Jolie Holland freaking out the folkies

Jolie Holland says her sexy songs don't fit in with the nicey nice folk scene.

Jolie Holland has a thing for freaking folks out. Sometimes they're Hollywood stars. Sometimes they're folky kind of folks.

It just goes with the territory of having a voice like that - an old world warble seemingly beamed in from dusty corners of American music history.

And singing songs like that - variously ghostly, earthy, melancholy numbers - you can see why Nick Cave and Tom Waits are fans.

And the Houston-raised, San Francisco-based singer-songwriter has been doing it now for a few years with a string of well-received albums and enough international touring to bring her back to New Zealand for a second time on the back of third offering Springtime Can Kill You.

Holland can also be heard on Rogue's Gallery - the new star-studded compilation of pirate songs and shanties - singing the naval lament The Grey Funnel Line.

And that, says Holland on the phone from Brisbane, is what caused one of the aforementioned stars to go a little spare.

It was when Brett Gurewitz, the boss of her label, Anti, played a track off Holland's second album Escondida to a certain screen pirate who became "executive producer" on the collection.

"He played it for Johnny Depp and Johnny Depp freaked out - he played Mad Tom of Bedlam for Johnny and he made a point of telling me over and over again how much Johnny Depp freaked out when he heard my voice."

Er, in a good way? "Yeah, yeah he loved it. So that was really charming to hear."

So far as freaking out the folk-folks go ... well that story comes up after a discussion about the wide range of ages of people who come see Holland live, which leads into a discussion about the 60s folk screen satire A Mighty Wind.

"See I watched that and like I didn't even get the jokes really because I didn't know what they were talking about. I had never seen that kind of a world really."

Holland remembers an event she once played in Kentucky, a gathering of ye olde traditional folk fans.

"One thing that makes my music not fit into the nicey nice folk scene is that the subject matter is pretty intense and a lot of the stuff is on the explicitly sexy side.

"At the Kentucky thing I had to do these really short songs, so I picked my shortest song which was new and it's got a couple of sleazy lines in it, and the guy that was hosting the show invited all these kids up on the stage before I did my song and I was so mortified ... but I had to do the song. It was sort of the like the Marx Brothers - you had to know what I was talking about. But if you don't it just slips right over your head."

New album Springtime Can Kill You is a fuller-bodied sound than Holland's previous outings, care of a big line-up of supporting players mostly drawn from the San Francisco music community she's long been a part of.

"One of the problems I see with the records is I haven't been able to get the energy of the live show on there. I get really self-conscious in the studio and it ends up going to a quieter level."

But live, Holland, who plays fiddle, guitar and piano on stage as well as singing and is touring with a drummer and guitarist, says she prefers stand-up rock venues to sit-down affairs.

Though there are traces of blues, folk, jazz and country in her intimate albums - "in America I'm in the rock section. I don't know what section I am in elsewhere."

Who: Jolie Holland, San Francisco singer-songwriter
Born: Houston, Texas, 1975
Albums: Catalpa (2002); Escondida (2005) Springtime Can Kill You (2006)
Performing: Kings Arms, Newton, Wednesday, August 23