Meet Benji Holmes | Bassist for Underground Springhouse / Environmental Steward / Dog – Lover / Gemini

We had the good fortune of connecting with Benji Holmes and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Benji, what is the most important factor behind your success?
I think the most important factor behind the success of Springhouse is the free flowing of ideas in the group. Idea suppression is a huge no-no in our group and we try to welcome all new suggestions or modifications whether it be in the music or any other type of realm regarding our decision making process.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We self-described Underground Springhouse as a “hype-chill-rock-funk” group simply for the vagueness of the term. I don’t think anybody in the group wants to be described as a specific genre just because we all pull from so many influences that we don’t want to be boxed. I did hear one person describe us as “beach-rock” which I thought was kind of cool. I think what I’m most excited in this group is the platform we’ve each been given to express our creativity, something that all of us have dreamed about since a young age. I think it’s so cool when an idea you wrote in your room in the late night can be brought to your friends and then all of a sudden heard by thousands of people across the world just months later. I think something that sets us apart is the friendship we’ve each had before starting the group. Most of us have been friends for quite a while, Charlie, Andrew and I actually went to the same elementary school. Establishing a relationship as friends before bandmates has kept us tight as well as allowed us to communicate better as musicians. We’ve also been playing together for about 8 years now so we can pretty much anticipate who’s going to do what in a musical setting. Another thing is being college students in a town that appreciates and supports music like no other. We’re so grateful for the town and people in Athens, GA and we have nothing but the utmost respect for the groups who have come before us. This town has definitely made our musical journey a lot more gratifying and allowed us to be put in positions that catalyze our growth and knowledge as musicians. A couple lessons we learned on the way is always be grateful for the people who love your music and at no point will we ever be too big to stop and have a conversation with anyone who wants to talk to you. We’re all still relatively new to this as well so it’s always so cool when someone recognizes you around and is like “Hey I saw you at so and so ya’ll jam!” That’s always so cool to us. One more lesson is to aggressively accept all ideas thrown out by each member of the group. There are definitely challenges to that as a six-person group and we’re still working on perfecting it, but as a creative entity ideas are the only thing we have and to suppress those would do nothing but negatively impact the success of the group. Something I want the world to know about who we are is that we’re just a bunch of college kids who want to make everyone that comes to a show have a good time & boogie.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oh this a good one, there’s never a shortage of things to do in Athens. I would say if this was a week long trip and my best friend was visiting, I’d definitely have to take them longboarding or biking along the greenways in Athens. You could definitely get a good 2-3 hour long roundtrip if you map it out correctly. Then I would have to take them to Creature Comforts downtown to grab a beer (Paradiso’s are my personal favorite). After that I would give them a tour around the downtown area, definitely have to have them check out Wuxtry Records and some cool thrift shops like Dynamite and Cillies. In terms of grub my personal favorite spot downtown is Clocked, amazing burgers shout out to them, the Meteor Burger is my favorite easy. Once the sun starts to set and if there were a show downtown, I’d definitely have to take them to the 40 Watt or the Georgia Theatre. Before the “panny” I would like to just send it downtown and blind buy a ticket no matter who was playing just to listen to some live music. In terms of night life I personally like to go places with pool tables so definitely Nowhere Bar, or Cutters. I’ve recently become a big fan of AllGood too. Of course I have to shoutout my man Zach at Silver Dollar he always takes care of the Springhouse guys when we show up. I could definitely continue this but it would end up being a thesis so other activites we’d end up doing is showing them a tour of UGA’s campus, checking out the Botanical Gardens, live music nights at Boars Head, day drinking at Southern Brewing Company and definitely grubbing out at Dawg-Gone (best bbq in Athens).

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d love to give a massive shoutout to my parents who have always been equally as excited about my dreams and passions as I am and who support me in every endeavor I go through in life.

Website: undergroundspringhouse.com

Instagram: @undergroundspringhouse, my personal is @benjiiholmes

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-f-holmes-iii-998083a5/

Twitter: uspringhouse

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/undergroundspringhouse

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdDcUP8J8yWe4nfXv8NeZSQ

Other: Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/artist/4v4aFPF4LTWeZOR5agOPMt?si=3y4LewD-Tt69Dn9xngxJQQ Apple Music – https://music.apple.com/us/artist/underground-springhouse/1444560099

Image Credits
@kannwallerphotography @1insouth @nicholasjudephotography