Interview with Harry J Hart: ‘It’s always been a dream to have a Bond song’

Gold Coast, Australia-based singer-songwriter Harry J Hart has released his debut EP ‘Holding On For My Life’ today (15 October), giving us six powerful tracks of ‘sick riffs’ that pay homage to his musical heroes such as Silverchair and Marcus King.

Harry – who added the J to differentiate himself from Colin Firth’s character, Harry Hart, in the film The Kingsman –   started playing guitar at 14 and was a Queensland Music Awards finalist at 16. He started off singing in choirs and played the violin, trumpet, saxophone and ukulele at school. He jokes that he couldn’t think of ‘a single thing’ to call his EP and that he and his manager took the title from the lyrics of one of the tracks on the EP, ‘Stay’: ‘We were spitballing ideas, we toyed with ‘Come Back Down’ (a track on the EP),’ he said.

The tracks on ‘Holding On For My Life’ document the different stages in a relationship. The EP opens with ‘Who We Are’, which is the synthiest track on the album: ‘It’s a song I’ve been sitting on for ages, I was noodling the chorus (he plays it), I just had that. I was in Sydney on New Year’s Eve 2019 going into ’20. I was flying to LA the next day, so I thought I’d stay up all night but that didn’t work! I ended up being jetlagged and tired (laughs). I have this little amp that I take with me when I travel. I had it at my nan’s place that day, I was killing time. That’s when I came up with the last two chords but wasn’t sure what to put with it. I called up Tim Goodburn and showed him what I had. He responded “That’s catchy” and together we came up with the verses, then Joel Myles, my producer, and I pulled the song apart. It was one of the more fun ones to write. The whole song’s in C# minor, with the bridge being in the relative key, E major. I did the switch to E major as it’s uplifting.’

‘‘Who We Are’ is about that point in a relationship when you’re figuring out what’s wrong with it’

Typically, he says he writes a song and then looks for the meaning in it: ‘‘Who We Are’ is about that point in a relationship when you’re figuring out what’s wrong with it, you don’t like where it’s going but you hope the other person will be happier at some point, whether that’s with you or someone else,’ he said. That comes across in the lyrics: ‘Love is blind but I see the end, too much skin to begin again. Every choice, every penny spent. It’s getting hard to try and pretend.’

‘No Goodbye’, the second track on the EP – and which is about a relationship disintegrating – is the song he and his band are now toying with opening with, although the live version gets a new spin: ‘The intro’s different, it’s very Queens of the Stone Age,’ he says, playing it, and he’s right: it’s grungier, with crunchier, heavier riffs. ‘For a year, we’ve been opening with ‘Trying To Breathe’ (by Maroon 5). I talk a lot; we’re trying to cut down on free-range talking (laughs). I read that Adele spends 60% of the time talking and 40% singing, I’m trying not to do that.’

‘My guitar sounds bass heavy, which comes out a lot in my riff writing, as my riffs are focused on the bottom three strings’

For me, ‘Come Back Down’, the third track on the EP, is the standout track. It starts off with a grungy 90’s vibe and could easily be a Nirvana or Chris Cornell song, with its thuddy, addictive, staccato three chord riff before erupting into an even bigger song around a minute in. It’s a powerful and gritty track, as is evidenced by the lyrics: ‘When you feel like coming down, I’ll be waiting here for you. Know that I will stand my ground ’til you come back down.’

It would make a brilliant Bond theme: ‘I wrote it ages ago, it was probably the second song I wrote for the album,’ he said. ‘I’d just discovered Diorama (2002) by Silverchair, it was the last rock album they did before their electronic one. Daniel Johns (guitarist in Silverchair) was really into musical theatre but with these huge riffs, that’s what I wanted. I was listening to a heap of Tool as well. It’s in drop D, half step down, with the main chords being C#, Asus, F#sus. It then goes from E major in the bridge to G# minor to G# major. I usually play it on a Les Paul for the humbucker sound. The bottom ‘E’ is a lot heavier, so my guitar sounds bass heavy, which comes out a lot in my riff writing as my riffs are focused on the bottom three strings. I’ve got an octave pedal, it has bass it in, it fills more, sonically.’

I say that I reckon it’s hard to play and he laughs. ‘I think my songs sound easy until I try to teach them to other people. I’ve got a song that’s not released that I play live called ‘Enough Is Enough’ that I wrote after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in Florida. I had to teach my last guitarist my guitar parts, where the song switches between major and minor. It sounds like the Foos.’ (He plays it and it really does.) ‘It’s a lot of fun, it’s a big song, the solo takes a cool turn, it goes southern rock.’

He tells me about Marcus King, the frontman and guitarist for The Marcus King Band in South Carolina, whose song, ‘Rita Is Gone’, has inspired him. ‘I take a lot of inspiration from Marcus King doing my improv solos. He’s got jazz training but cool psych moments, rock, blues, swing etc. and he’s so young! (He’s 25). He recorded his first album when he was 16. He’s got a sound that you wouldn’t expect to come from him when you first see him. Speaking of voices that don’t sound like they look, I was at a party, when my mate stuck on an artist called Colter Wall (he holds up a CD to show me), he’s got this voice that you’d never see coming. It’s so left of field when you’re playing it. I was expecting a higher voice Bob Dylan but he’s like a Mike Tyson sucker punch.’

‘I normally improvise in a show… I play songs differently every time’

‘Come Back Down’ is full of surprises, including Harry’s massive guitar solo at two minutes 30 that builds and builds until he swiftly snatches the song away from the listener at the end. I tell him that a few of his songs kick off around the same mark when the big riffs come sweeping in: ‘Oooh, do they?! I hadn’t noticed. Originally, it sounded a bit like ‘Lateralus’ by Tool but Joel suggested we change a few things. My mate said that about the song ending as well, he calls those snatched away endings “blue ball endings” – he says they lead you on for more and then you take them away,’ he laughed. ‘The strings and the heavy guitar are ♡,’ he said, making the heart sign. ‘We got a cello player in, but the rest is synths. We thought too many strings would sound macabre, we wanted it to sound energetic – not like you’re going to a funeral (laughs). It didn’t have a pre-chorus to begin with, but we came up with a sick bit (he plays it). We were worried it was too heavy. We had soooo many guitar tracks! In the verses, we have two guitar tracks, a Leslie inspired, rotary, spinning speaker sound and a clean guitar centered and double track acoustic and some ambient as well, that’s nine tracks! In the pre-chorus, we had two or three double tracks, layering guitars, with a Les Paul chunky sounding guitar and a Tele, for the cool, spiky sound.’

He’s really in his element at this point and his enthusiasm is infectious: ‘Oh man, I love playing it! I build into playing it live (he starts to play it), it’s the hardest part. I’m strumming and tapping at the same time AND singing. I think I’m a stronger guitarist than singer, I love playing guitar. I played guitar on the René Le Feuvre track ‘Watch Me Fall’. The guitar solo is all me,’ he said, looking ecstatic. ‘It was sooooo much fun! I normally improvise in a show, I play to my audience, so I play songs differently every time, based on the feel of the room. The only two songs I don’t do that on are ‘Come Back Down’ and René’s, they’re the only ones where I’ve written the solo so that it stays the same.’

He released his debut single, ‘It Calls Out’ – the closer on the EP – in 2020, a song he wrote back in 2017, in grade 11 when all he listened to was John Mayer. The song is about getting caught up in your own headspace and draws on his observations about the black dog of depression calling out to you.

Queensland has a vibrant music scene and he is a fan of artists such as indie pop band Eliza & The Delusionals, who are making waves in the US; blues duo, Hussy Hicks and Stray Dog Saviours, of whom he says: ‘They’re really cool, like if Royal Blood were angrier and filthier! They have a real wall of sound.’ His favourite band of all time though is Silverchair, the now disbanded Newcastle, New South Wales, rock band. He’s also a huge fan of Perth-based prog rock band, Karnivool, as well as alt rock band, Birds of Tokyo (both share the same frontman, Ian Kenny).

‘It’s made to be a workhorse guitar; it won’t die on you’

On our Zoom, he is playing a beautiful Strat, which he refers to as ‘my first car’: ‘I bought it in LA when I was there. We got Disneyland in, I took my mum, it was the one thing she wanted to do there.’ This was the first of three US trips for him in three years before COVID-19 put a stop to international travel. This trip saw him head to New York to see Gary Clark Jnr., Nashville to work with his mentor, Australian 90’s pop icon, Rick Price, and take in a music industry conference. He also attended Boston’s esteemed Berklee College of Music, where guitar is taught by Tomo Fujita, first to study Classic Rock, then, the following year, Blues. Berklee is also where he says he has made lifelong friendships with other young guitarists worth looking out for, including internet guitar sensation George Collins, Jake Baynes, Chase Allardice and Hallam George.

“I bought my Strat from Norm’s Guitars in LA on a Saturday and I got to be their Strat-a-day post,’ he said, sounding delighted. ‘It was sold to me by Mark Agnesi, now one of the big guys at Gibson. I was in the shop for seven hours. I played every guitar in the store! I said to mum “You gotta keep me on track”! I nearly ended up buying a vintage Les Paul, a gorgeous, iced tea burst with a flame maple top. It was relatively cheap (still thousands of US dollars) because it had been on a stand and the headstock had fallen off, but mum was like “What did you come here for?” I said “A Les Paul” (laughs) and she said “No, a Strat”. She was right, so that’s what I bought,’ he said, holding it up close to the camera for me to see. ‘It’s Olympic Pearl, a creamy colour, and tortoiseshell, it’s shimmery, I don’t know if you can see that? It’s a model called “American Elite”, but it’s been discontinued or renamed or something. It’s made to be a workhorse guitar; it won’t die on you.’

He says that his music trips are a big part of his commitment to learn from the best. In our last interview, he mentioned flying to LA in January 2020 to do a week-long workshop to train under heavy genre guitar icons, Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine), Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme) and Pop guitarist and musical director, Bibi McGill (Beyoncé & Pink). His next trip is closer to home, he will be headed to Australia’s famous Tamworth Country Music Festival in January where he will study country music at the Country Music Academy.

‘We’ve done a new thing to it, it’s heavier now, a bit like Rage Against the Machine’

On the day we chat, his favourite song on the EP is ‘Come Back Down’ but closely tied with ‘No Goodbye’: ‘We’ve done a new thing to it, it’s heavier now, a bit like Rage Against the Machine. Do you know Triple J? (I say I do, it’s an Australian radio station that’s brilliant at promoting new bands.) They do this segment ‘Like A Version’. There’s a rapper, Denzel Curry, who did a version of Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Bulls on Parade’. I feel it’s better than Rage’s version, it has a cool, switched-up rap vibe. I’ve learnt from Tom Morello so it feels bad to say someone else did it better, it feels like I’m cheating!’

Harry has been fortunate to ‘dodge lockdown days’, as he puts it: ‘My friend called me and asks: “Have you checked the hotspots (COVID hotspots) list?” We have a system here where if you’ve been to the same place at the same time as someone who tests positive you have to get tested and home quarantine for 14 days. There have been about 7-8 times where I’ve been to a club or shopping centre within hours of the lockdown times,’ he said.

Given how Bond-like ‘Come Back Down’ is, it seems very fitting that he says ‘it’s always been a dream to have a Bond song’: ‘Feedback on the latest track I’m working on (for the next EP after this one) is that it has Bond vibes,’ he said happily. ‘It sounds straightforward but the tuning was inspired by Aussie metal band, Karnivool (laughs).’ He starts to play it and it definitely does have Bond vibes. ‘It’s B, F# B tuning on the bottom, you get chord shapes coming out of the bottom, it’s got Queens of the Stone Age vibes. It’s got a sick chromatic pre-chorus!’ I tell him that it actually reminds me a bit of my favourite Bond song, ‘You Know My Name’, by Chris Cornell and we chat for a bit about how brilliant he was: ‘‘You Know My Name’ is one of my favourite Bond songs of all time,’ he said excitedly. ‘There’s a chord progression – B minor, G, A and E – that’s in most Bond songs. ‘It Calls Out’ is very similar to that chord progression (he plays it and it is). The first song I ever wrote was ‘More Than The Moon’ (he starts to sing and play it), it’s a cheesy love song, I stole the chords from ‘Tenerife Sea’ (an Ed Sheeran song), haha! I like to think I’ve progressed from that song!’