HOLIDAY IN THE SONS

With a new Rival Sons album in the charts, Scott Holiday is back in the spotlight following a four-year absence.

- JOE BOSSO

SCOTT HOLIDAY CALLS from his car while driving to a rehearsal with his band, Rival Sons. It's a long haul from his home in Huntington Beach to Hollywood, but he doesn't mind. "California's had a lot of rain recently," he says. "But right now the sky has opened up and it's beautiful out. I love it."

The guitarist is excited to play some of the new songs from the band's just-released album, Darkfighter (Atlantic) in preparation for what could be a year's worth of road work. "We tracked all of the songs in the studio, but now we're going to play them straight through as a band for the first time," he says. "They take on a whole new identity when you're not in recording mode, and when you play them for an audience they become a whole different animal."

It's been four years since the hard-charging classic rock enthusiasts released new music, but Holiday and his mates - singer Jay Buchanan, bassist Dave Beste and drummer Michael Miley - are rewarding their fans' patience with not one, but two albums: Darkfighter (produced, as always, by the band's studio main man, Dave Cobb) will be followed later this year with an already recorded companion disc, Lightbringer. "The first album is part of the story, and the second one, while a bit different, is the continuation," Holiday explains. "We wanted people to easily digest the new songs, so it made sense to split them up on separate albums. If you have an hour of music on a record, it causes fatigue for the listener."