Sally album artwork.

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The Chicago indie-punk outfit HOLSMAN, led by Ryan Holsman and Dan Tinkler, released their debut full-length album Sally on August 28. Taking three years to produce, Sally plays as a concept album following two survivors of abusive childhoods as they learn to build an adult relationship without any guidance on how to. Holsman says, “The highs were really high, and the lows were really low.” He states that things got “messy,” and the album tells the story from different perspectives, exploring how gender shapes the experiences of the two characters.

“I wanted to write a love letter to my favorite bands… as a kid I listened to a lot of ’60s rock too, and I think it’s actually pretty apt to say combining those two influences gets you a record like this one,” Holsman says. The album serves as the intersection of HOLSMAN’S two biggest reference points: the bruised, big-chorus punk of The Menzingers and Against Me!, and the loose, hook-first songcraft of 1960s pop. All in all, it’s a Chicago record, built as a tribute to the city’slong-running punk lineage. Ultimately, the music helps with the message of getting honest about things. “I wrote this record to assure other people who are in the thick of it that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Photo Credit: Tom Oberski

Accompanying Sally, the band shared their new single and video for  “Perfect! Thank You!,” which shines with the same caustic angst that runs through the record, paired with a music video riffing on the Warhol classic in which a camera watches the pop artist eat Burger King. “The Warhol tie-in is there because the song itself is pretty artsy and weird,” Holsman explains. He shares the project had to be done in complete isolation with no witnesses, but Krystal Eldman accompanied on the song, serving as another voice for the call-and-response feel. But Holsman admits, Dan Tinkler, the bass contributor on the album, put more into the record than I have. He’s been pivotal since they first met in 2016: “There isn’t another person on the planet I trust more than this dude.”

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