Act name: Holly Jenkinson, from Bolton

When and where did you start performing?
I started playing guitar when I was about 13. My dad plays guitar and he was playing a song called Streets of London, by Ralph McTell which I loved and straight away asked if he could teach it me. From then on, I just spent months in my room learning Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift songs, as much as I hate to admit that — haha. As my music taste matured though, I took a lot of interest in lyrics and started writing my own songs and playing seriously, doing gigs when I started college.

What is your sound and who are your influences?
My main influence is probably Gabrielle Aplin. She was supporting Matt Cardle at a gig I was watching once and I had never heard of her but fell in love with her music. It was just her and her guitar and you could hear a pin drop in that place and I knew then that that’s what I wanted to do. From then on I started to listen to a lot of similar artists like Hudson Taylor, Orla Gartland and Lewis Watson, which are all mainly folk musicians so I would say I mainly play folk. I got really into The Libertines, Babyshambles and Pete Doherty though towards the end of last year and, since then, they have influenced how I write songs a lot.

What is the biggest gig you have played to date?
The biggest gig I've played is either The Night and Day Café in Manchester or Sound Control in Manchester. I haven’t been doing gigs for very long though so I mainly play local small pubs.

If you are not already, is it your ambition to become professional?
I would absolutely love to become a professional. It would be brilliant. I would just be over the moon with one random person knowing the words to one of my own songs.


Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
In 10 years I hope to be doing gigs with a bit of a band, that would be brilliant. I love playing on my own but it’s so much more fun playing with other people. It would also be good to write with other people and create bigger songs. The main dream is to have people singing lyrics that I've wrote, It makes me so happy even when my friends do it and that’s only because they have to hear the same songs every week, bless them — haha.

Is there anything unusual or interesting about you?
I cover a few rap songs occasionally and sing them as emotional acoustic songs, haha, like Get Low by Lil John and Move B**** by Ludacris, as bad as that sounds it always goes down well after a few drinks, although covering Sexy and I Know It in a church whilst the elders were having afternoon tea didn’t go down quite as well.