ROAD MACHINES
“I BECAME HELLBENT ON PLAYING MUSIC FROM A YOUNG AGE”
As riffmeister general with soulful US hard-rock sensations Rival Sons, Scott Holiday makes no apologies about loving guitars and gear. If you’ve seen the multiple Grammy-nominated band play live – and if you haven’t, you should – you’ll doubtless have noticed the frequent guitar changes, labyrinthine pedalboard and wall of Orange and Supro amps from which Holiday generates the colossal rock tones emanating from stage left.
Guitar.com last sat down with Scott Holiday and Sons’ frontman Jay Buchanan on a press tour in London, prior to the release of their 2019 LP, Feral Roots. When Scott was kind enough to invite us to his California home to get a forensic look at his guitar collection, it was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Holiday is based just a few blocks away from the spray of the surf on the famous Huntington Beach, and he grew up nearby. Before we start digging into his outrageous array of boutique hot-rods, offsets and vintage pieces, it’s time to find out how his obsession with the guitar began.
FAMILY SOUNDS
“There’s no musicians really in my family, but I had one uncle that played and recorded,” Holiday recalls. “He was living with my grandma still, and I could hear a bunch of music going on. It was way too loud, all coming out of this bedroom. And I popped the door open – and this was the 80s ’cause I was a real little kid – and he had a whole electronic drum kit set up, big octagon pads. He had a full mixing console in there, an eight-track or something, reel-to-reel. He had a guitar on, he had the harmonica thing… he had a whole bunch of doodads!
“I remember walking in and going, ‘Oh my gosh! How do you use those things?’ And he explained it to me, and I remember being really mesmerised. I was really young, but it was a lasting impression.”
Holiday also attributes his fascination with music in general to his parents: “They were really young parents and they partied a lot when I was young. It all revolved around music. Tonnes of rock’n’ roll,
