New Houston Music Outlet sat down with Holiday Mountain front-woman, Laura Patino at 2016 Float Fest. She delved into some of her thoughts on sexualization of female artists and a culture that promotes that behavior. In this talk with Holiday Mountain, Laura goes into her upbringing, her Colorado roots, not being able to talk to her parents about “growing and changing”, as well as talks being labeled an “art fag” growing up.

“I’ve always inherently been kind of like weird or different in a way that in school people were like “Oh, we don’t know what to label you so we’ll call you an art fag.””- Laura Patiño

In talking about her influences, she told New Houston Music Outlet how when she was growing up it was a task to find female artists whose music she could relate to. “There’s a lot of female artists using their sexuality but in a way that you can’t tell if like a guy is just telling them to do it that way. Maybe it’s not one guy maybe it’s a whole society of people saying this is what a girl should look like, or act like, or this is how she’ll be sexy, or this is how she can sell stuff. I think that seemed really shallow to me when I was younger and it was challenging to find somebody who didn’t seem sort of lost in that.”

Later in the interview, the songstress states that it was for this very reason that she drew much of her inspirations early on from Punk music. She credits her top inspirations to be M.I.A, Billie Holiday, and Peaches. Attracted to these female powerhouses, she alludes to their strength, attitude, and authenticity being key factors of their appeal. Struggling with body image issues in youth, Laura stated that working out to M.I.A helped her to build a sense of inner strength. In her words, “Everybody will tell a girl what to do with her body. In one direction or the other, everybody thinks they’re entitled to share their opinion about it.”

“Everybody will tell a girl what to do with her body. In one direction or the other, everybody thinks they’re entitled to share their opinion about it.”- Laura Patino

In the interview, the “Bump that Bass” artist touches on societies use of labels and how she hopes to promote being different, thinking for yourself, and going against the grain. When asked what she wants listeners to take home from Holiday Mountain’s music, she stated, “That [you] can be weird and be strong and not have to look like anybody else or whatever it is, sound like anybody else. That that’s okay and if anything else that’s what the world needs. I think we need more people who know how they feel.”

Holiday Mountain will have a busy rest of the year with shows set for New York, Tulsa, Austin, and Houston to name a few of their stops. Get connected with the band online:

holidaymountainmusic.com