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SXSW preview: Harper Simon
Harper Simon spins yarns with equal parts dare (“Shooting Star”) and desire (“Berkeley Girl”). The 37-year-old songwriter, whose self-titled solo debut follows tenure in the London-based indie outfit Menlo Park, returns to SXSW for the second time.
“I played once many, many years ago with Joan Wasser from Joan as Policewoman,” Simon says, “but I imagine the festival is very different now.” The Los Angeles resident showcases at 9 p.m. Friday at live.create.lounge, 503 Neches St.
American-Statesman: Who are you planning to check out this week?
I see that I have a lot of friends who are playing. I’m going to see my friend (Sonic Youth’s) Thurston Moore, my friend Adam Green, Broken Bells and the Chapin Sisters, who are going to sing with me. I have a stripped-down band with my bass player and a character named Farmer Dave (Scher), who will play lap steel and organ.
Steel works especially well on ‘Tennessee.’ Where did you write that song?
I wrote that down in Nashville. It was such a straight-ahead country track that it was hard to know how to approach the song from a lyrical point of view. It turned into one that I wrote with my dad (songwriter Paul Simon), and I think he enjoyed it. We wrote the lyrics from a sort of ironic Randy Newmanesque point of view.
Your love of country music is unmistakable throughout the new album.
Country music is a great American art form, no doubt about it, but I really don’t know why it has always appealed to me so much. My mother is a southerner from Tennessee, so I have a little bit in my DNA, but it’s not like I grew up with her playing a lot of country music. My dad was never that drawn to it. I’ve just always particularly loved country music from the ’50s and ’60s.
Which songwriters?
Oh, you know, the classic songwriters: Hank Williams, Willie (Nelson), Merle Haggard, George Jones. I love bluegrass and anything that’s honky-tonk, too.
What did (steel guitarist) Lloyd Green bring to the album’s dynamic?
Well, he brought a hell of a lot. He’s such an extraordinary player. I had a lot of great players on the record, but Lloyd Green! I like every single thing he played, every single note he chooses. He’s an astonishingly economic and tasteful player.
He’s everywhere.
I think he takes four solos! I don’t know how many other people in rock and roll are having that many pedal steel solos on their record, but that’s just how this one turned out.
Why did you self-release the album?
My label put it out, but we had a distribution deal with Universal. I made the album myself outside of any studio system, and there were some possibilities with merging with other labels, but it was just taking too long. Starting a label was something I wanted to do anyway. I think a lot of people are finding that these days.
The do-it-yourself approach certainly has been gaining momentum.
Well, there are so many things that I could not do myself. People need marketing money and tour support and to be developed as artists. That’s something that a major label should provide. Unfortunately, because the record business is in such bad shape, I think a lot of projects that have artistic merit but not a lot of commercial potential are neglected by the system. That’s maybe just a reality of the market place today.
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