey
Live Photos: Adrian Hextall
Kris: We released a new album called ‘Halo Effect’ last year, which got to number five in the UK official album chart, and number one in the Rock and Metal chart. In the meantime, we’ve been writing some new KBB (Kris Barras Band) stuff, and Josiah and I wanted to get back and do a bit more of the bluesy stuff, too. We got a thing together with some good friends of ours and a side-set called Hollow Souls. Phoebe had done backing vocals on my earlier albums. She’s such an incredible singer, and I really wanted to bring her to the spotlight and have her up front. We got some fantastic musicians on board.
MGM: Kris Barras had previously been tagged in the blues field, and around 2022 was trying to move away from it. Bit Hollow Souls sees him returning to those roots
Kris: I never felt like I left the blues. COVID hit, and like for a lot of people, my outlook on life and the world changed. It was a really tough time for me, and a lot of the music I was writing was heavier. KBB naturally went in a heavier direction. I’d sent a demo to Josiah, and I was like, I think this is a bit heavy. And he’s like, but this sounds really fucking cool. Then he was coming up with ideas and it was heavy, too. We grew up on metal stuff. We’re metalheads at heart. But I’ve always had that blues passion. For me, I kept it alive playing with ‘Supersonic Blues Machine’ with Billy Gibbons, Eric Gales, Walter Trout, and people like Steve Lukather; an amazing cast of A-list guys. But the problem is when you got people like that, they’re so busy, it’s really hard to get schedules to line up. We’ve had a couple of years where things have just not come off. I didn’t want to lose touch with the blues world, and that’s where ‘Hollow Souls’ came from. We didn’t want to change what KBB is doing because Josiah and I have got so many great ideas of where we want to take that.
Josiah: Our love of music is very broad, so KBB has gone towards that rock and metal side. But we still have that love for blues, and even jazz in the band. We listen to a whole spectrum of music.
Kris: We’ve dedicated our lives to learning music. We both started at an early age. We’ve got such a broad horizon. I’ve played in everything from jazz trios to heavy metal bands, and Josiah’s the same. We’ve just got such a broad range of music that we like, and we want to explore that. I don’t want to just be tied into one thing. There are some people that all they can do is blues, or all they can do is metal. But for us, we’ve spent a lot of time studying to play. I’ve been playing guitar for 35 years, and you go through a lot of stuff in that period.
MGM: Phoebe, you’ve been a longtime collaborator as a backing singer for Kris, and have featured on several of his albums too. How did this come together as a new project? And how did you encourage you to come on our front?
Phoebe: I just got a call from Kris and he said he wanted to put a new project together, and would I like to be the lead singer. Obviously, I’m going to say, yeah, I’m a small town girl. I’ve not really done anything as big as this.
Kris: She deserves it. She’s such a phenomenal talent, and she deserves to be out there on stages like the Made in Stone Festival. It’s just great to have someone that’s relatively unknown in the world that we’re in, and boom, here she is.
MGM: What did you want this project to signify when you put it together? And what did you want it to say that it was different to the normal KBB material?
Kris: I wanted something that was fun. And I wanted it to be loose. KBB has become its own steam train now. We’ve had a lot of success in the charts. We’re headlining medium-sized festivals. We’re getting invited to some of the biggest rock festivals in the world now, Rock AM Ring, Rock for People, playing with Guns N Roses. We’re doing massive stuff. But with that comes a certain type of show. For ‘Hollow Souls’, I wanted something that was a bit more bare bones. The KBB doesn’t really have that flexibility now because we’ve got the light show, the pyro. It’s like a super slick, modern rock metal show. But ‘Hollow Souls’ can be a bit more free, and a bit more of a jam. Every time someone sees the show, they’re getting something a little bit different.
MGM: One major difference on this album, is that you hardly sing at all, and only lead on one track.
Kris: Yeah, I only sing one song on the album. I wanted to do something where I wasn’t the lead singer. Phoebe’s the lead singer, with special guests. I wanted to have different special guests involved. We’ve got Jared James Nichols doing one song; Marv from Monster Truck; Chris from Cold Stairs is doing a duet with Phoebe. Elles Bailey is singing one, too. There’s one that I sang that’s quite a personal song. We toyed with the idea of getting some different guests involved with that, but because it’s such a personal song, it feels right for me to sing it.
MGM: You’ve only released two songs so far. ‘Borderline’ is a wonderfully soulful track, with a strong blues influence, whereas ‘Shotgun’ is a lot heavier. You’ve not released much info about how the wider EP / album will be presented. What more can you tell us about it?
Josiah: I think it’s a cohesive mix. ‘Borderline’ is almost Americana vibes. The album is raw, organic. All of it was recorded live in the studio. When we first started talking about the production of this, I wanted the band playing live in the studio without any click or anything. We capture that energy because I think that’s what music is about; a band in a room, vibing off each other.
MGM: The vibe behind ‘Shotgun’ implies that you’re pissed about something. Who’s brave enough to upset a mixed martial artist?
Kris: That was a co-write with Marv from Monster Truck, and he came up the lyrics. I think maybe he had in mind, my background with the fighting history and stuff. He’s a great guy. I first met him when he was opening up for Black Stone Cherry at Wembley Arena. We were on the same record label at the time. I remember he said to me, I don’t drink before shows. But I want to have a beer with you. And we ended up having a couple of beers before he went on at Wembley Arena. He’s the coolest guy, and we kept in touch. I always really wanted to work with Marv. He’s such a talented guy with an iconic voice. Josiah and I listen to Monster Truck all the time in the tour bus. To have him involved was a real dream.
MGM: ‘Borderline’ is a beautiful soulful blues track, with a real chain gang feel to it. How did that come about?
Kris: Well, I wrote the main chorus to that, driving down to Josiah’s studio. I remember pulling over on the A38 down to Plymouth and recording a voice note. It came to me …. those first two lines, and then we built it from there. I wanted something like that bluesy rock, chanty, with a gang vocal, similar to what I guess I’ve done with ‘Hail Mary’ and ‘My Parade’, the bigger Kris Barras Band songs.
MGM: You steered clear of performing too many KBB songs at your debut Hollow Souls show at Made in Stone. Is that a sense of things to come with your UK tour?
Kris: I didn’t want to do too many KBB songs. I think when we tour, maybe there’ll be a few. Maybe we can dig out some of the older ones, and get Phoebe to sing them, and create a little bit of a twist on some of the older Kris Barras songs that don’t work with our set now. But with, ‘Hail Mary’; Phoebe, for me, is a massive feature on the original version of that with what she does with her vocal adlibs and stuff. It was great to be able to do that today and have her bring that up.
Phoebe: It’s funny. You said at the start, it’s nice to do a cover of one of yours.
Kris: It’s the first time I’ve ever done a cover of one of my own songs.
MGM: Hollow Souls are going to be doing 20 shows in October and November and you’re playing quite a lot of unusual venues, and more cultural live music cities; places like Leek, Chesterfield, and Gloucester. Was that a deliberate move away from those traditional rock club venues you normally play?
Josiah: there’s a lot more bluesy venues on this tour.
Kris: Yeah, I think it’s a lot more venues that you see on the more bluesy type tours. But also, it’s been a new project, and with the nature of it, we’re wanting to have the jamming and keep it a bit more loose. We wanted to get back to the more rootsy venues. Obviously, KBB’s moved on a little bit. We’re doing a lot of bigger venues. With this, we want to do some smaller venues, get out to a lot more places, and be up close with the fans. That was a big thing for us. We wanted to be able to have that. We’re looking forward to it. I think it suits the music. A bit more of a jammy vibe, vibing off the audience.
MGM: Is there an opportunity with these shows for you to bring any of the special guests in? Jared James Nichols has played on your album, Marv’s played on it, Chris from Cold Stairs. Will you get a chance to bring any of these people across, do you think?
Kris: For me, it’s definitely something I want to do moving forward, probably for festivals. For a tour? I think it’ll be financially quite hard to work out. But for festivals, definitely. That’s my plan for next year, to put together a little bit of a guest line-up, and go out and do that thing.
MGM: So, what’s next? You’ve got a bit of a break before the tour in October. What happens between now and then? Have you got more singles coming out? When are you going to announce the release?
Kris So the EP is out on the 10th of October. We’ll have another single before the EP release, and then we’re on to the tour. Josiah and I are starting to write some new stuff for the KBB, and hoping to record an album at the end of the year. Between the two bands, we’re keeping ourselves pretty busy.
Hollow Souls will be performing across the UK throughout October / November:
October
16th – Bedford, Esquires
17th – Chesterfield, Real Time Live
18th – London, Camden Underworld
19th – Stowmarket, John Peel Centre
22nd – Shoreham, Ropetackle
23rd – Cardiff, The Globe
24th – Leek, Foxlowe Arts
25th – Gloucester, Guildhall
26th – Norwich, Waterfront Studio
29th – Grimsby, Docks Academy
30th – Huddersfield, Parish
31st – Birmingham, Castle & Falcon
November
1st – Stockton, Georgian Theatre
2nd – Carlisle, Old Fire Station
4th – Glasgow, Oran Mor
5th – Edinburgh, La Belle Angele
6th – York, Crescent
7th – Blackpool, Waterloo
8th – Southampton, Suburbia
9th – Tavistock, Wharf
For more information and tickets:
https://www.hollowsouls.co.uk/
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