Los Angeles-based Holy Wars have crafted a diverse sound that fuses elements of punk, metal, rock and hip-hop with pop melodies, which they describe as “genre blurring, high energy and packed with a ton of emotion.”
The duo of Connecticut-born Kat Leon and Las Vegas-hailing Nick Perez met at the Musicians Institute music school in LA. They started out writing music for TV and film trailers, but it wasn’t until 2017 that they’d start creating music as a band, ignited by the loss of Kat’s parents.
Kat and Nick began writing as a way of dealing with grief, crafting songs about overcoming death and the rebirth that would follow. This inspired their debut single Back To Life and a message that led to the band name, based on religion destroying Kat’s family.
And on the sound they’ve crafted, they tell us: “It doesn’t fit in a one size fits all box. It really is blurring genres and it’s worth checking out the whole catalogue because there probably is a song in there for everyone.”
Our latest taste of this is their slightly cyberpunky new single Deus Ex Machina, which was released at the end of last month. It opens up with Kat’s whispery vocals then screamed lyrics give way to menacing stabbing guitars and a twisting electronic sound. That gives way to Kat’s fast-paced vocals, which drop into an engaging but edgy chorus “My mind, ghost in machine, a God, It writes the scene and I play the part, I lost control over my head, It’s gonna tear you to shreds. More spoken vocals drop into another rapped verse supported by plodding guitars and wild noises. And a second chorus gives way to more heavy noises to bring the track to an end.
On the track, the band tell us: “The response has been great and the video has definitely shocked some of our fans keeping them guessing on what’s coming next. Deus Ex Machina is a hard song to define, purposely written that way with its genre and tempo-shifting track, blending frantic spoken word and a sing-a-long pop leaning chorus of self-reflected lyrics that makes us question if our brain’s narrative is telling a truthful story.” Check it out in the video here:
If you like the sound of that, then there’s plenty more music to dig your teeth into, including the debut album Eat It Up Spit It Out, which was released last year, a couple of EPs and a lot of singles. We particularly like the sound of last year’s raucous single My Drugs Are Digital, the superb Back To Life from their debut EP Mother Father, which you can check out in the video below, and the huge 21st Century Bitch, which is from the debut album and has amassed more than 1.5 million streams on Spotify.
The Holy Wars sound has been inspired by bands like Failure, Garbage, Rage Against The Machine, Bad Brains and more across the realms of alternative punk, metal and hip-hop.
And on what inspires them to write music, Kat tells us: “Lyrically, I always write from a personal place. It started about my personal loss but expanded to our society and how I feel about where we are headed. It is weaved with a high energy sound of riffs and flipping lyrical phrases but always comes from a raw and personal place.”
You can see Holy Wars touring across the US starting at the Louder Than Life festival in Louisville on 21 September then supporting UK band Wargasm in Anaheim on 4 October and at Aftershock in Sacramento on 5 October. More info on those gigs is here. After that, the duo plans to tour the UK next year, so we’ll keep our eyes out for that. And they tell us new music is definitely on the horizon.
You can follow Holy Wars on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, and check out their music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.
Listen to Holy Wars on our Spotify playlists GigRadar Metal and GigRadar Punk
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