New York’s Hollis Brown is masterful in their approach to American roots music, with the band drawing from rock ‘n’ roll, soul, country, and a bit of blues. Hollis Brown inhabits these musical forms with a surprising degree of naturalness given their youth and they look to become a seminal figure in the thriving and growing Americana scene. The band’s latest release, Cluster of Pearls, released last Record Store Day and now they have a brand new single to share, the uber soulful, deeply moving “Don’t Want to Miss You”, which channels some Otis Redding and Gram Parsons, as well as the heartbreak from a painful breakup.
Singer/guitarist Mike Montalli, says, “I wrote the lyrics for “Don’t Want to Miss You” in high school when my first girlfriend dumped me for an older kid. It was the first and only real time my heart got broken. The funny thing is, a year or so later, she would call me to talk about how her new boyfriend didn’t care about her. She probably felt guilty or something. So I guess things come around back to us all eventually. At least we got a song out of it.
“The song is very R&B, which is a style of music we all love. I’m a huge Otis Redding fan—he’s one of my favorite voices. I even named my dog after him, so we were really going for it on this one. There’s something about how Otis’ voice is so strong and so delicate at the same time. He has so much hurt in his voice. And his band was always on point on those Stax recordings. They interact perfectly together, and really capture the emotion of the song.”
“While we were recording ‘Don’t Want to Miss You’, I remember being really happy about having a standout bridge. And that the song works both compositionally, as well as on pure feeling. It’s a hard balance sometimes.”