Jerome Holloway

May 07, 2010|By Andy Downing, Special to the Tribune

When Jerome Holloway started performing at local open mics in 2006, it came as a shock to virtually everyone around him — including his parents. Says the notoriously low-key Holloway: "Even my mom said, 'I didn't know he said much.'"

Growing up in a lively household in Kalamazoo, Mich., the singer-songwriter, who moved to Chicago almost six years ago, was pegged as the family introvert. "I came from a home where a lot of people are very gregarious, so there's not a lot of room to talk unless you beast your way in," he says. "So I would just sit back and take it all in."

While his siblings took after his mother — a naturally outgoing high school teacher who loved to sing gospel tunes while working around the house — Holloway says he adopted his father's more introspective personality. Indeed, when he was 8, his dad gave him his first journal as an outlet for recording his innermost thoughts and emotions. The singer conceived his debut album, "Matters of the Heart," in a similar manner. Songs like "It Breaks My Heart" and "Who Will Love Me," shaded by slight acoustic guitar ("Just enough to decorate what I'm singing," says Holloway), sound like hushed bedroom confessionals that were recorded with little thought that they might eventually be heard by the outside world.

That's kind of the sound I have — that in-your-room sound," says Holloway. "But at one point, it occurred to me that the songs were a living thing and they needed to interact with people. It's kind of my way of relating to others because I'm not likely to download all of my feelings into every conversation."

Holloway, 29, got his start in music playing drums as a child, though he didn't pick up a guitar for the first time until his mid-20s when he became obsessed with records by the likes of Damien Rice and D'Angelo. "Once I heard (D'Angelo's "Voodoo")," he says, "I started listening to music differently." Shortly thereafter, the thoughts he'd scrawled in his journal since childhood began morphing into songs. At that point, learning the guitar was just another natural step in the process. But even though Holloway has gradually gained confidence as a musician and performer, he still hasn't completely shaken his youthful insecurities. Asked why he's more comfortable pouring his emotions into songs than sharing them with others in day-to-day conversation, he says: "Sometimes I feel if I'm just talking about my problems … I'm just taking up people's time. (With music) it's kind of like 'Here's what I'm thinking … and maybe you'll like this song as well.'" - Chicago Tribune