John Christopher Holt started out writing songs and playing guitar at the age of 14 with his first high school band, Thin Ice – which interestingly enough, also featured notable songwriter and recording artist Rob Giles. Thin Ice went on to win their high school Battle of the Bands two years in a row, and released two EPs and a full-length record called Desiderata, before disbanding in 1991. Later that year, Chris moved to Norman, Oklahoma, to attend the University of Oklahoma. Over the next three years, he would play guitar, bass, and keyboards in a variety of local bands, including Love Bomb, The Revolvers, Holt and Carbrey, and Bullfrog.

At the end of 1994, the 21-year-old Holt ditched school, entered the studio, and recorded half a dozen of his own original songs, followed by another six at the beginning of 1995, after moving back to Dallas. Producing and playing all the instruments himself, it was his first real attempt at making a solo album, and singing his own songs. Unfortunately, he ran out of money during mixing, and these recordings have never been officially released. They are currently locked away in the Holt vault, though it is believed that a handful of bootleg tapes and discs of the High Anxiety/Naturally Amused sessions exist…somewhere.

In early 1995, Chris Holt met James Ashcroft, by random chance through an ad in the Dallas Observer, and the two would spend the next four years writing and playing together with the band Walter Mitty. Mitty was a four-piece progressive rock band, who released two albums - 1998’s Walter Mitty and 1999’s Live At The Curtain Club. Mitty’s high-energy, diverse style of rock helped them build a solid, loyal following in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. But by early 1999, the band members all lived in different cities, and it wasn’t long before they permanently disbanded in the summer of 1999. Following that split, Holt immediately went to work putting together a new band, which soon became Olospo.

Olospo featured the same four-piece instrumentation, and a similar sound to Walter Mitty, so it was easy for them - Holt, drummer Tom Bridwell, bassist Nick Ramirez, and keyboardist Britt Morris - to pick up where Mitty left off, and jump right in with both a familiar feel and a new direction. Within a couple years, Olospo had drawn in the old fans and greatly expanded their loyal new fanbase with a wide variety of eclectic original and quirky cover songs. The Spo (as fans call them) released two studio albums (2001’s Herbal Tea and 2003’s This Is The Pagoda) and a live one (2003’s Live at Dada), while building up a massive repertoire of nearly 200 songs. After a year of touring nationally, during which they played over a hundred shows, Olospo temporarily split up at the end of 2003, desperately in need of a break. But the band got back together a few months later and played a series of shows in 2004 to overwhelming success, only without the extensive touring.

During this time, Chris began working on a solo record with Tom Bridwell, who was now an engineer at Last Beat Studios in Dallas, where both of Olospo’s studio records were made. With Tom engineering and Chris playing all the instruments, the two recorded nearly 30 songs, often during odd hours. The recordings happened off and on throughout the summer of 2004, and the mixing continued into the winter. By the end of the year, the two were putting the finishing touches on Holt’s first official solo album, whittled down to a single disc and fittingly titled Summer Reverb.

Over the course of 2004 and 2005, Chris gradually became one of the busiest musicians in Dallas, playing with bands such as Sorta, Jones Thing, The Lonelies, Olospo, Rahim Quazi, Salim Nourallah, Petty Theft, Hard Night’s Day (a multiple-award-winning Beatles tribute band that Holt was a full-time member of from ’97 to ’03), and Chris Holt’s Jukebox (a three-piece cover band that also plays Holt originals, who were nominated for a Dallas Observer music award after only being together two months). He also continued performing weekly “request-heavy” acoustic shows…all while assembling a six-piece solo band, The Egos, to promote the upcoming album, and starting a brand-new band called The Slack.

In May of 2005, Chris released Summer Reverb and was honored as the Musician Of The Year at the Dallas Observer Music Awards. He is currently promoting his eleven-song solo debut with The Egos, and preparing for a variety of upcoming recording projects, with The Slack, The Lonelies, and Olospo. By year’s end, Chris hopes to get back into the studio with Tom and begin work on the follow-up to Summer Reverb, to be released in 2006.

If you would like further knowledge, check out the Holt Musical Family Tree