“The Hold” by Dave Cavalier

When it comes to his music, Dave Cavalier leaves everything on the table. His music is raucous, unfiltered and always just a moment away from spinning out of control, as expressed in the memorable intensity of a live show that can finish with Cavalier’s fingers bleeding from guitar playing.

His passionate approach has made him a favourite of the music press around the world, and has allowed him to get involved with a litany of collaborators, and have his music featured in a variety of television shows and ads from huge companies like Peugeot and Best Buy.

Often, Cavalier has shied away from putting all of his personal issues into his music, but no longer – his new tune, “The Hold”, is a confessional next step for the singer. It’s a song that comes in with intensity and keeps taking it up from there , a raucous rock tune belying real emotion as Cavalier expresses the torment and anguish of suffering from addiction. There’s an intriguing vulnerability in the song’s brashness, showing how clearly Cavalier has found rock music as the medium for his message.

On the song, Cavalier says, “The Hold” can just as easily be about a deteriorating relationship somebody reluctantly just can’t shake, but for me personally, it was a pretty literal depiction of my difficulty overcoming substance abuse. As I prepared for the birth of my first child in 2021, I knew I needed to evolve to become the father and husband I’d always hoped to be. “The Hold” is about the tension in between: knowing you need to be better but struggling to find your way in the process and being fearful of if you’ll ever get to the other side. There’s confusion, anger, persistence, failure and revival. At its core, it’s a battle and that chaos is what I hoped to capture with this track, which became the cornerstone of an album that, as a whole, chronicled my journey into the next chapter of my life.