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Charlie Hollis – the son of the late Mark Hollis, the enigmatic creative force behind Talk Talk – is proceeding cautiously. “It’s so easy to be misconstrued,” says Hollis, who looks and sounds very much like his father, who died in 2019. “Lineage, DNA, influences, they’re all massively important for anyone making music. But I’d be very careful about using words like ‘tribute’, because it completely gives the wrong impression.”
Hollis is discussing his involvement in the group Held By Trees, described on their Bandcamp page as “an instrumental post-rock collaboration heavily inspired by Talk Talk/Mark Hollis, and working with musicians that played for them”. The band is a passion project of multi-instrumentalist/producer David Joseph, a 40-year-old Church of England minister from Bournemouth, who wondered: “What would it be like if a bunch of the musicians that worked on Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, as well as Mark Hollis’s solo record, worked on new music?”
As beloved musicians die – and AI creates crude and ethically compromised reconstructions – Held By Trees are one of a number of bands offering an alternative to the straightforward hat-doffing of tribute acts; or to venerable groups such as Gong and Yes that continue to use the name when few original members are involved.
From Black Star Riders (featuring Thin Lizzy alumni) to House of All (members of which were previously in the Fall), these bands have resolved to carry on the spirit of an old group in a new one, playing all-new material. Not so much cover bands as recovered bands.
Contributors to Held By Trees include veteran Talk Talk session musicians such as Robbie McIntosh and Martin Ditcham, as well as Laurence Pendrous, who played piano on Mark Hollis’s 1998 solo album and whose day job is teaching music at Hall School in Wimbledon, where he tutored a preteen Charlie Hollis. Thirty years later, both men contribute piano to a group “honouring” Mark’s music.
Held by Trees were inspired by a solo recording session Joseph made during lockdown. “The roads and skies were quieter, that spring was particularly fragrant, and there was this spaciousness to the music I was making,” he says. “I realised I was really leaning into my love of those [Talk Talk] records. I knew they involved a lot of improvisation: a drum pattern and chord progression were offered to a big cast of musicians to improvise on. I thought: what if I track down some of those musicians and ask them to play on these ideas?”
Encouraged to “take the plunge” by Phill Brown, who engineered the Talk Talk records and now works with Held By Trees, Joseph embarked on a successful recruiting drive. The results were first heard in 2021 on the Next to Silence EP. The band’s debut album, Solace, arrived a year later and a second studio album is imminent.
From the start, Joseph was upfront about drawing direct inspiration from Talk Talk, who dissolved as a band in 1991 after making their final album, Laughing Stock. “I thought, OK, how does one frame this? Do you just put the music out there wearing its influences on its sleeve? Or is the more honouring approach to be very transparent about this being an active, respectful homage – not a tribute, but seeking to carry on the approach with a similar cast?”
When the post-Phil Lynott touring version of Thin Lizzy discussed releasing new material, guitarist Scott Gorham faced a similar conundrum. “You can’t go up against history,” says Gorham. “Every Thin Lizzy album I played or wrote on was with Phil Lynott, so the only thing to do was start a new band with a brand new name.” In 2012, Gorham formed Black Star Riders with other ex-members as a vehicle for “the next step in the evolution of the Thin Lizzy story”.
House of All, meanwhile, was formed by Martin Bramah, who co-founded the Fall with Mark E Smith in 1976. House of All’s core members comprise four more ex-Fall troupers: Steve Hanley, Paul Hanley, Pete Greenway and Si Wolstencroft. The third album, due early next year, features the band’s former drummer Karl Burns.
Bramah co-wrote and played on the first Fall album, Live at the Witch Trials, before leaving in 1979, weary of Smith’s autocratic behaviour. He rejoined in 1989 but was fired a year later. After a “respectful” moratorium following Smith’s death in 2018, Bramah resolved “to pull together some of the key figures from the Fall’s long history and try to recreate some of the more spontaneous working methods we experimented with”.
For these bands, following the original working methods is key. Three tracks on the next Held By Trees album were “entirely composed in the moment”, says Joseph. “Absolute spontaneity.”
Bramah, meanwhile, states: “We weren’t trying to sound like the Fall, it’s a natural byproduct of the discipline imposed by working quickly with spontaneity. To make up for the lack of Mark’s dictatorial attitude, the pressure came from the fact that we didn’t rehearse before we went into the studio, or have any material written. It was just: get a sound, press record, start playing. Perhaps when we were younger we needed the uncompromising discipline that Mark brought to the table. Maybe we don’t need the teacher in the room now.”
The response from Fall fans, who comprise most of their fanbase, has been positive. The estate of Mark E Smith has been less effusive. “They were very wary of us using Mark’s name or the Fall, but we try not to step on their toes,” says Bramah. “We’re not calling ourselves the Fall or doing Fall songs, but there’s an inevitable crossover. Mark captured the zeitgeist of his generation as a cultural figure within alternative music. El culto de fanáticos que rodea a Mark Hollis y Talk Talk, a veces se siente francamente opresivo. Mayormente ignorados en su lanzamiento, sus álbumes posteriores ahora son considerados textos sagrados. “El seguimiento de Talk Talk es apasionado”, dice Joseph. “La gente los ama profundamente a ellos y a Mark. Uno o dos comentarios que he visto en línea no estaban seguros acerca de Held By Trees, pero el 99.9% de las interacciones han sido positivas. Si hubiéramos dicho, ‘Somos la reencarnación de Talk Talk, hemos hecho Spirit of Eden Pt 2’, habríamos recibido una gran cantidad de críticas, con razón”.
“Si la gente se molesta por esto, solo sería porque hubo un ligero malentendido de lo que estamos tratando de hacer”, agrega Hollis. “Disfruto esos discos como los álbumes fantásticos que son, creados con tanta determinación, integridad y compromiso. Esas son las únicas cosas importantes cuando haces música, y si realmente puedes empujar los límites mientras lo haces, eso es increíble. Si estuviéramos tratando de recrearlos, sería totalmente imposible y completamente inútil. Eso ni siquiera se acerca a lo que estamos haciendo”.
La participación de un Hollis en Held By Trees refuerza el aire de integridad artística. Por su parte, cualquier escepticismo personal de Hollis fue disipado por la calidad de las personas involucradas. “Laurence me enseñó piano y era amigo de la familia”, dice Hollis. “Jugaba al golf con él y mi papá, y siempre lo respeté enormemente. Es un pianista increíble. Conocía a Robbie McIntosh desde hace mucho tiempo, y luego, simplemente hablando con Dave, fue obvio que realmente entendía la música. Inicialmente, no hubo ninguna discusión sobre la posibilidad de hacer música juntos. Simplemente nos juntamos como amigos. Luego me dijo que estaba trabajando en Brixton, y yo vivo cerca. Me invitó, me senté en el piano, y simplemente funcionó”.
Para las tres bandas, el progreso a largo plazo implica alejarse de sus influencias formativas. Black Star Riders ha lanzado cinco álbumes de material original; el último, Wrong Side of Paradise, fue lanzado en 2023 y llegó al número 6 en el Reino Unido. “Inicialmente la gente lo llamaba Lizzy Jr”, dice Scott Gorham. “Entiendo eso. Se necesitaron los próximos álbumes para mantenernos por nuestras propias cuentas. Hasta cierto punto, fuimos exitosos: hacer nuevo material nos hizo sentir viables”.
Bramah dice que House of All está “en ascenso y evolucionando. Tenemos gente nueva entrando en la mezcla, que era la idea original: ser un proyecto de puertas abiertas para ex miembros de The Fall. El nuevo álbum es fácilmente el mejor que hemos hecho”.
David Joseph señala que las influencias musicales de Held By Trees van desde Pink Floyd hasta Swans; el bluesman Eric Bibb ha grabado con la banda. “No debe ser un truco de un solo golpe imitando a Talk Talk. Musicalmente, hay diferencias muy claras. No podemos esquivar honestamente preguntas sobre linaje y ADN, pero hay una tensión entre eso y la necesidad de que se sostenga o caiga por la música, no solo la historia. Al final, se trata de si esta música resuena o no con la gente de una manera verdadera”.
Held By Trees está de gira a partir del 15 de noviembre y el EP Lay Your Troubles Down ya está disponible. House of All lanzará Gaudy Pop Sensations, una colección de sesiones de la BBC, el 28 de noviembre.