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People inherently need to complain; it's part of the human experience. And that's cool. If you're not challenging your own status quo, you're creatively stagnant and therefore you're not growing within your art form and that is a direction, a road, that I'm not interested in going down.
-Ben Harper
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Photo by Jay Blakesberg
JamBase: What's the greatest thing you learned from The Blind Boys of Alabama?
Harper with The Blind Boys of Alabama |
Harper: If I'm pressed to just distinguish one, it would probably be their tireless energy in the studio and their enthusiasm to try different things, as well as a fearless abandon when it comes to just getting the take and not worrying about it. They just do it, and they nail it. It's not big overdubs, they just go in. Because they're from the school of where when you made records, you got one shot. When you come up for so many years having one take, when you've got a half-hour in the studio... They even come from the school where when you cut records, it's direct to disc. What's logged, what you're doing is going straight down, being cut on a lathe, and then the records are being pressed from there.
So when you come from the school of one take, it gives you a certain confidence in the studio, which I had really never seen in anyone before. It was incredible to watch that old-school fearless recording approach. Where it's not cerebral, they get out of the way of their heads and thoughts and go straight from the soul. So to witness that was a huge influence on how I make music.
JamBase: I think you have gone to another level with the way you use your voice.
Ben Harper by George Weiss |
Harper: That comes full-circle to your first question, "What does it mean to be a producer?" You have to be self-disciplined enough, if you're going to produce yourself, to push yourself to places that are uncomfortable and either land somewhere or work your way back from it."
Radio airplay hasn't been the key to Harper's success as much as massive word-of-mouth, excellent records, passionate performances, and a sound that changes. Someone told their friend about the amazing song they had heard, and they told their friends. Their parents liked it too. It has soul. Harper channels everyone from the Stones to Bob Dylan on this record.
Ben Harper is a fan's artist, a critic's artist, and an artist's artist. He achieved fame outside the United States before becoming one of our biggest touring acts with The Innocent Criminals. He has an intense presence onstage and a voice like velvet.
JamBase: Describe the role reversal, having your manager J.P. play drums on "Crying Won't Help You Know."
Ben Harper |
Harper: It was great to get him under the mic, so to speak.
JamBase: How many takes?
Harper: One take. On that track he plays bass, drum, guitar, and vocals.
Some days I'm the Lord's servant
Some days I'm Satan's pawn
Some days I just wish
The voices in my head were gone
JamBase: Obviously there is a duality to this album. Does everyone have two sides?
Harper: It's hard for me to answer for the masses, but I do think we're not one person all the time and I do think that I serve my different personal instincts through my musical leanings.
JamBase: I've argued with my friends about whether evil has to exist or if this world could be all light without darkness.
Ben Harper |
Harper: Good versus evil definitely plays itself out and personifies itself in our day-to-day realities, to different degrees with different people in different environments and different circumstances. The main thing with me on this record was... If I would have made a faster record with a couple of token slow songs, people would have said, "Oh, what happened to his soft stuff?" If I would have made an all slow record with a couple token fast songs, people would have said, "Oh, where's all his fast stuff?" If I make a double record, people are going to say, "Ooohhh, a double record." People inherently need to complain; it's part of the human experience. And that's cool. If you're not challenging your own status quo, you're creatively stagnant and therefore you're not growing within your art form and that is a direction, a road, that I'm not interested in going down.
JamBase: It's been exciting watching you become more of a showman over the years, leading the band instead of sitting in its midst.
Ben Harper by Pamela Martinez |
Harper: [Putting on a show] has its place, and people say, "Where are all the political songs?" Things have to come at their proper time. I'm not always going to sing songs that are politically charged. I'm not always going to sing love songs. I'm not always going to sing reggae music. I'm not always going to sing "Welcome to the Cruel World." I mean, I love Welcome to the Cruel World and Fight For Your Mind, but sonically, I'm in a different place. And I think it's a clearer musical place, quite frankly. I don't need to insult those records to build these records up, but I think if I put this record out first, and put Fight For Your Mind out now, people would have said, "What happened to Both Sides of the Gun?"
JamBase: What's with the fascination with guns?
Harper: I know, because I'm such an anti-gun cat. I don't believe that anyone should have them. I think in the long run, they'll probably be our own undoing, especially in America where we are the ass-end of gun control, but that's another story for another interview. In this case, the guns are just sort of a metaphor.
Living these days is making me nervous
Archaic doctrines no longer serve us
Now we're left as silent witnesses
We don't know quite what this is
Other than a war that can't be won
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