Dallas based indie hard rocker Holly West has self-released her debut solo effort, Mokita. The five-track Ep was produced by West herself and engineered by Chris Bell at both Firehouse Studios in San Marcos, TX and Chris’ private home studio in Austin, TX. Joining Holly, who played bass as well as sang, were guitar hero Gary Hoey and drummer extraordinaire Brady Blade (Brady Blade (Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Dave Matthews & Friends).
Gary and Holly have been friends for quite a few years now – she met him at the Dallas International Guitar Show Show a while back and hit it off – while Brady is a more recent acquaintance, meeting when Holly’s former band, Honey, recorded at his studio in Shreveport. “Chris Bell and Brady are close friends so when his name came up as a potential drummer for the sessions it was a no-brainer,” West points out.
Holly decided to take a different approach with this release than with Honey and the band that introduced her to the world, Love Stricken Demise, which also featured actor Billy Blair and American Idol runner-up Nikki McKibbin. “I decided to tackle things on my own this time because it was time to show the world a new side of me.
With Mokita, West combines punky, attitude-laden material with pop sensibilities to create a five-song Ep easily accessible to both the mainstream listening public as well as an underground following Opening track “Memo” is a cutting reminder that not all friendships and relationships are respected. “Like being ghosted and realizing they think you are an idiot for not knowing what’s going on… but they are actually the fool because they can’t even have a conversation with you,” West says. She tells of the title track Mokita: “I was looking for a word in this book I have called “They Have a Word For That” I fell in love with the message so much I wrote the lyrics to fit the word. It means “The truth we all know but no one talks about” or The elephant in the room. See if you can spot the Clutch reference in this song!” “Home” is straight up about aliens. “the bridge is me describing an alien abduction… you could also relate it to not feeling like you are human or of this earth. I believe we are not alone. I also wanted to try writing about something that wasn’t just another relationship song – soooo aliens!” “Justified” is about liars – we all know a few don’t we? Holly gets straight to the point, “Basically it means that liars are very justified in their lies because they think they will be a hero to you because they either lied to save you or save themselves. There’s a small Billy Squire “Stroke” reference in there too! ” The Ep is rounded out by West’s take on the Led Zeppelin classic, “When the Levee Breaks.” Her reason for doing so is pretty simple when you think about it – “I did this song because why not do this song with Gary Hoey and Brady Blade?! If I was going to pick my dream team, which I did, I had to do some Zep… this song is what we all do, we jam and rock the fuck’ out!”
Mokita is available now on iTunes and CDBaby.
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