This Brook Runs Deep

Not long ago, Mazomanie native Holly Brook was performing around town. Now, she’s moved to Los Angeles and her debut CD, Like Blood Like Honey, has critics raving. It’s quite an accomplishment for someone who’s not yet 21.

By Kristin Erickson

The last time I saw Holly Brook was in 1998. She was a 12-year-old sprite with a pixie haircut, and she and her mother, Candy Kreitlow, were on stage at Madison’s Kids’ Expo, singing their hearts out. The two, whose band was called Generations, mesmerized the crowd with blended harmonies and clever rhythms. Brook was on dulcimer, Kreitlow on guitar, and their songs were soulful and true.

Eight years later, almost everything has changed. Granted, Brook still spends her time on stage, but these days, she’s the star of her own show. Kreitlow lives in Oregon state (having moved there from Mazomanie, where Brook grew up) and a few months ago, she was able to do something very few mothers ever do. She turned on “The Tonight Show” to watch her daughter sing and play the piano. With all due respect to the Kids’ Expo, appearing on Leno is one gargantuan step up. Holly Brook is on the fast road to stardom.

Not a child singer anymore

At age 20, Brook has become a classic beauty with a voice like an angel. Her debut CD, “Like Blood Like Honey,” has garnered rave reviews from numerous magazines, including People, whose reviewer awarded it three out of four stars and wrote, “she comes off more like Generation Y’s answer to Sarah McLachlan.”

Brook has also appeared as a guest artist with the band Fort Minor, fronted by Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, and it was their hit song “Where’d You Go?” that she performed on “The Tonight Show.” To her surprise, that same song was the recipient of the new “Ringtone of the Year” award given at the August 31 MTV Video Music Awards.

Yet while all of this is very impressive, it’s Brook’s solo album that’s causing insiders to take note.

We caught up with Brook by phone one evening in Brooklyn, N.Y. She and her band were traveling — via minivan — to their gig.

“We don’t get the big tour bus yet,” she said with a laugh.

Hitting the road

It’s been four years since Brook dropped out of high school to move to Los Angeles and pursue her music career, a move she’s never regretted.

“I always knew music was what I wanted to do,” she says. Brook felt strongly that in order to achieve her goals, she needed to be on the West Coast, where the action was.

“I knew that Madison was a great place to learn but I didn’t have the resources [I needed],” she says. “There was only so far I could go.”
Brook’s is not the story of overnight success. Although her mother supported her decision to take the plunge, (“I wasn’t shocked at all — not one bit,” Kreitlow says), it was difficult to move to a city where she knew almost no one. The comforts of home were no longer within reach, and everything around her seemed foreign.

“It was definitely hard for a while,” Brook admits. “I was living in a sketchy situation — I only knew my pseudo manager, but he introduced me to Jon.”

The Jon she’s referring to is renowned music producer Jon Ingoldsby, who’s worked with everyone from Madonna and Rikki Lee Jones to Elton John.

The artist and producer hit it off immediately, so well that he became a partner of sorts, writing nearly half the tracks on the album he eventually produced.

“He’s stuck with me since that day,” says Brook. Ingoldsby helped Brook develop her style by supporting her desire to produce an album that wasn’t “over-processed.”

To wit: If you were to listen to some of today’s hottest stars without the synthesizers, layering and reverb added to their recordings, many of their voices would be unrecognizable. Not so with Brook. Singing alone in a room with no amplification (as she recently did at ANEW’s office — more about that later) Brook sounds exactly as she does on her finished product: pure, with an impressive range.

Brook also differs from the majority of young artists who sing about hooking up, partying and similarly “deep” subjects by touching on more introspective topics in her songs. She’s written meaningful lyrics that belie her age and explores subject matter including love, loss, drugs, alcohol and depression. But this is not a dark album by any means. Instead, it’s uplifting, and as the last track is played, the portrait of a young woman who knows where she’s going emerges. As Star magazine’s reviewer says, “her hard, country-tinged harmonies display impressive depth and introspection.” That depth seems to be just what the listening public has been missing.

Music is all in the family

We reached Candy Kreitlow at home in Oregon, when she and husband Pete Bauer are both artists. Kreitlow is a textile artist and together, the two create sculptures out of wood they gather from beaches on the Oregon coast.

Music has been an essential part of Kreitlow’s life from the time she was young. When she became a mother of two young girls (Brook’s sister Tiffany is 23), she recognized that both of her children were musically inclined.

“Tiffany is musical with an amazing voice,” says Kreitlow. “But when she was young, she was afraid to perform.” Brook, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to get on stage. “She wanted to perform since day one,” explains her mom. Kreitlow understood that feeling well.

“I was so shy at the age of 8 that my mother put me in a drama class because I wouldn’t talk to anybody,” she says. It was in class that Kreitlow blossomed. If she could pretend to be someone else, all was well, she says. “Then I became keenly interested in folk music and began singing and playing out when I was about 12.” Looking at Kreitlow’s lineage, it’s easy to locate the family’s performing gene.

“My grandmother on my mom’s side is a gifted opera singer and actress in England. And on my dad’s side, there’s crazy stuff. My cousin is also a folk musician but the crazy part is that my dad had a really distant relative named Albert Nelson who was almost considered a freak. He actually built — and played — 32 instruments at the same time! He even performed at the World’s Fair in 1933 but insisted he be labeled as ‘genius’ instead of ‘freak.’”

Brook’s father, Gene Hafermann (Brook changed her last name from Hafermann to Brook, which is her middle name, when she moved to L.A.) is also musically gifted. In fact, Kreitlow and Hafermann met while they were both members of UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Singers.

“Her dad has a beautiful voice,” Kreitlow says.

Given that history, it’s not surprising that another generation was soon performing.

Brook and Kreitlow’s band, aptly named Generations, began when Holly was about 5, Kreitlow says. “We performed a few times in Mazomanie, but then we had our first paid gig thanks to Trudy Barash, owner of the Canterbury Bookstore downtown.”

For the next decade, mother and daughter played around town and beyond. They also began collaborating with some of Madison’s best-known musicians.

Kreitlow and Brook count Randy Green, Ken Lonnquist, Jeff Eckles, Leo Sidran and Katie Waldren (a singer who plays the hammer dulcimer and performs alongside Kreitlow under the name “Heartwood”) as influences. “Katie is such a prolific songwriter,” says Kreitlow. “She was a big influence on Holly.” Also influential were Jan Mangin, Brook’s piano teacher, and Spring Green musical director Jan Swenson.

As the years passed, Brook taught herself to play instrument after instrument, as did her mother.

“I play everything I can get my hands on,” Kreitlow says now. “Holly is the same way. She started with piano but is pretty good on guitar. And she’s learning [to play the] cello.”

This mother/daughter team became so close over the years that when it came time to go their own ways musically, it was almost too much to bear. Still, both agree that as Brook reached adulthood, it was a necessary transition.

“We got so close because we totally understood each other musically,” says Kreitlow. “It was sometimes hard to draw the line between mother and daughter. Age doesn’t matter when you’re talking music.”

Brook agrees that saying goodbye to Generations wasn’t easy. She found it especially difficult to get used to performing without her mother by her side.

“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” she admits. “I don’t have my mom to rely on anymore.” Then she laughs, adding, “If I make a mistake, she can’t cover for me.”

On her own

In reality, Holly Brook rarely needs a cover. Even a veteran artist like Ingoldsby — who goes on the road with Brook and plays in her band — sings her praises.

“Holly is fully capable,” he says.

Of meeting Brook, Ingoldsby says, “I was just going to spend an hour with her because I meet so many new artists that I might work with on one level or another. I put aside an hour for Holly and we ended up spending a whole afternoon together.”

He, too, was struck by the purity of her voice.

“She played this one song that was a demo and I just loved how natural she was,” he explains. “[Her sound is] effortless, interesting and quirky.”

Making music

Brook loves songwriting, but says the time it takes her to write a song varies considerably.

“Some can take 10 minutes, but I still have songs in the works from three years ago,” she says. “I’ll start writing and get stuck. Then I’ll call Jon and say, ‘Help me finish this song!’”

Ingoldsby is modest about his role in Brook’s success.

“I only help if she asks for it,” he says.
These days, Ingoldsby works almost exclusively with Brook.

“I want the music industry to sign more artists like Holly,” he says. “It’s nice to promote the real artist again. There’s a lot of crap out there. I like people who have a vision of their own.”

Although Brook didn’t get a record deal until 2004, when Linkin Park signed her to their label, Machine Shop Recordings, there were enough positive signs in her career to keep Brook going.

“I never really felt that things were going wrong,” she admits. “It was a slow but gradual up-slope.”

Did she ever think that moving to L.A. might have been a mistake?

“Never. I never thought of going back or asked myself if I was doing the right thing.”

Back in Wisconsin

Recently, Brook and her hometown entourage — Ingoldsby, sister Tiffany and Tiffany’s boyfriend, TJ Versace — visited ANEW’s west side office.
Brook was in Madison to attend her father’s wedding, where she and her sister sang.

Without makeup, Brook looks like she’s 14. She’s funny, warm and engaging. Her sister is also lovely and makes music here in Madison, recently singing on the soundtrack of “Side Effects,” the Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau movie featured in ANEW’s August 2006 cover story.

Ingoldsby is delightful and clearly enamored of his collaborator (the two have recently become an item) and Versace is hilarious. During their visit, they seemed to have all the time in the world to hang out and play dress-up with ANEW’s photographer, art director and stylists.

When she’s home in Los Angeles, however, her entourage is a bit more exacting. “I have a publicist, an agent, a manager, a business manager, a lawyer, a bunch of different label reps,” she says with a sigh. Considering that a year ago, “I had no idea what a record deal was; I just wanted to play music,” Brook has come a long way.

Meeting one audience at a time

These days, Brook spends much of her time looking out the window of a minivan. She’s touring from New York to L.A., and hasd for Duncan Sheik and Daniel Powter, the singer whose hit song, “Bad Day,” was stuck in the heads of many “American Idol” fans for days after each show was over. In August 2006, Brook alsod for kd lang.

Eventually, life on the road may get tiring, but for now, Brook is enjoying the ride.

“Touring is really fun because you get in a different head space,” she says. “But I don’t think I could do it for too long a time. I need to see my cat.”

Said cat, named Uma, lives with Brook in the top half of the home she rents in Los Angeles.

Hopes for her music

Five years down the line, Brook hopes to be immersed in the music business.

“I would love to score films and have my own record company,” she says. “But then, I might get into air traffic control, or else I’ll be a pilot because I like planes.”

What?!

Apparently, her desire to direct the skies is an offshoot of her desire to take charge.

“You have to control what people are doing in the sky. It’s your responsibility to keep planes from hitting each other,” she explains.

Does that mean Holly Brook is a control freak? Absolutely. “And I’m not afraid to admit it,” she say, laughing. That’s especially true when it comes to her music. “I started compromising at first and always ended up not being happy.”

Future dreams

Although Brook insists she’s not star-struck, she admits there’s one person she’d love to meet: her idol, singer Joni Mitchell. “I’ve been one person away from meeting her,” she says, referring to an engineer she knew whose brother frames Mitchell’s artwork.

“You mean you have her number?” Brook says she asked him.

Brook also admits she got a bit flustered when she found out that Paul McCartney was recording in a studio next to hers. Of exchanging pleasantries with Sir Paul, she admits, “That was kind of weird.”

One thing Brook is sure about is that she doesn’t want to grow old.

“People tell me I’m an old soul but I love being young,” she says. “I was depressed when I turned 20! I wanted to be a teenager forever. Being young at heart is the key.”

Brook may be young — at heart and in reality — but her songs tell a different story. The title song of “Like Blood Like Honey” tells of a deep, passionate love. “It’s about love being thick … like blood, like honey,” she explains. “When you picture that image, it gives you a visual that’s provoking and deep. My songs are very emotional and rich.”

As is the woman who brings them to life.

For more on Holly Brook, visit www.hollybrookmusic.com. To learn more about Generations and Heartwood, or to purchase their CDs, visit www.heartwoodproductions.com/generations.html.