Phil Ashcroft talks to Harry Hess of Harem Scarem

With the excellent 'Weight Of The World' album in the can and ready to go, it was time to talk to Harem Scarem vocalist Harry Hess about the new album, how it all came together, and the advantages of not having a record deal with a major label.

Well Harry, how does it feel to have a European release looming after all these years?

"It's exciting because it feels that at least the people who are putting it out care about the record. We never really got that feeling with Harem Scarem records before, except from maybe Germany early on. As you probably know, in the last 6 or 7 years there's been nothing going on as far as anyone promoting our releases or getting behind them. Obviously it's great to know that it's going to be somewhat of a priority and the record company are excited about the music that we're doing, so in that respect it's great, and also the potential of coming over and playing is also great, so we're happy."

'Weight Of The World' seems to be a mixture of styles from previous albums and one or two new things. Was that intentional?

"No not really, we definitely set out to make a rock record that's for sure. Our production style is always big drums, big guitars, big backing vocals and we still tried to write the songs the same way we used to. We tried to write melodic songs, songs that had choruses and things of that nature so as far as the song-writing goes we didn't approach it too differently. It was the production style and things like that that dictated what happened. We've never been the kind of people who can force ourselves to do something, so it was naturally what came out once we'd decided to make a rock record again."

When we came to your studio in July you were working on lyrics. Are these songs all brand new?

"Oh yeah, they're all new. There's maybe one or two ideas that have been kicking around for a while but what you hear is about 95% brand new. There's one song, 'Charmed Life', that's maybe one and a half or two years old in the guitar riff idea and basic structure, but apart from that it was all written from June to September or October."

You said you worked really hard on this album. Were you not tempted to use any of your many previously unreleased songs?

"Well to be honest we really don't have any, there are only a couple that haven't come out somewhere and they weren't really applicable to what we were trying to do - it was mostly the basic stripped down Rubber type stuff. Any ideas like that we shied away from because we were trying to make a rock record with the guitar playing being more technical and the songs being based more on riff-rock kind of stuff. As you know the Rubber stuff was just about chord changes and not any intricate guitar playing or intricate song ideas, so we really had to start afresh, keeping the more technical aspects of Harem Scarem in mind."

Which songs on 'Weight Of The World' are your favourites?

"I think......'Outside Your Window' is probably my favourite."

That's my favourite too.

"Yeah? I like that one. I like 'If You' and 'Weight Of The World' and the ballad ['This Ain't Over'] as well. For me, I don't know if it's the same as anyone else just listening to it, but I judge the success of a song by how close it is to what we heard in our minds when we were writing it. When you're writing a song you have a vision of how it's going to turn out, and when it turns out like your vision you have a good feeling about the song. That's all I can say about those songs I just mentioned is that they turned out really well with respect to what my vision of them was."

Pete Lesperance and yourself together seem to be very prolific song-writers. How does it work? What's the process behind creating a Harem Scarem song?

"We've written probably over a hundred songs together - that's just the ones that have been recorded, and we don't really have many unused ideas because we've recorded so much material, and because we've done so much together it actually gets easier and easier every time. Not that it's easy to come up with those ideas and songs, because it's certainly not, especially when you're trying not to repeat yourself because as soon as you do something you've used up that idea. We're not proponents of repeating ourselves and doing the same song over and over again, and that gets extremely hard to do when you're writing this type of music. There's only so much you can do within those boundaries and if you want it to sound a certain way... you want it to be uptempo because you want it to rock....you want it to be riff-based because that's where the technical end of it comes in.....and you want the chorus to be singable and put loads of backing vocals on it. So when you start you're already painted into this box and you want to do something that's hopefully brilliant and different and new and exciting, and that's the really hard part about us continuing to make records. That part gets harder and harder to do but at the end of the day I think we keep pulling it off to a certain extent. We hadn't made this kind of record in a long, long time, which when we sat down and talked about it, gave us some sort of rejuvenation as we were treading down a road we hadn't been on for the last few years. Not since we did 'Mood Swings' or definitely since we'd done 'Voice Of Reason', we hadn't done anything this ambitious musically I'd say. Pete and I work quickly together and we work well together and we know exactly what the other person is thinking and what we're capable of bringing to each other, so it works pretty quick and easy in that regard at least."

I think a lot of this album reminds me more of 'Believe' than any other. Was 'Believe' an attempt to stave off the backlash you got for 'Voice of Reason', in Japan especially?

"Yeah! What we did with 'Believe' was try to tone down the darkness of it. With the way we write and record, when you take the dark elements out of it you get something that sounds like 'Believe'. Then when you get a song like 'Weight Of The World', when you start putting some darkness into it like in the intro and some of the minor chords it starts to sound like 'Voice Of Reason'. These are some of the elements of things that we do and things that we like and they creep up every now and then and they'll remind you of things that we've done in the past. So I like to think of this record as the best of everything we've ever done all rolled up into one with new songs."

Did it make much of a difference trying to make a big sounding rock album without a big label budget?

"Well....no, fortunately we have a studio and I guess it would have been a problem if we'd been paying for studio time day in, day out, because these kind of records are way more time consuming to make than say, the first Rubber record. It just takes so long to do all those parts, sing all those harmonies and put in all those little production ideas, and reinforce all the drums with samples and things like that. A lot of effort goes into making a record like this and we hadn't spent that much time on a record in a long time. It was all fun though, we didn't begrudge it in any way, and because it had been so long it became exciting again. It takes longer this way and because we have our own studio it was cool, but I wouldn't want to be paying $300 an hour for studio time to make this kind of record. When we made 'Mood Swings' we said that, even though we had a major label budget we couldn't have made it for the money it cost if I hadn't had my own studio at the time. We did all the vocals, all the guitars and the guitar solos at my studio. When we're recording, the beds usually go quickly but when we get to the overdubs it's like hitting a brick wall because we have to look at every little note I'm singing, or every note Pete's playing and every harmony. Having your own studio gives you the opportunity to do it relatively cheaply."

So you've got your release dates for Japan and Europe, will the album be released in Canada?

"Well, actually there's a label here in Canada who are interested in putting it out, we're just talking to them right now and they also have distribution in the States, but before we do that I want to talk to some other people. Before we finished this record we made a conscious effort not to play it for anyone or shop it around, so as far as a North American release we really haven't played it for more than 5 or 6 people. That's something we hope we can do and I know the release would have to be staggered for after the European thing, so it almost doesn't matter at this moment but I would like it to come out in Canada and hopefully America as well. I think Japan and Europe are going to be our biggest markets so whatever happens in Canada and America will just be a bonus after that."

Does it bother you that you've never had the recognition you deserve over there?

"It did in the beginning but the more I do this and the more I understand what it's about you can't let it bother you. It's about business, and we signed a Canadian record deal and that's why we never got released in America, it's kind of our own fault, we did what we did for better or for worse. Some great things happened to us because we did it, and some not so great things happened to us, so if you're the kind of person who wants to look at the negative things about it I could be bitter about it. I could cite many reasons why I'm pissed off about never having had any success in America, but at the same time I've had a great living, I've had a good time, I've made the records that I wanted to make and there have never been any major problems with our career. Looking back at it I can't be negative about it. Of course you'd always like to sell more records and get your music out to as many people as possible, but that's just the way it went down. So now we're not with Warner we're open to do whatever we want, and stylistically, the type of music we're doing and the age of the band, it's not like we're 18 years old and doing something that's cutting-edge. I have no delusions about what's going to happen to the record in North America. You know yourself what the market's like out here, it's about Britney Spears and teenage girls and stuff, so I'd be really surprised if anyone but an indie wanted to get involved in this type of a record, but to be honest it's just fine by me. I know what I'm doing and I appreciate it for what it is, and I just leave it at that."

There are a couple of instrumentals on the album and Pete is regarded very highly as a guitarist, especially in Japan. What's your take on this?

"Yeah, I've never really worked with a guitarist who plays rock music who's better than Pete, and I've recorded with a lot of people. I think he's amazingly talented not only as a guitar player but he's a great song-writer, and he understands music and songs. I think we've both grown a lot over the years and I think we have a common goal in respect of what we're trying to do, and I probably don't appreciate it as much as I should just because I'm used to it. I've worked with Pete since I was 19 years old so I kinda take it for granted, but sometimes I listen to him and think 'How on earth is he doing that?' So yeah, he's a great guitar player!"

How did Barry (Donaghy-bass) and Creighton (Doane - drums) react to making an album in this style, because I think Barry especially comes from a different background?

"Barry actually comes from a really heavy background, that's the kind of music that Barry listens to and likes, because Barry was doing really heavy stuff very early on in his career."

I have the Blu Bones stuff.

"Right! He's always been into that stuff, he was the first guy I knew who shaved his head to look evil in the rock days when everyone had long hair, and he was always way ahead of everyone else in terms of moving on. This may sound stupid but we're kind of professional in the way we go about things, so it was 'This is what we're doing, so let's do it'. There was no 'Well I don't want to do that'. We just said 'This is the kind of record we want to make' and everybody comes to the studio and records appropriately for what we're trying to make. And Creighton is one of the best drummers I've ever worked with, that's why we got him in the band. Creighton and I have been working together doing studio work for about 10 years now, he's played on lots of records that I've produced and engineered and he's just an amazing studio drummer. His live stuff in the rock background too is just incredible, he's played with Honeymoon Suite and Kim Mitchell and big rock guys like that, and he's just a hard-hitting rock drummer, so this album was totally cool for him."

You've stated that you want to tour, do you have any news about that for us?

"There has been very little discussion with our agent with regard to a timeframe for when we could go and when we could do it, but it's something that I want to do so it's just a matter of sitting down and figuring it out. We have to get everybody on board and figure out how, financially, if it makes sense we can do this. Obviously we've toured Japan for every record and I don't think this will be any different, but Europe is definitely something we want to do and a market we want to try to build on. I think it would help everybody's cause if we can just get out there and be a little more in touch with what's going on. It would be great to be more accessible to fans who want to see the band, and it would be fun for us as we're tired of sitting around in Canada to get out there and get the chance to play to people in places we've never been before."

You brought Darren Smith in to help out with the harmonies. Will that be a problem when you play live?

"Well...everybody in this band does sing. The reason for bringing in Darren was more of a nostalgic thing than a necessity. Darren and I used to do most of the backing vocals, he didn't sing on the first record at all but he and I did the harmonies on 'Mood Swings' and 'Voice Of Reason' then it went back to me doing them all. I just thought it would be really cool to go back to that 'Mood Swings' sound and that's why we did it, I thought it would be nice to give it that authentic edge. In fact I even lifted some drum samples off the 'Mood Swings' record - I found some old tapes and took snare samples off and added them in, so there's even some drums from there, which is kinda funny. It was just our own little humorous attempt to make it authentic."

There's another 'Best Of..' album coming out in Japan, how do you feel about that? It's about the fourth Greatest Hits album, four live albums, the acoustic and B-sides album. Don't you think it's all too much?

"[Laughs] You know, I've literally lost track! In a way I'm almost glad it's coming out because we're not on the label anymore so people can see that it's not us doing it, I've said publicly before that I think it's too much product and if it were me I wouldn't buy it. I think it's just another example of a giant company trying to capitalise on an opportunity. They know we're putting out a new record, they know there's going to be some press, they know there's going to be some sort of presence for the band in that territory, and they're going to cash-in on that by putting out a release at the same time. For them I guess it's smart business, there's an old bonus track so that's it. There you go!"

Less than a year after the 'Rocks' and 'Ballads' albums it's so blatantly a rip-off.

"Oh it is yeah! I wouldn't buy it but that's it, no-one's going to force anyone to buy it but there are a lot of hardcore fans who just want to have everything and that's what they're counting on. In Japan that's the way the market works and they're used to that, they almost don't mind and that's where it all stems from. Us sitting back here, we don't understand it because our markets don't work like that but this is not uncommon in Japan. Mr. Big, another Warner band, are another that they do that with and it doesn't happen with a lot of others because they maybe haven't been around as long as our two bands have, and they don't record as much material as we do to even make that possible. Because we've never stopped working and writing and recording it was possible for them to do it, so they did it."

So I'll get onto Now & Then about the 'Weight Of The World Limited Edition' that they're going to put out.

"[Laughs] Yeah that's right! With the five re-mixed tracks and the bonus track!"

And with this interview tagged onto the end as a nice touch.

"Exactly! 'Harry and Phil talk'. We'll sell it for £19.99!"

Will this mean I get royalties?