Nick Harper in Conversation - Nick Harper Interview

Nick Harper in Conversation - Nick Harper Interview

Photo By:Jennie Lewis

Interview

When I reach tonight’s venue, ‘The Maze’ in Nottingham, the barman tells me that Nick is mid-sound-check and shows me to the back room where raised voices are gathering microphones and amplifiers at cross purposes. With no support and no band, a sound check for Nick and his guitar should be a thing of simplicity: the unfolding chaos feels like a ‘Battle of the Bands’ gig after a hurricane.

In the midst of this electronic moving day, Nick takes his instrument, relaxes onto a bench and begins to pick out flurries of notes that sound partly flamenco, partly Argentinean, but mostly unique. After a few minutes he switches into the percussive playing style that’s become something of a signature. In the dimly lit venue it is staccato beat over surrounding bedlam that holds my attention.

At a pause in the sound check, U2’s ‘With or Without You’ can be heard floating through from the bar next door. As the song dives into its power instrumental, Nick, still plugged in, begins threading a delicate melody through the soaring chords. It’s a definite improvement.

After the venue’s acoustics have been bested, I introduce myself. The first thing Nick asks is that we can do the interview with him lying down – and he’s serious enough to try being horizontal and comfortable on a pub seat. Having driven down from Glasgow that day he’s unsurprisingly tired – he eventually settles for a seat near the stage and I start to ask about his songwriting. A good proportion of his songs have political leanings, his stories concentrating on the human aspects of beliefs and principals. I ask whether his inspirations are reactive or come from long periods of reflection.

“Both,” he answers, “but mainly reactive. I read a story or see something. I like heroes and villains because it’s about people more than ideology for me. People can relate more easily to that. I’m not a deep philosophical thinker; I know when something gets my back up and I know when someone’s doing their best. I like to write stories about people who’ve done good things. Evo Morales, Joseph Williamson, people like that.”

Both could be described as socialist heroes, with aspects of philanthropy and social justice common to very different lives. “I think stories like theirs need to be known by people to inspire them, let them know that people are doing good things out there - it’s not all take, take, take.”

Through this, an enthusiasm has crept into his voice, but he suddenly stops and briefly looks like a man who’s been traveling for six hours. I ask how he passes the time when driving, “I sing usually, if I’m on my own – if I’m thinking about lyrics or poems, normal stuff.” Has he ever considered public transport? “I’ve got too much gear for that. Well, not so much now.” He appears to be warming to the idea, “I suppose you can drift off on the train, let your mind wander – not so good to drift off while you’re driving!”

We’re interrupted by a member of the door staff who asks Nick if they can open the doors, “Yeah, sure – are there hordes of people?” Unsurprisingly, there are quite a lot – he has a dedicated following. I ask if he’s ever mobbed by fans. “Not really, most are pretty cool.” He thinks for a moment. “They see me on stage and know that that’s me, there’s no mystery or mystique – some people get obsessive, which puts you off a bit. But not as many as Robbie Williams gets, I guess…” But it has happened? “Yeah, you get people who are interested in my Dad [Roy Harper], as well, so they want to talk about him, because their closest contact to him is through me. I understand that, but it gets a bit boring, you know?”

At this point the P.A. in the venue begins playing more U2. ‘That’s going to ruin things isn’t it,” he says, indicating the black box that’s recording us. “Shall we go back?” he says and leads the way out through the rear of the venue. Nick remembers a green room upstairs; he’s played here before, but after finding a beer cellar and a room that could be a DIY job in progress (“That’s not the dressing room.”) we settle in a concrete walled space between fire doors. Lifestyle of the rich and famous? I ask. He seems entirely unbothered, just a smile and “Oh – the glamour!”

“How do you like the more glamorous venues” I ask. He considers and then replies, “I sang at the Albert Hall when I was eight with - that man again - my Dad. I always had the ambition to go back there and sing my own songs. There’s a rumor that that might happen for me this year.” His eyes flick towards the ceiling for a moment while he ponders, then “Every gig’s special because it’s unique, you connect with people in a way you might not be expecting. If the venue’s glamorous or big or special, the gig can be subdued because of the pressure. Some of the best gigs I play in a chapel on the Isle of Aaron to fifty people without a P.A., and those are really magical moments.”

“It’s all about connection and expression of the songs that make a special night I played at the City Varieties in Leeds the other night – a beautiful theatre with gilded seats, like stepping back in time. A great place to play and, as it turns out, a great gig. But it’s not generally the auspicious venues that create the special gigs.”

Watching Nick later on stage reinforces the feeling that he’s at his best when he establishes a connection with the audience. Along way from the remote ‘star’, he seems to genuinely enjoy the presence of other people – the sharing of a musical experience.

I ask if he goes to other peoples gigs. “I go out for a living, so I do go to the occasional gig but it’s usually a mate or someone I’ve worked with in the past. If I’m playing a festival I’ll go round and check out the people I want to check out, so I get to see quite a few people over the course of a year, on the quiet, without being a gig-goer.”

With covering quite a lot of the country, he must get a sense of the regional differences between audiences; I ask if he has a favorite: “There are certain gigs I go to where the reaction is great and I know I’m going to enjoy it. I can rely on a hardcore of people who I think are the same sort – they always have something I can relate to and that might be the passion and fire of Glasgow or Liverpool or the slightly more – how do I say this - perhaps tongue in cheek audiences of Brighton or London, but there are people everywhere that you can connect with. There’s a guy who comes to gigs in the East Midlands here, a really funny guy, he lifts the whole gig, ‘cause I can talk to him and we have a right old laugh. There isn’t a region that I most identify with. I know it’s a trend that port cities tend to have the most passionate people in them, who might be open to other cultures and music being swapped around. For obvious historical reason – maybe that’ll fade over time. Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin and New York all have a similar feel to them.”

I mention listening to his warm-up and wonder about the world influences I thought I detected in his playing. Do they come from anywhere in particular? He’s surprisingly direct, “No.” before elaborating. “I’m totally self taught – I never had lessons, I can’t do anything by the book – it’s by my book - which has both set me free and held me back a little because I can’t read music and I sometimes find it difficult. I can’t pick up a piece of music and learn it. The way I learn is I hear something by accident and think ‘oh, that’s good’, and three days later I’ll say ‘how did that go again?’, and I’ll play my version of it – which is totally wrong, but it gives everything I do my unique take on things.”

I mention that I’d read in a past interview that he had intentions to write choral music at some point. “I’d love to do all that stuff!” Would he ever consider learning theory? “I’d find my own way through it – I’d write it and record it and get someone else to write it up. I just don’t think I’ve got the time to force my brain to learn this new language now. I’m bad enough at French...”

“I’d rather get stuck into the music, see if it made sense, and give it to an expert to turn into dots for people to sing. I’d like to try it one day, but life seems to get in the way of a lot of ambitions…”

I wonder if having a family has affected that side of things and ask if he has become less or more ambitious. “Hmm…” he considers for a few moments, “your perspective changes, your parameters change, your purpose changes. I’ve always had the ambition to write songs that move people and…that hasn’t changed at all. I feel as energised and positive and fired up about that as I always was. But earning a living, that creeps into it. When you’re on the dole and learning to write songs all you’re thinking about is you and your songs but when you’ve got a house and two kids and a family, your reasons and your purposes change. It’s not about that any more which is a shame in a way, you can’t be one hundred percent a musician, but in another way you relate to how people live in the world more easily so that makes you a more complete human being which makes you a more complete artist to express life in the twenty-first century.”

I ask about his perceptions of other people’s work, and if they’ve changed as he has become older. He is unambiguous, “Music is subjective, you can only interpret it through your own experiences. I respect songwriters who don’t explain their songs, who leave it up to you. I tend to stand up there and explain myself because I think I should do it, it’s how I make a show, it’s how I make it entertaining.

“Music changes as you change – having said that, some of the iconic moments in my musical listening past are still there and still resonant now. I suppose you have a nostalgic affection which I suppose clouds things – but there’s not much that I was listening to 20 years ago that I wouldn’t listen to now and not feel similar emotions – good music shouldn’t really sit into a time.” He considers, and then adds, “Although some great music is off its time.”

The afterthought, and the way he has been discussing and concisely concluding my questions prompts me to say that in some ways he is very easy to interview. He interjects, “Because I just rabbit on?” which is happily true: he’s an entertaining speaker.

I ask if the traveling means he loses a sense of place. “Yeah, though it’s not as bad as the night Chris Difford [of Squeeze] landed in Scotland from America on tour and went on stage and said ‘Great to be back in England again!’ – which didn’t go down to well…” Has he ever made any similar faux pas? “Yeah – I make a fool of myself on a regular basis” he replies, with a smile and no hesitation, “but one I can remember, I used to take the piss out of myself by going into small bars with not many people in them and going “Good Evening Worcester!” to the two or three people there. I did that in Londonderry, well, as we call it here – over there it’s called Derry, and I went on stage with my tongue in my cheek, not even thinking and yelled ‘good evening Londonderry!’ and a hush went round the room and it was like “Oh F**k” – you’re not in Londonderry, you’re in Derry you great f**king berk – so every now and then you make some horrible errors!”

“I feel quite comfortable where I am, I go up and down, my moods – some days you do things on stage and you think ‘what am I doing stood here, why is it me?, you know, stuff like that, and then you get on with the gig and it’s fine, most days I just walk on and think here we go again, this is fun – I like this, and if someone starts taking the piss I can take it – I’m not too sensitive, I’m probably more sensitive off stage than on it – so yeah, I don’t have that problem, and the more you do the easier it gets.”

Is there a risk that it gets too easy? I ask, “What, complacency? Not with me, no.” I believe him. “I might walk on and feel confident, but I don’t feel that I’ve earned anything before I’ve done it. I don’t feel, you know, ‘Look out, here I come. I’m a star…you underlings’. Like I said earlier, why is it me? I just happen to be the one up there who’s spouting bollocks and singing the odd song. It could be anyone – if they put the time in. I really believe that everyone’s got something to offer…”

I suggest that there must be a degree of natural talent. “People say that, I don’t know – you look at me walking on stage feeling confident and it looks like it’s a natural thing – but it’s not, I’ve learnt how to be confident. So you learn how to play guitar, you learn how to sing, you learn how to write songs, so I think it’s mostly skill, with maybe 5% talent on top.” And a lot of practice? ”Yeah, hard graft, putting the hours in and experience.”

I ask if that experience came from a lot of time playing guitar by himself (“Yeah,”) and if with the amount of gigging he does whether he can still spend half and hour playing guitar for his own enjoyment. “To be honest with you,” he says, “not as much as I did – I only really get it when I’m writing, that’s where I get the enjoyment from. I don’t just sit in the garden and twiddle around aimlessly and think ooh, that sounded lovely – it’s got to have a purpose and a goal and a song at the end of it and that’s where I get my enjoyment from.”

His P.R. agent opens the fire doors in our makeshift interview room and mentions that Nick’s due on stage soon; I wonder if he has any last words. “Yeah, just don’t panic, hang loose and smile at each other – for f**ks sake.” Even in a sound check? “Definitely.”

James Thomson

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