After years of flirting with musical styles and band names, Harem Scarem came back with a resounding big bang with last year's 'Weight of the World', a cracking album that gained rave reviews from across the globe, including a 100% rating from Andrew McNiece at melodicrock.com. Now the band are renowned for never keeping the same style for consecutive albums, so the question on everyone's mind was 'Can they do it again?' Well Andrew's second 100% rating certainly gives his answer, although there has certainly been some healthy debate on he net. Kieran Dargan hooked up with Harry Hess to get the answers from the band's perspective...

Harem Scarem have again used their unpredictability as a badge of honour on the new album ‘Higher. Did you approach anything differently this time around, especially given the critical and retail success of ‘Weight of the World’? Were you perhaps trying to stick more to a formula this time around and keep things working along the same lines as the last album?

Yeah, we knew we were going to make a rock record rather than a quirky pop record or something really dark and evil. We knew we were going to stick very much along the lines of ‘Weight of the World’ but you never really know when you’re writing what’s going to come out. We just got together and started writing songs and fortunately for all involved, us and fans, it came out similar to what we were doing on ‘Weight of the World’, so we went from there.

You coined a phrase there, “us and fans”. Don’t tell me you’re finally starting to pay attention to what everybody tells you?

Ha ha, yeah I’m getting old so I don’t want to annoy people as much.

You’ve been to Europe a few times now and no doubt everybody you meet will at some stage refer to ‘Mood Swings’or ’Harem Scarem’. Is it fair to ask, seeing as by your own admission you were out of the loop as to what was happening melodic rock wise world-wide, now that you have met the fans here, have you started to say to yourself ‘Hey, I don’t want to piss everybody off’?

The honest truth is it all came full circle for us. Making the kind of rock records that we are now has become fun again, as opposed to trying to experiment and chase different sounds. When you make records and try to evolve as an artist, then you’re always trying to strive to do something better than the last. In your mind you ask yourself 'Can I possibly make this one better than the last?' That’s really where all that comes from, the trying to change and do something different. We’re really just trying to do something different from the last one. To be honest it really doesn’t matter what the fans say in that sense because for every person that comes up to me and says I love the debut, another says I prefer the ’Voice of Reason’ record, or even "I love the Rubber stuff, I’ve never heard of ‘Harem Scarem." You really can’t take a list with you and try work out what makes everybody the happiest because that’s just going to drive you crazy. At the end of the day, by doing that you’re going to alienate some people and vice versa. The only thing you can do in that situation is try make a great record no matter what it is. I don’t look at a record and say, wow, that’s a great record because it had a heavier guitar sound or the drums were wetter, I look at it and ask myself did we achieve what we set out to achieve, are the songs great on the album? I don’t know anybody who would listen to an album over and over again if it was a shitty record just because it was a rock record. Just because it was put forth in a way that fans like to hear things like great guitar sounds or a certain type of production. I think you have to like the band, the players and the direction, it’s not because you like their snare drum sound. I think a lot of the times when bands are around a long time like us, that’s when it becomes a bit of a trap. I’ll take people criticising certain records we made over quitting tomorrow and leaving it at that. I’m going to keep on making the best records that I can and hopefully it can be fun thing for the fans to decide what they like about us or don’t like. We don’t take it personally or anything, but we’ll still continue to make the records that we think we have to at that given time.

On ‘Weight of the World’ the Queen influence was obvious to see and from what you are saying there your mindset seems to be of somebody who is heavily influenced by the seventies where nobody had to stick to one particular musical formula to make a great record. Is that where Harem Scarem are coming from?

I’ve said that from day one. When people said to me that we put some really strange stuff on our records or ask why does it change so much from one record to the next, I used to use Queen as an example. Not only did they have different people sing songs but look at the diversity, the different things they tried to do. They put some really fruity, gay sounding stuff to some of the heaviest music ever recorded and I love that about them. As time goes on, if you go back and look at ‘Night at the Opera’, that’s one of my favourite albums of all time just because of what they had done with that record, the diversity. I’m a big fan of that.

Given the way the music business has changed over the years, in fairness a band like Queen could never exist today because of their diversity, but also because record companies want everything to fit neatly in it’s own genre: hair bands, pop, death metal, alternative or whatever. How hard does it become to try not repeat yourself album after album, but yet change and keep things familiar at the same time?

It gets harder and harder every record we make because we’ve covered a lot of ground. People have said that to us too, and it’s funny, "Hey, this record sounds a lot like the last one," and believe you me, hearing that one is a big surprise to us because we usually hear it the other way around. I don’t really know what to say about that, we’re just doing what we think is right for the time. If we look back three years from now and say ‘Hey, that wasn’t a great record’, well …but that hasn’t happened to me yet. There are songs I think are better than the others which will happen when you record 110 or 120 different songs. I have no regrets about any of it and I don’t think I will in the future about what I’m doing now.

From the song writing point of view, where do you get your inspiration. How do you approach it? Do you find it easier to write about things from personal experience or in the third person. Some of the lyrics you have come up with over the years are pretty deep, especially on the ‘Karma Cleansing’ record.

The same with ‘Voice of Reason’ and ‘Big Bang Theory’ as well. If you go back and look at those 'BBT' had some really dark lyrics. I don’t know where that comes from. For some reason I used to gravitate to writing that type of lyric. I never knew why myself. Pete used to read them and laugh and say, pretty much as you said, "You know, that’s kind of odd. Where did that come from?" When I sat down to write lyrics, that’s what came out. For the most part I think that’s changed over the last few albums. Some of it has been observational, some from personal experience. Not a lot of it, I just like to write these little stories. A lot of it is dictated by the box it has to fit in musically. I always put the emphasis on the music first and then the lyrics because as far as I’m concerned I’m a musician, not a poet. I’m just trying to write about stuff that makes sense and means something to me.

There has never been a shortage of Harem Scarem songs for various compilations: Greatest Hits compilations, Japanese bonus tracks etc etc. When it came to recording ‘Higher’, how many songs did you work up to a state of readiness for recording?

Funnily enough we never write more than we need, but in saying that we don’t just write eleven songs and throw them together. They never get finished unless all the parts are good. I’ll bring an idea to Pete and if we both like it we’ll work on it to see what it will come out like, but if Pete doesn’t like it he’ll say..uuugh…and then it gets canned. Same goes for material Pete brings in. We both have to agree that it’s something we both want to work on. Whatever stage of the process we’re at, if we don’t like it, we don’t finish it. It’s not like we finish up seventeen songs and then pick eleven, it’s counter productive to work on material you don’t like because you feel something good may happen along the way. I think a lot of bands fall into that trap. I mean we’ve all bought records with two good songs on it and the rest, well what were these guys thinking? Maybe that comes from finishing it blindly and hoping for the best or not really understanding the process and saying 'Well, I’ll add in something cool later on and it will be fine.' It’s not. It has to sound good on an acoustic guitar as opposed to some production genius or divine intervention. That’s where we come from and we’ve worked on enough albums to know what we think is good and what’s not.

The European version of ‘Higher’ has ten tracks, the Japanese has eleven, the bonus track being ‘Wishing’. Well you’ve done it again haven’t you?

The record companies keep getting mad at us for doping that. It’s obvious to stick a ballad on there because I think they’d be even more upset if it was an uptempo rock track they were getting. The record company e-mailed me and said exactly the same thing. You’ve done it to us again, can you write some bad stuff for the bonus tracks? I told him I’d see what I could do, haha!! I’ll take it as a compliment though.

What’s the formula for writing a Harem Scarem record? How do you decide to get together and when to start? Is it okay, January 1st let’s go, next five weeks 9am to 5pm?

Pete and I get together. In Higher’s case we said last year we should get together in early January and see what exactly we have to work with, but of course it didn’t happen until late Feburary. I had three of four song ideas, as did Pete. That bonus track ‘Wishing’ was a guitar instrumental all the way up until mixing. Pete didn’t want to put an instrumental track on there and I went, well maybe I could sing something over that and I stuck it on in about three hours. I wrote the lyrics on the way to the studio.That was one of those moments where everything just falls into place at the right time. For the most part we go back and forth with what we have. We go to Pete’s, he has a working studio there and we just write.

As regards Barry and Creighton, how much input to the process do they have, or is it more of a case of their contributions being through the experience they bring to the table with their individual skills as bassist and drummer respectively?

Pete and I finish the songs to the point where Creighton will come in and go, well, I was thinking this instead of that, or maybe he would have ideas for different fills or grooves, but more or less the song is already dictated as to how it will be played note wise. But I have to say when those guys come in they always make it sound better. We use a drum machine or a bass track to help us with the initial demoing but then the guys come in and add the final ingredient to the mix.

'Higher’ is out now. So far what has the reaction to it been like?

Well, everybody so far has been really positive about it. The reviews have been very positive and the fans seem to like it. I think it really walks the line between the debut album, a bit of ‘Mood Swings’ and ‘Weight of the World’ thrown in too. I think if you’re a hard core Harem Scarem fan you’ll like it, because it’s all about that. It’s difficult to gauge it because the industry is so screwed up right now. Out here in Canada we’re the only band I know that does what we do, so unless I go on line and deliberately search for information somebody like yourself would probably have a better idea of what fans think of the record than I would.

Do you have a favourite song on the album?

On most of our records I tend to like three or four songs and the rest are good. I usually like the first three or four tracks because I put them in that order. I like ‘Torn Right Out’, ‘Reach’, ‘Give it You’ and I like ‘Higher’ as well.

So does that mean Harry doesn’t like tracks five to eleven as much?

Not as much as one to five, haha! No, seriously, you don’t wait until track eight to hit them with something really good. Blow them away with the first three or four songs, that’s the plan.

Will there be any chance of seeing you live in Europe any time soon?

You know, we always talk about that. We talk to promoters all the time but it’s so, so ,so expensive to do it.That’s our biggest problem, the cost involved. We’re always up for it and we love doing it, but we have to find a situation that makes sense. For us to rehearse and come over and do two weeks worth of shows in Europe we’re looking at losing up to $20,000. Losing! If we could get a situation that we could get our expenses covered and not lose money, then that would be a good situation for us. It just makes it tough to justify it when we have to lose money to go and do it.

Were you surprised at all by the reaction you received at the Gods?

Looking back now, yeah. You know, at the time when you’re there it goes over your head a little. We had a great time and the audience really enjoyed it too, we’d love to come back and do it again, honestly. Can we come back again? Please?

And no doubt you’ll be up there teasing us with Harem Scarem Karaoke, ten greatest hits from 'Voice of Reason'.

You know, that’s my sense of humour. It’s my mission to annoy people. No, ,just kidding. I do get that a lot when I come off stage. People go “Why are you making fun of your fans?” and I say "What do you mean?" I think that when people look at hard rock or heavy metal you are supposed to stand up there with your fist in the air and look serious all night. I thought we were allowed to have a little fun, but that’s just me.

Production is obviously something that keeps you busy all year round. What are you up to at the moment project wise?

I’m working with a lot of bands that are recording for the first time. I like doing that type of development work. I’ve mixed a bunch of records for some Canadian bands and I have done a few vocal tracks for Jack Frost’s (ex Savatage) project. It’s really heavy, you should check that one out. It’s just another example of diversity, that’s what was so appealing about it - the opportunity to do something different. In fact I’d seriously consider doing a complete record like that if the opportunity arose. I’ve also sang on Eric Martin’s new record. When I was at the Gods I asked him to sing on mine and he sort of returned the favour by asking me to sing on his.You know, it’s funny, I’ve been meeting Eric in the strangest places for years: Japan, Malaysia and all points inbetween but we never got around to doing anything together, so finally we got to work together and that was really cool.