Holiday Sidewinder

Holiday Sidewinder Carmen-Sparks is an Australian-born indie pop singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. She was the founding lead singer of Bridezilla (2005–13). After that group disbanded Sidewinder relocated to England to start her solo career. Her debut album, Forever or Whatever, appeared in October 2019. Sidewinder was born on 21 December 1990 and raised in Sydney. Her mother, Lo Carmen, is a country soul singer-songwriter and actor, originally from Adelaide; while her step-father, Aden Young is a Canadian-Australian actor. Carmen and Young have had two other children. Her father, Jeremy Sparks, Carmen's then-partner, was a film set constructor and later worked as an engineer on the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony (2000), festivals and large public artworks (including Halo). In October 2019 she reflected on her upbringing, "I was raised by a colourful family completely entrenched in the entertainment industry; a complex group of eccentric individuals. My mother was a teenage actress who sang in bands, my dad was a set builder. My mother left my father for a wonderful woman (who was a singer). They raised me in the red light district of Darlinghurst in the 90s." Sidewinder's stepmother is Australian actress Claudia Karvan. Since living together, Karvan and Sparks have had two other children. For secondary education, she attended Newtown High School of the Performing Arts and recalled working on music with a friend, "when we were 13 and both playing guitar, we started a band called Bridezilla." Her grandfather, musician Peter Head, provided the band's name. Sidewinder, on lead vocals and guitar, formed Bridezilla in Sydney in 2005 with Josh Bush on drums, Pia May Courtley on lead guitar, Millie Hall on saxophone and keyboards, and Daisy Tulley on violin. Bush was a childhood friend, while Courtley, Hall and Tulley all attended her high school. They gained local popularity and were signed to Ivy League Records in 2007, and with Inertia Recordings by 2009. The group played festivals and opened for the Dirty Three, John Cale (of the Velvet Underground), Wilco, Stephen Malkmus (Pavement), the Drones, Interpol, and Sia. Nick Cave selected them to play at the All Tomorrows Parties Festival which he curated in Australia. They released a five-track self-titled extended play (November 2007), a vinyl split single shared with the Tren Brothers (2019) and a sole full-length studio album, The First Dance (October 2009). The album was co-produced by Mark Kramer and Chris Townend. Their original material was co-written by all five members; Courtley explained to Louise McClean of The Blackmail, "Our song writing style has changed so much since the EP and that natural progression to a more sophisticated platforms equals more hard work. An album's such a vast playing field and there's much more room for vulnerabilities, strengths and weaknesses to show themselves. I think the personality of a band really comes to the fore." In 2010 the band went into hiatus for two years before resuming in mid-2012, they announced their imminent separation in December of that year and played their last show in the following month. In October 2009 Sidewinder appeared on Season 7, Episode 93 of SBS-TV's music quiz and trivia show, RocKwiz. She performed a duet with Andrew Stockdale (of Wolfmother) on Stevie Nicks and Don Henley's 1981 song, "Leather & Lace". Since then she has re-appeared on the show and also joined RocKwiz live tours. From March to June 2010 on such a tour, she was recorded on solo cover versions of "Time" and "The Boat That I Row", and a duet with Dave Faulkner on "Pale Blue Eyes" on the album, RocKwiz National Tour 2010. Another duet was with Glenn Richards on "Just Like Christmas", which was broadcast for the RocKwiz 2009 Christmas Special in December of that year, but it was not released until 2011 as part of The RocKwiz Christmas Album. Her duet with Stockdale was issued on a DVD, Rockwiz Duets. With a Little Help from Our Friends. Volume IV, in 2014. On 15 August 2014, Personal Best Records (co-owned by Josh Beagley [her uncle] and Mike Di Francesco), issued a single, "Born on the Wind", as her collaboration with PBO (the label's in-house production team), which was also the label's first release. It was co-written by Sidewinder, Beagley and Di Francesco. She described her inspiration for the lyrics, "I'd just been given a ring from grandmother that my grandfather had given to her in 1966 inscribed with 'born on the wind, by the wrath of the sea, under the sky's infinity'. So I imagined their romance where they would go on long drives in Western Australia and gave myself some poetic license... I think my grandfather romantically summated her character pretty well." Nic Kelly of project u described the track, "a dance-pop gem that sounds like it could easily fit on a Crystal Fighters album or maybe even a Van She one." She was the featured vocalist on the track, "Girl", by Stay Bless in 2015. On 25 January 2016 she appeared on Jeremy Dylan's podcast, My Favorite Album, and talked about Bob Dylan's Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. She had met Bob Dylan and Booker T. Jones, who plays bass guitar on that album. From 2017 to 2019 she was a touring member of Australian musician Alex Cameron's backing band. She provided keyboards and vocals live on Pitchfork's performance and interview series, Juan's Basement. and performed live with the Killers. Holiday contributed a cover version of Darlene Love and Phil Spector's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" to Valentine Recording Presents: A Christmas Miracle (23 December 2018); a collaborative benefit album by various artists for victims of that year's California Wildfires with other contributions from Cameron, Mac Demarco, Jack Ladder, Kirin J. Callinan and Weyes Blood. She is a guest vocalist on Callinan's album, Return to Center (June 2019), on the tracks "Life is Life" and "You Weren't in Love with Me", (for which she produced the accompanying music video, starring Andie MacDowell). Fred Nicolson of The A List described the latter track, "[her] harmonies in the chorus are lush and add to the track's overall appeal." She is a vocalist on Cameron's third studio album, Miami Memory (September 2019), for the tracks "Miami Memory", "Step-Dad" and "Divorce". Sidewinder relocated to London in late 2012 to pursue a solo pop career; she briefly returned to Bridezilla for their final dates. She told Zac Bayly of Oyster magazine in August 2014, "The allure for me with pop music: it's universal and it shows that we're all human, that we all have these common feelings despite age, race, socio-economic backgrounds and all that. Pop is genuine. Although lots of pop songs are definitely calculated, there's something about the chemistry of them that gets a reaction from so many people." She explained why she left Bridezilla, "working with a team can be limiting, you know? In a group it's such a democracy and you're working towards a common goal and whatever, but everything's so laboured. This has been really quite emancipating for me." In March 2014 she independently released a single, "Carousel", written with Mike Chapman (Blondie's producer) and shot the accompanying video on the Brighton Pier with choreographer Holly Blakey. Pop Justice premiered the track, with a contributor saying, "it sounds both completely demented and extremely brilliant." Robin Murray of Clash stated, "There's a sense of classicism here, in the way that Holiday can reconstitute languid, widescreen pop into something thrillingly new." Australian singer-songwriter Sia tweeted about the single, revealing that she used to babysit Sidewinder. The Hairpin's Jia Tolentino wrote, "I read somewhere that having Sia Furler as your babysitter means that you are contractually obligated to produce great pop music for the rest of your life, which explains this new single from Holiday Sidewinder, very much a kooky, cotton-candy, retro-dream-pop jam." In March 2015