We’ve had a lot of different answers to that question, but no-one’s ever mentioned the library! Can you give us an example where that’s particularly helped? Writing Division Street, I was basically at the public library every day for three or four months. I go to libraries, actually! They’re quiet and you’ve got lots of reference books and sources of inspiration to hand, and going there gives me some structured time to sit down and write songs. Go away where? Do you have a specific place or time of day that you like to write? Then when that’s done, I’ll go away and write the lyrics. Then we’ll start recording, and keep developing the melodies, just with placekeeper lyrics. Then I’ll sit down with Pete and we’ll start piecing them together, bash through the structures, get a melody and tempo for each song, which takes about a week or so. All the time, I’m accumulating little structures and melodies on the guitar. Songs usually start with a melody for me. I’m quite a slow writer, especially when it comes to lyrics. But yeah: we did the first album, toured and promoted it for a year, and then started to write this one. Well, it was actually ready a year ago, but there were some hold-ups, with a change of management and stuff, which means it’s only coming out now ideally I’d have liked it only to be a two-year gap. The album’s been three years in the making. But the album got more sort of rocky as it went on… compared to Elliott Smith I’d say it’s less Beatles, more the Velvets and the Stones. But also because Tom mixed the first album as well, and that had worked really well… and because he’s right here in LA with his own studio, which is a lot more convenient than relocating to Nashville! The whole album was recorded at Tom’s house, in fact, except that Nikolai did some overdubs in New York.Īctually, I guess it’s fair to say yes, because I think when I started recording this album I had more of an Elliott Smith kind of feel in mind. Partly, yes, because I admired his work with Elliott Smith and Beck. Interesting you mention Elliott Smith… is that why you chose Tom Rothrock to produce Division Street? Whereas the first album, I’d say was more Byrds-y… Sweetheart Of The Rodeo especially. Psychedelia with anger! It’s the same thing I hear in Flaming Lips today, the same thing I heard in Elliott Smith. What I was trying to for with that song was… what I always liked about Love was their brand of psychedelia had kind of a menacing edge, it was a little bit mean. Actually the first song on the album, Veterans Parade, that did always kind of remind me of Love. Well both those bands have influenced me, certainly. It reminds us of Love in several places, and also at times of The Byrds… The new album is a more psychedelically-inclined offering than the first. And here’s what Harper had to tell us about it. Luckily, Division Street is a strong enough album not to need a back-story – however intriguing that back-story might have been! It also features an array of accomplished players that includes Nikolai Fraiture (The Strokes) on bass, and Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello & The Attractions) on drums. And that, as Rudyard Kipling once put it, was that.Īh well, never mind. “I’m not comfortable answering any questions that relate to members of my family,” we were told bluntly at the start of the interview. Naturally, we wanted to know if this marked a conscious effort on Harper’s part to move away from his father’s musical stomping grounds whether the new direction was perhaps the sound of him finding his own voice. For where his 2009 debut Harper Simon, recorded in Nashville, was a mostly acoustic album that drew on US folk and country music in a manner that left the listener not at all surprised to learn that Harper’s father’s name is Paul, Division Street is a more electrified affair that flirts with psychedelia and alt-rock. As he prepares to release his second album, we catch up with Harper Simon, a singer-songwriter with an illustrious pedigreeĪnding in stores on March 25 will be Division Street, the second album from Harper Simon, and one that marks something of a change in direction for the 40-year-old, LA-based singer-songwriter.
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