Name Simon Holmes | ||
 | ||
Simon holmes 6 of 7
Simon Carter Holmes (28 March 1963 – 13 July 2017) was the singer and lead guitarist for the Australian 1980s band the Hummingbirds.
Contents
Biography
Holmes' childhood was spent in various places in a family of five, with his parents, Neville and Eve, an older sister, Kerith, and a younger brother, Rowan. Born in Mordialloc hospital, he lived with his family in Bentleigh, a suburb of Melbourne, before shifting to Turramurra, Sydney, spent most of 1967 there, before going overseas for three years, in upstate New York, where he started school at Myers Corner school. Then the family moved to Geneva, Switzerland.
He spent the next part of his childhood in Canberra, attending the AME School, an alternative education institution that ran from 1972 - the 1990s, and Hawker College. Simon moved to Sydney in the early 1980s. He started studying anthropology and archaeology at the University of Sydney, but left after two years, put off by the departmental in-fighting.
After this, he formed the Hummingbirds with bassist John Boyce and drummer Mark Temple in 1986. His musical influences include punk rock, psychedelia and new wave. In 1991 he had a son, Milo, with his partner Robyn St Clare Holmes.
In the 1990s he was involved in running the alternative culture and bookshop Half A Cow in Glebe in Sydney and also worked as a music retailer. By October 2004 he was a member of Her Name in Lights, which issued their debut album, Into the Light Again, on Laughing Outlaw Records. Holmes provided bass guitar, lead guitar, and pump organ; and also produced the album.
Holmes died in Sydney in July 2017, at the age of 54.