VIDEOS: Drinkwater paints colourful picture for Holy Holy's second album

The expressionist artist has always painted in silence. Simply listening to the electric hum of the lights in the room. The brush strokes on the canvas. His feet shuffling along the floor as he feverishly constructs his creation.

The silence was broken two weeks ago at his Mayfield studio when Drinkwater painted on camera for the That Message music video, the latest single by indie rock band Holy Holy. It was first stage in a four-part video series to promote Holy Holy’s second album Paint, released on Friday.

Drinkwater has curated the project entitled Painting To Paint, which also features his wife Lottie Consalvo and other artists Ben Kenning and Chris Horder, bringing to life Holy Holy’s music visually.

“It was something I’m never done, so it was something very interesting to do,” Drinkwater says of painting for That Message’s video.

“I think you see colour and space when you listen to music like that. It’s how you respond to a landscape for example.

“For me, it wasn’t much different from sitting in the western desert looking at the MacDonnell Ranges and trees. Their music has a very landscape feel to it, it’s very sonically-layered and it meanders at a beautiful pulse.”

Dawson was at the Mayfield studio to overview filming and was amazed by Drinkwater’s work, which he describes as “controlled chaos.”

“He’s such a gem,” Dawson says. “He does more than you could ever expect or want from someone. He’s an amazing artist and his personality is almost a part of his art as well. We’re really lucky to do something like this with him.”

The pair met almost 10 years ago in Melbourne when Drinkwater sang and played rhythm guitar in the band Dirty Pink Jeans and toured with Dawson’s former group The Dukes of Windsor. After quitting music and returning to art, Drinkwater moved to Berlin where Dukes Of Windsor had also relocated.

“We used to drink beer and play ping pong and visit each other’s studios,” Drinkwater says. “There’s been a mutual admiration and respect artistically over the years.”

Further bonds were forged when Dawson married fellow musician Ali Barter, who is an old school friend of Consalvo.

During the writing of the record Dawson and Holy Holy vocalist and rhythm guitarist Tim Carroll developed a paint concept, inspired by the dense and layered experimentation of their songs.

Both felt an abstract piece of art was required for the album cover and Dawson instantly thought of his old friend.

Drinkwater, who won the 2014 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, gave the pair a series of works for consideration. A striking painting inspired by Drinkwater’s travels in southern France was subsequently chosen for the cover. 

“He already had the painting, but I felt it and his style summed up what I hoped we were trying to do,” Dawson says.

Paint is a sonically dense record. The success of Holy Holy’s 2015 debut When The Storms Would Come, its singles You Cannot Call For Love Like A Dog, History and A Heroine and their blistering live shows made them one of the most exciting bands on the Australian indie scene.

There was big pressure within the camp to keep the momentum on an upward trajectory. That meant moving beyond the band’s established folk-rock territory. 

Holy Holy added synths, prog rock theatrics and psychedelic elements to create a colourful abstract work on Paint, much like Drinkwater’s art. But Carroll did not forgo his melodic hooks, as opening singles Darwinism and Elevator would attest. 

“There were definitely a couple of times last year when we were working on the record where we were questioning each other and ourselves if we were doing the right thing on certain songs,” Dawson says. “I was asking, ‘what if this isn’t the right sound, what if we alienate our fans or alienate each other’?

“We tried some ideas and over the month some of the ones I didn’t think were Holy Holy ideas, they became Holy Holy ideas. If you know what your band is before the fact, you’re not giving it a chance to become what it is.”