Jeremy & The Harlequins: ‘When you’re playing with other people, that’s some type of magic’

New York-based vintage-sounding rock ‘n’ rollers Jeremy & The Harlequins have released their latest single, ‘Trouble on the Hill’, which takes us on a cinematic, richly-imagined journey about trying to outrun the inevitable.

The band comprises Jeremy Fury (vocals and guitar) and a revolving cast of musicians which includes his brother Stevie on drums and Craig Bonich (guitar, also for Head Automatica and Dion Lunadon). ‘Craig Bonich and I had been playing together for forever,’ Fury said. ‘We met on tour. Me and my brother’s old band was called We Are The Fury. Craig’s old band, who just started touring again, Head Automatica, would take us out on tons of tours. So we met on tour probably mid-to-late 2000’s. I think Craig and I had, out of that time, the most similar musical interests. The rest of the guys that we’ve been playing with, a lot of them are friends for years. We’ll say: “We need a bass player”, so we think of who we know who’s really good. For records, it’s been different. We’ve had 13 different bass players since we started! If you go through some of the liner notes and thank yous on some of our physical albums, I think it was on our second album where we had a complete row of all our bass players that we had played with (laughs). Especially nowadays, everyone’s getting – I don’t want to say a little older – but just more experienced. If someone goes off and has a kid, gets married or gets a new job, then it’s nice to have a revolving cast.’

Based in Brooklyn, the band was formed in 2013. Known for their vintage rock ‘n’ roll sound, their band name has an unexpected provenance: ‘I was reading a book called ‘The Traveller’ by Jonathan Twelve Hawks, it’s part of a sci-fi series and the heroes in the book were called the harlequins,’ Fury explained. ‘When I was reading it, I was also getting back really into 50’s music. I thought it was such a cool name and said to myself: “My next band is going to be called The Harlequins!”‘

‘Trouble on the hill is different for everyone, it’s the trouble waiting for you on the horizon’

‘Trouble on the Hill’, which has an underlying American folk rock sensibility, channels the storytelling spirit of Bob Dylan and the eerie, circus-like vibe of The Doors. Ultimately, it’s a song about inevitability and the inescapable truths that chase us no matter how far we run: ‘What’s trouble on the hill?,’ Fury asked. ‘Trouble on the hill is different for everyone, it’s the trouble waiting for you on the horizon. No matter how fast or far you run, it will eventually catch up to you. You can’t hide from fate. Call it God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, it’ll eventually find you.’

With its evocative lyrics and stirring instrumentation, ‘Trouble on the Hill’ transports listeners to a timeless place, one where fate looms just out of sight. The song’s rich, folk-driven melodies weave together nostalgia and unease, creating an atmosphere that’s both intimate and cinematic. The faintly menacing and melancholic piano line hints at the trouble that is coming: ‘Most of the songs that I start with come from a tiny bit of the melody,’ Fury said. ‘As I dig into it and start working on it, it reveals itself. I know that sounds kind of metaphysical and maybe it is but I remember playing the acoustic and singing along to it. I’m not sure with a song if it’s going to be worth recording or if it’s going to work out until there’s some pivotal moment. The same thing happens in the recording process, too. Once the line ‘trouble on the hill’ came out, I knew. And I knew what the whole song was going to be about.’

I ask him when he writes an evocative song like this whether he visualises the story in his head: ‘I think afterwards, I think about what it might be used for or how people might relate to it, definitely,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘We’ve done a lot of music licensing in the past few years, so once it was finished, I thought that I could definitely see this in some type of Western or murder drama. I have a wish list for which shows I’d like to hear my songs on – it’s kind of ongoing, I haven’t written it down (laughs). I think for ‘Trouble on the Hill’, I thought if they do another season of ‘True Detective’, I could totally see it on that! We have a song called ‘Starlight’ that’s actually going to be in a new Netflix show pretty soon. I was watching ‘The Boys’ (an American satirical superhero drama series starring Anthony Starr) and one of the characters’ name is Starlight and thought: “Oh, that would go well in that!”‘

‘There are so many songs that you might not know exist until they’re in your favourite TV show and then suddenly they become a part of your world’

Sometimes Fury even reaches out to licensing people to see if he can get one of his songs on a particular show: ‘We never get to pick where a songs goes but every so often I’ll be like: “Hey, I’d really love to have a song in this show. I don’t know if you’re friends with the music supervisor but I’m a fan of this show!” Basically any show I’m a fan of, I’d love to hear one of our songs in! With TV shows, they can make you dig in and find new music or go back to old stuff. There are so many songs that you might not know exist until they’re in your favourite TV show and then suddenly they become a part of your world, like ‘Stranger Things’ and the Kate Bush song (‘Running Up That Hill’) or Metallica in that show. They make the scene – the Kate Bush song hadn’t really heard in that way in 20 or 30 years. (The song is Max’s favourite in the supernatural show and ultimately saves her life.) The music is so integral in that and that’s true of film and television in general. You think of Scorsese films – how much (Rolling) Stones did they put in those?! I was thinking recently about ‘Forrest Gump’ (the 1994 film starring Tom Hanks) where the music is so vital. Sometimes I hear a Creedence Clearwater Revival song and I’ll think of a scene in a movie that it’s from.’

‘Wrong Way in the Right Line’, which they released as a single earlier this year was hand selected by Steven Van Zandt as the ‘Coolest Song Of The World’ last month (April) and much like the title suggests, it makes you want to crank it up in the car and sing along, with a big Springsteen vibe: ‘ I think I came up with the term ‘wrong way in the right lane’ pretty early on,’ he said. ‘Once you have a line like that, then it’s pretty easy. I think the hardest part for me is to figure out what the song’s going to be about. When I have done these commercial ad briefs, it helps when someone says we want a song like this or about this. When you have complete freedom and you can go in any direction, you don’t know which way to go (laughs). You know, I had the line before I had the story. And I started thinking about it, that it sounds to me like two people in a relationship who want different things, where you want something that’s right, but you’re going the wrong way about it.’

Interestingly, the pretty acoustic guitar line that forms the backbone to the song wasn’t even in the original version, with the producer Mike Abiuso at Lamplight Sounds at Behind the Curtains Media suggesting to Fury that he try strumming it on an acoustic instead: ‘We added back on the electric some of the original stylings on the guitar, that one we did really fast, and it just came out really great! It’s one of those songs, I think we have a few of them where you’re driving with the windows down, going back on the highway!’

‘I don’t want to put anything out that I don’t stand behind. I don’t think I have but the problem with that sometimes is that they’re all your little children’

Fury is understandably proud of the attention that the track has received: ‘We’ve had a few songs on Little Steven’s Underground Garage and it’s awesome! I like when someone else picks a song because once I finish a song and once we record it, I don’t want to put anything out that I don’t stand behind. I don’t think I have but the problem with that sometimes is that they’re all your little children (laughs). And you don’t know which songs are going to resonate with people and which songs people will like. Sometimes I’m like: “Oh, this is the single and no one digs it.” It’s almost like a trial by fire process.’

Prior to forming Jeremy & The Harlequins, Fury was the singer of the Toledo, Ohio-based band We Are The Fury, which also featured his brother Stevie.. During their career, they toured with artists such as Silverchair, The New York Dolls and Jack’s Mannequin and performed alongside My Chemical Romance. ‘My favourite band that we got to tour with back then was New York Dolls,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘That was such a trip to play with people I look up to. You have these experiences you’ll never forget. When you’re in 30 cities in 30 days when you’re touring, you feel like you condense life into a short time, so those experiences and camaraderie you have are more intense.’

Tracks like ‘Cowboy from New York’ which they released as a single earlier this year, is country with a bit of a twist, showcasing to what extent Fury likes to mix up his genres: ‘At this point, I’m just a fan of a lot of different types of music,’ he said. ‘I think I’m a fan of pretty much every genre of music at this point but I’m not a fan of every song (laughs). I think the common core that I see with every style is the authenticity and integrity in it, whether it’s country or rock ‘n’ roll, alternative or folk. Some of my favourite artists of all time have bounced around stylistically, I think the best bands in the world do that, although I think labels push artists to not do that.’ Who are some of his favourite artists who have bounced around stylistically? ‘Oh, I think David Bowie, for sure. The Beatles, for sure.’

‘Everyone was wearing bandanas on their face as face masks, so everyone looked like a cowboy in New York’

As is typical in Fury’s storytelling, ‘Cowboy from New York’ could be a short film, it’s impossible not to envisage the cowboy in question wandering around New York and meeting the ‘bandits in Times Square’ that feature in the song: ‘It was part autobiographical and part just writing a story, I like that the song is a mix of a cowboy story and also the story of a band,’ he said. ‘It’s about the cowboy putting a band together. I wrote it during the pandemic and a big motivator for the story was I was walking around New York and everyone was wearing bandanas on their face as face masks, so everyone looked like a cowboy in New York. And I thought: “That’s a good song, let’s write about that!” I hadn’t been in Times Square at the time but I definitely walked around it when I moved to New York, I had been bartending in LA before that. I remember going on bartending interviews and eventually thinking “I don’t want to do this anymore in my life”. I remember going to these bartending interviews in Times Square right around Hell’s Kitchen. It’s miserable there because Times Square is such a touristy kind of transient place. If you’re bartending at a local bar, you get the same customers, there’s a feel to it, whereas I feel that Times Square bartending, even though I didn’t end up doing it, seemed very transient. It seemed to me like the hardest or worst place.’

Fury is originally from Ohio, which has a midwestern charm of its own: ‘If you’ve never been, a lot of people think it’s in the middle of nowhere, but really, it’s kind of just the middle,’ he said. ‘I grew up in the suburbs, if you went 10 minutes in one direction, you’d be out in the country and if you went 10 minutes in the other direction, you’d be in a city. It has a good pulse on, I think, what America is because you have a little bit of everything – but not much of anything!’

ABRA CaDaBRA, the album that they released in 2022, harks back to the 50’s, it’s a proper old school rock ‘n’ roll, with beautiful strings to match. Tracks like the opener ‘It Won’t Be Love’ feel both nostalgic and wryly observant: ‘It was during the pandemic, the government had been giving out money and we were on unemployment,’ he said. ‘There was so much uncertainty about what was going to happen in the world after. I’d always wanted to make a record like this and pull out all the stops, have strings and orchestration. On labels, I was always told: “You can do that on the next record” but it never ends up happening. It felt like the world was ending, this was the chance to do all these things. A lot of songs on that album pull from that time period. I mean, there’s an obvious one towards the end of the record called ‘Looking Out My Window’, which is literally when we were in lockdown and just playing guitar and looking out my window (laughs).’

‘It’s the opposite of a Disney story, I think the modern world, at least in the media, TV and film, gets the idea of love all wrong’

‘It Won’t Be Love’ tells a very different kind of story: ‘It’s the opposite of a Disney story,’ he said. ‘I think the modern world – at least in the media, TV and film – gets the idea of love all wrong. In fairy tales, it ends right when they get together. Right when it begins, it ends. You’re led to believe that the love is the courting process, so the idea of love and the idea of the lyrics in ‘It Won’t Be Love’ are taking these fairy tale ideals and saying that’s not really love. You’re just going to end up with a broken heart if you think that’s what it is. Take all the dating sites. Some people do find love on them but I think a lot of them advertise that you’re going to find love but really, you’re not finding love. If that’s what you want to do, then that’s fine to me but you don’t have to kid yourself. I think that the problem people run into is they kid themselves, sometimes purposely, that this is love, whereas really, it’s just infatuation or it’s temporary. And that’s really what the song’s about.’

Fury got into music at a young age via his parents and brother: ‘They were really encouraging, they would play movies and I’d pretend to play along on guitar with these movies (laughs). They’d put on records and we listened to cassettes or CDs in the car at the time. They’re always big fans. Actually, you know, I think they go to more concerts than I do! They’re always like: “Oh, we’re going to see Bob Dylan and we’re going to go see Chicago”. I thought: “You guys go to every single show now!” They’re big fans of music and they’re always still supportive.’

He started playing the guitar when he was seven but didn’t get into it seriously until he was 13: ‘My brother would play drums and I think that was really the catalyst,’ he said. ‘When you can play with someone else and you’re not just practicing in your bedroom because that feels like work to me (laughs). When you’re playing with other people, that’s some type of magic. Once I tasted that, I couldn’t go backwards from that. I’ve been asked by a lot of people who want to play guitar, or learn how to play music and start a band. I always say, pick one song that you want to learn because once you learn a song, you realise that you can actually do it. When you just learn scales – and those things are really important – it doesn’t connect in the same way. The other thing is I say is play with someone else, whether it’s another guitar player or singer. When you’re doing it together, it just feels like a whole different level. It’s like I was saying earlier, I don’t make records to be just played in my basement or garage, I make them for other people.’

‘Some of the people I’m enamoured by, I’m a little nervous to pick their brains!’

When he took guitar lessons, he listened to a lot of The Everly Brothers and The Beatles, something he says he ‘evolved out of’ before getting back into them. ‘It’s funny how that happens,’ he said. ‘The Everly Brothers and The Beatles just had really good songwriting.’

And even if playing live doesn’t always go to plan, he doubles down and gets through it: ‘We were playing on the BBC in London, live on TV. We had to sneak on set during a commercial break, and when we got to our positions, our guitarist noticed his guitar wasn’t working. Just then we were told we are on in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. My mind blanked, I was too focused on the guitar not working and I forgot the first half of the first verse! About the same time I got back into it, our guitarist’s guitar started working again. Who knows if anyone caught it, but I was red in the face!’

If he could go out drinking with any musician, he picks T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan: ‘It always changes,’ he said laughing. ‘I’d ask him similar questions to what you’re asking me now. Some of the people I’m enamoured by, I’m a little nervous to pick their brains! I like the natural flow of the experience, so I probably wouldn’t ask him anything!’

(Photo credit: Samantha Dagnino)