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Big Ben

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Brian Wise talks to Ben Harper about his latest - and maybe greatest - album. From June Rhythms.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>It was an unusual Bluesfest in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Byron</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Bay</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> this year. Ben Harper had a new album out, was doing an Australian tour and yet was not headlining the festival that he had helped make <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s premier ‘roots music’ event.<o:p></o:p>

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When Harper first appeared at Bluesfest back in 1997 the event was struggling to establish itself. Without major sponsors and government funding (the support for so many other festivals), organisers took a punt on this relatively unknown but exciting and credible young singer/songwriter and their faith resulted in record crowds. <o:p></o:p>
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Harper’s appearance was probably the most important event in Bluesfest history. Rather than riding the crest of a roots music wave, the festival was helping to create it and was in its advance party. In the subsequent years other exciting additions to the line-ups made the festival the leader in its field. But Harper remains its favourite son.<o:p></o:p>
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The blues tree has many branches and Harper represents one of the strongest and most vibrant contemporary ones. When Harper last appeared at Bluesfest a few years ago, the demand for tickets was so strong that organisers declared Easter Monday to be Ben Harper Day and ticketed it separately. The sold out crowd was evidence of Harper’s popularity. <o:p></o:p>
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“What an honour to be associated to such depth with such an amazing festival and I’m coming back,” says Harper who adds that he hopes his absence this year is not seen by people as his ‘getting too big and burning his bridges.’<o:p></o:p>
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“There’s a lot of places I have to get to and only so much time to get to them,” he continues, “but I just want to make sure the BFestival knows that I’m looking forward to it. It’s a home to me and we’ve got to find a way to get me back there, I’ve got to find a way to get back there. It’s on my agenda.” He might have also added that his record company was keen for him to promote his new album in <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> before he started his tour in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region> and had scheduled some high profile appearances. <o:p></o:p>
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“Let me take this opportunity to thank you, Rhythms Magazine, Byron Bay Blues Festival and all of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region> for representing success in a place that speaks English - that had a huge resounding effect in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> and around the world. So I’m permanently indebted to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:place></st1:country-region>.”<o:p></o:p>
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Nowadays Bluesfest is well established as the nation’s premier event of its kind and Ben Harper is well on his way to becoming one of the world’s biggest acts. Not only that, he returns to Australia this month with his finest album to date – Both Sides Of The Gun, a focused and finely crafted masterpiece.<o:p></o:p>
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The album arrives three years after his last solo outing – Diamonds On The Inside – but also after a period of highly fertile activity – and not all of it working on his own recordings. In the past few years Harper has recorded, appeared on stage and won two Grammys with the Blind Boys of Alabama. He appeared in the Funk Brothers tribute film Standing In The Shadows and he recently recorded a reggae version of  The Beatles’ ‘Michelle’ for This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul and provided a song for Jack Johnson’s soundtrack for the film Curious George. He also found time to get married (to actress Laura Dern), start a family and record his own album. <o:p></o:p>
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Both Sides Of The Gun is Harper’s seventh album release and was recorded in three months with Harper producing and Danny Kalb (Beck et al) engineering. The double disc album shows the many facets of Harper’s musical personality - rock, soul, folk and funk.<o:p></o:p>
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When I caught up with Harper by phone he was at home in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:City> in the midst of promoting the new album and getting ready to tour. His mood seemed ebullient, to say the least – a man at peace with himself, happy and excited about the future. I have spoken to him when times have been harder, when he has been out on tour for months on end and sounded tired and admitted to being under pressure. But this is almost like talking to a new Ben Harper – energised and up for the game.  <o:p></o:p>
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We’re going to be seeing you here soon here with the band. How much time do you spend on the road?<o:p></o:p>
When there’s a record out I’m in the wind. It’s going to be old school. It’s a lot of touring and it’s challenging to be on the road. I find a way to be home away from the road. I find a way to isolate myself and have some downtime and to make that downtime count for the family.<o:p></o:p>
I keep a house in the region I grew up in - the Inland Empire, the desert region of southern <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>. So I have a place there and my kids and grandparents are all there, so we’re up there quite a bit, and I have a place in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:City> - because I could afford one basically since the early 90’s. My kids are in school and the whole band is in and around LA. So there’s a lot of rehearsing and a lot of business stuff that revolves around that city, so I do end up spending a majority of my time there.<o:p></o:p>
A lot of people talk about LA and <st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Hollywood Boulevard</st1:address></st1:Street> and the stars but, man, LA has got a deep rich history whether you’re into architecture or art or nature or the environment there’s a lot going on.<o:p></o:p>
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I was going to say congratulations on the new double album but I read that you said it’s not really a double album as such.<o:p></o:p>
I’m okay with double album as much as it just an A and a B or different moods on the physical record. So that constitutes the album being double.<o:p></o:p>
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It’s like an album where you flip it over from side to side  - like vinyl.<o:p></o:p>
Well, a lot of people are putting out discs that are about that length these days. It’s a physical trend and I would rather do that but I would rather take a pay cut and make the creative statement I want to make and keep the price down on it.<o:p></o:p>
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There are two distinct sides to Ben Harper on it and, in fact, one disc is white and the other is black. Can you tell us about the whole concept behind that?<o:p></o:p>
There is a lot to that. There’s a lot to both sides of the gun - it’s a concept I’ve been wrestling with since I was a kid. It was a phrase my Dad said to me. The only thing he said to me about being of mixed races was….he looked me in the eye and said, ‘You’re going to have to get used to getting it from both sides of the gun. I said ‘Wow!” As a kid I really took that to heart and that’s culturally been my perspective since. <o:p></o:p>
So that always stayed with me and I knew that would make its way to a song at some point and I was able to apply it to a bigger message, hopefully, through the lyrics.<o:p></o:p>
It is about black and white: it is about seeing things diplomatically from both perspectives to gain a heightened level of clarity, to gain a heightened level of diplomacy, hopefully. It is about the tension that exists between black and white and up and down and good and evil - and trying to struggle through it to seek higher ground.<o:p></o:p>
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Certainly in the last six years there seems to be that disparity between the rich and the poor and the cutting back of the social services. It’s become a much starker contrast then it use to be I think.<o:p></o:p>
Yes, the poor have no representation and when the poor have no representation you see situations like <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Orleans</st1:place></st1:City>. Rich people don’t need governments. Why does a rich person need the government? I guess to fix a pothole that’s outside their house every once in a while. But poor people need government and they need government assistance and protection. <o:p></o:p>
In a country that is very boastful about what it claims to be, to let down its citizens to the depth that it did with Katrina is a representation of a much bigger problem that we have there at the moment - and that polarises the situation and also it goes in a lot of directions both sides of the gun. <o:p></o:p>
We have the worst hand gun control. We are the ass end of handguns in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> as far as being able to contain and control them. We have no reason to claim ourselves as being a superpower unless we can apply being a superpower to our own country and approach super problems with a super level of intelligence.<o:p></o:p>
We’re the laughing stock of the entire global community and it’s amazing how unclear <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> sees itself. I’m not un-American. I’m proud to be where I’m from and I represent it with every step and every breath but it’s my responsibility to challenge the status quo. Any administration and any culture that goes unchecked will be dangerously intoxicated with its own power.<o:p></o:p>
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You write about Hurricane Katrina in ‘Black Rain’ and it’s a very strong response to what happened and having been to <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Orleans</st1:place></st1:City>, the song really touched an emotional nerve with me too.<o:p></o:p>
Thank you for saying so. It’s the most honest song I’ll ever write <o:p></o:p>
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You obviously felt really strongly about it<o:p></o:p>
That’s just the beginning of it. It should be a 20-minute song really but I guess that would overstate the point - but I do, I still do. It’s was an unacceptable, undeniable event the way it went down. To me that’s absolutely reasons for impeachment for endangering human life. I can’t believe the man is still in office - I can’t believe it.<o:p></o:p>
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It’s the most political album that you’ve made so far and it would have been an interesting decision for you to do that because I know that in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> people don’t like musicians making political statements, do they?<o:p></o:p>
Well, you saw what happened with the Dixie Chicks, [who] lashed out against Bush and their fans got upset. If I stop lashing out against Bush my fans will get upset!<o:p></o:p>
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That’s true. On the song ‘Better Way’ you sing ‘reality is sharp, it cuts me like a knife’ and on the title track you also sing ‘living these days is making me nervous.’ Were you feeling nervous when you were writing the songs. Is that what inspired the songs?<o:p></o:p>
Yes, that’s just a direct response to how I’m connected or disconnected to culture and my community at the moment - being brutally honest about how I see my social circumstance and the social circumstance where I live.<o:p></o:p>
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The song, ‘Please Don’t Talk About Murder While I’m Eating,’ seems to me might be something that you might have written for a child, sitting there watching TV with your kids and all these horrible things come on. I guess being a parent gives you a different perspective on life doesn’t it?<o:p></o:p>
It does. All of a sudden you realise the assault that the media is on your senses and to the young people. It sort of rolls off your back like water to a duck until you have kids and you realise how much you don’t want them to see. You go into protection mode and realise that by the time your kid is seven or eight you can’t leave the paper on the table.<o:p></o:p>
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That must have been something that helped inspire your feelings for the songs on the album.<o:p></o:p>
Yes, definitely. We had an incident down here where some miners got trapped in a coalmine and somehow the media reported that everybody was alive and 5 minutes later they had to go back and tell everyone no, these people didn’t survive. They’re just so irresponsible with human life for the most part and that’s just a business - they’re just trying to get ratings so they’ve got to keep the music dramatic and the story scandalous.<o:p></o:p>
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It’s something that we’re all subjected to around the world - that constant media barrage.<o:p></o:p>
Yes. So I just said one night…..I was sitting at the dinner table and I had just had enough so I just said the phrase aloud and realised how even slightly humorous that could be taken as and it stuck with me enough to work itself into a melody.<o:p></o:p>
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I guess you’d find that personally as part of the media prying into your personal life as well but you seem to have managed to remain remarkably grounded, the last few years despite that.<o:p></o:p>
Thanks for saying so. None of that becomes me or part of me.<o:p></o:p>
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It must be hard having people photographing you all the time.<o:p></o:p>
That’s in there as well. I don’t want to be in the park playing with my kids on the jungle gym and having everybody know where my kid plays and at what park. Then I go to the park the next week and there’s 10 more people with camera. The lines have been crossed at this point and you’ve got to work around it.<o:p></o:p>
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I was really pleased to hear David Lindley guesting on the album because he’s someone who, to me, never seems to get the credit he deserves. I’m sure his playing of the Weissenborn, for example, on the guitars would have been an influence on you.<o:p></o:p>
David is probably the single most influential musician in my life - he and Taj Mahal.<o:p></o:p>
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Tell us about how you first heard him because he’s made some fantastic albums and played on some great albums by other people, of course.<o:p></o:p>
Well David was my neighbour. We grew up next to one another and my family owned the music store and he was one of the town’s greatest players and his daughter and I were best friends growing up. So in the summer when we would be out of school, his daughter and I would be partners when he would go on the road with <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Jackson</st1:place></st1:City> or his band. So I’ve been on the road since I was 7 or 8 years old because I’d go out on the road and Roseanne and I would keep each other company while David would play and I would be watching him intently. He’s like a surrogate dad to me, he knows it.<o:p></o:p>
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The fact that he plays so many instruments and the fact that you play so many instruments on the new album, there’s kind of a similarity there too isn’t there?<o:p></o:p>
There is. I love the drums and I love to make noise on the piano and bass and things but his sense of melody it’s from another time. He knew Earl Flatt and Lester Scruggs and all the great folk players and he’s got an Irish and Celtic thing going - he’s just got this mystical touch that you can’t repeat. He’s a phenomenon of nature.<o:p></o:p>
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The thing I love about his playing is that he never plays the same solo in the same place twice does he?<o:p></o:p>
No and I have a funny story. I was at dinner with Jackson Browne and <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Jackson</st1:place></st1:City> was telling me how he tried to get David to play that ‘Running On Empty’ solo again and David just looked at him like he was crazy.<o:p></o:p>
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He’s almost a jazz musician in that way, the ability to improvise and change things.<o:p></o:p>
Very much so. Very well put<o:p></o:p>
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It’s great to see you having him on this album because it’s a fine recognition.<o:p></o:p>
Thank you. He really lifts the song at the end with that Turkish tambour the whole thing just goes to another level - all of a sudden you’re at the top of the mountain getting the call. I’ve heard it on the radio a couple of times and its different. I like hearing it on the radio. It's an honour to have him on anything that I do.<o:p></o:p>
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You produced the album yourself and I guess you spend a lot of time in the studio working on it.<o:p></o:p>
It was 3 months all together – recorded and mixed. I think by industry standards that’s pretty short<o:p></o:p>
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Why did you decide to do it yourself? Do you find you need that to be in control?<o:p></o:p>
Here are the main reasons - and it has nothing to do with ego or control - although that would be the typical leaning for musicians who aren’t introspective enough to reach out for help. In my case it’s not that. It’s that I’m hearing the songs I’m writing with that mystical dimension of hearing them produced. When I’m writing the song I’m hearing how the song is crying to come out of me and I need to explore that to be sincere to myself – my song and my creative instincts. If I’m to bring in another producer it would be not only unfair to my creative instincts but unfair to them because they’re going to be equally as passionate about the songs I’m writing and they’re not going to apply what they’re feeling. I’m not going to expect them to short change their ideas and I’m not going to short change mine. I’m going to find myself making two records at once and you can see where that would bring out friction as well - and I just sidestep that whole process.<o:p></o:p>
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So who do you look for some objectivity, it must be hard to be objective when you’re producing yourself. It must be hard to stand outside it and listen to it.<o:p></o:p>
It would have been when I was younger, that’s why my first record I did just co-production then I let go of the reins for a while and had JP [Plunier] who’s produced great records with Jack Johnson. I gave him the reins and he did great work and production and I learnt a lot from watching all of that go down.<o:p></o:p>
I feel comfortable and confident coming into my own voice and finding that inner objectivity. I feel very clear in that. I have never been so clear in being able to push myself past myself. <o:p></o:p>
I’m not beyond calling someone up and saying do something with this song because I’m lost. I’ve done it before. I did it for two records and again I got out of being produced and I may go back there, this is not about ego, I’m just serving the music in the way that I think is going to bring it out the strongest and I imagine hearing a song like better way in the back of my head but not going to it giving it up to someone else letting them research that song imagine how it would have come out, so I’m just trying to serve how clearly I’m hearing the song.<o:p></o:p>
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I noticed some really nice little production touches on a song like grave invitation where you play all the instruments but you’ve got some interesting noises going on in the background.<o:p></o:p>
Thank you for noticing that - you’re the first one to comment on all the chaos in the background.<o:p></o:p>
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So it sounds like you had a bit of fun producing it too, being able to do that sort of thing.<o:p></o:p>
I’m having the time of my life and I’m looking forward to doing more in production with other groups. The Blind Boys really got me excited about production. So I’m looking to get in that seat more often.<o:p></o:p>
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That would be the highlight of any musician’s career wouldn’t it, working with the Blind Boys of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alabama</st1:place></st1:State>?<o:p></o:p>
You know it’s such a huge highlight that it sinks in by degrees. If that all hit me at once I’d be overcome. So year by year, week by week, month by month it gets cooler. It’s just ageing in a very fine way. They are of the highest accord, those men, they are certainly there on a whole other level then anyone else I’ve ever known in my life.<o:p></o:p>
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