Declan McKenna, Vlad Holiday

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Vlad Holiday sitting on some stairs.

Vlad Holiday

media release: Officially underway, Romania-born, Nashville-based melancholy romantic Vlad Holiday is joining Declan McKenna on his North American tour. After playing 9 dates together, Holiday will mix in a few headline shows of his own.

On November 15, Holiday will release his debut album My Favorite Drug. After releasing music for years, he never envisioned himself wanting to release a full-length album. But as he worked on the songs that now build out My Favorite Drug, the threads that held a larger story together couldn’t be ignored. Already off of the LP, he has released the sultry “I Don’t Wanna Party Anymore” featuring Kacey Musgraves and “Closer” which was co-written by Cage The Elephant’s Matt Shultz. 

Ahead of the upcoming dates supporting Declan McKenna, Holiday made his Austin City Limits debut and wrapped up a summer tour with Cage The Elephant, Young The Giant and Bakar, where he was praised for transporting listeners to a trance-like dream.

Vlad Holiday has made a career of romanticizing the past, the human condition, and looking at love and relationships through dark-tinted lenses. With downtempo crooner tracks all tinged with melancholy, Holiday has built a sonic world of his own that tries to find comfort in accepting the darker moments in life. Having gained over 40 million streams as a completely independent artist, it seems as if he’s resonating with a subculture of people that are also trying to do the same. 

Born in Bucharest, Romania, later having to flee to New York, and now based in Nashville, Holiday’s sound is heavily shaped by the weight of feeling like an outsider always on the move. Building the foundation of his music career with a downtown NYC lo-fi sound, he’s deeply indebted to his love for vintage microphones, tape machines and other old recording equipment; key elements of his signature sound and production style. 

Now in Nashville, there’s an optimism to Holiday’s current chapter as he builds out his next body of work while collaborating with other artists in Music City. Most recently, he co-wrote Cage The Elephant’s “Neon Pill,” “Metaverse” and “Over Your Shoulder” before being joined by Kacey Musgraves on “I Don’t Wanna Party Anymore.” Ahead of his headline tour dates this summer, he joined Cage The Elephant on the road for their Neon Pill Tour. However bright the current moment may be, flecks of Holiday’s past always steep his music in a darkness that shows that he is a human in the middle of his journey.