US singer-songwriter Ben Harper poses during a photo session in Toulouse, southern France on July ... [+]
Maybe the only person who had as much fun as Harry Styles at Harry's House, the recent 12-night residency Styles held at the L.A. Forum (it was scheduled to be 15 nights, but three nights got pushed to January due to illness) was opening act Ben Harper.
" Those shows with Harry were the shows of a lifetime. I had the best time," Harper tells me.
For Harper, who has always pushed himself as an artist, opening for the pop superstar was just another way of challenging himself musically. And it turned out to be one of the most fruitful and fun of his incredible 30-year career.
It's part of a very prolific period for Harper, who released the brilliant Bloodline Maintenance album just this past June. But when I mention new music during our chat his mind immediately goes to Wide Open Light, an acoustic record he will be releasing in 2023.
I spoke with Harper about his fandom and friendship with artists as diverse as Styles and singer/songwriter legend Jackson Browne, his songwriting process, both new albums and much more.
Steve Baltin: With these residencies it's like a hometown tour.
Ben Harper: One unlike any other. Those shows with Harry were the shows of a lifetime. I had the best time. Part of me still up on stage, matter of fact.
Baltin: He's an amazing performer.
Harper: Performer songwriter, singer, human.
Baltin: I was listening to Bloodline Maintenance this morning. While I'm a huge Harry fan, do you feel like his audience was really getting the depth of these songs?
Harper: Every single word. If you're a fan of Harry's, you're a fan of impeccable songcraft. [And] from the second I would be high fiving my way to stage to high fiving my way off his fans were so good to me. And it was just very exciting. Very exciting. The 40, and I only had 40 minutes, that just flew right by.
Baltin: So how much new stuff did you get to do in that?
Harper: Steve, the good news is to those fans, every song was new.
Baltin: So for you, how many of those songs were new, though?
Harper: I have a record coming out in June called Wide Open Light. And I got to do at least two or three brand-new songs throughout the course of the 12 nights.
Baltin: I'm still thinking of Bloodline Maintenance as new. And you're already on to the next record like all artists.
Harper: I think the only two tracks off Bloodline Maintenance over the 12 nights I did "Below Sea Level." And "Maybe I Can't" made it to the set. But they were different.
Baltin: As you say, for these fans, all these songs were new. So were there were there ones that you went back and revisited from the catalog that you were really excited to see how they responded to them and it almost makes them new to you again?
Harper: Absolutely. "Waiting On An Angel," because I was around when I would play "Waiting On An Angel" and it would be 20,000 lighters. So to be able to play it in front of his fans and see 20,000 lights from cell phones could arguably be sort of the arch of one's career. But when I was when I was in my 20s playing "Waiting on an Angel" and those lighters came up, it would get about 10 degrees hotter in that room. You light 10 to 15,000 lighters in an arena, you're going to feel that heat.
Baltin: I got to speak with another friend of yours during COVID, Jackson Browne. And we were talking about "That Girl Could Sing," one of my favorite songs of all time. And during COVID you had time to go back and revisit songs that maybe you hadn't looked at in a long time because look as an artist, you're always looking ahead. So were there songs besides "Waiting on an Angel" that you appreciate it in a different way or that you can almost look at like a fan.
Harper: What felt great was there were zero expectations every night. Because you're fortunate to have the familiarity with fans. But in this case, I was fortunate to not have it because I was presenting songs that were older. I mean, I reached as far back as 1994 and as current as right now from Bloodline Maintenance. Every single song was being heard by the majority of those people for the first time. And that was an experience I didn't ever expect to have.
Baltin: Do you feel like you've had similar experiences at festivals or this was unique?
Harper: This was unique. Festivals there's people who hopefully will come out for you specifically and they're there and they're there in force and they make their voices heard. But in this case, it was all brand new, fresh ears. And it was playing songs that I wrote when I was their age. And to see them translate the same way they did to 20 year olds today as they did to 20 year olds in 1994 was just fascinating and exciting and really re-enlivening.
Baltin: It's so interesting to me because I know a lot of people who went to these shows. And the people I know who went to these shows were really freaking excited to see you as well. People were very excited by the double bill.
Harper: Okay, that's great to hear.
Baltin: I'm sure for a lot of his fans, it was new, but I'm sure there was a little bit of familiarity as well that probably excited you to do these shows.
Harper: I think having played on the album word of that spread. So that was a great entry point as well.
Baltin: Is there something invigorating and fun about going into a setting where you're the new artist?
Harper: Yeah, it felt a bit like man on wire all over again. And a reintroduction and that was a unique challenge that I was well up for and excited by.
Baltin: When you get that challenge and you get that new invigoration, how do you take that forward musically?
Harper: I'm curious as well how that's going to manifest itself in the music I write and in the shows that I play. But definitely there's going to be a lot that I keep with me and apply to the music I make moving forward, both studio and live. Getting to watch Harry every night was also like going to school.
Baltin: In what way? I agree he's a natural performer and I said this in one of my reviews, you can't teach stage presence.
Harper: No, and he has it in such an exciting way. And to think that he's just beginning. He's just scratched the surface of where he's going. We best strap in for that.
Baltin: I mentioned Jackson Browne, who I've gotten to talk to a billion times and is a friend of yours.
Harper: Jackson came and caught my set and he and I watched Harry together. And it was wonderful to be able to introduce Jackson to Harry. It was a marvelous moment because Harry I could see struck him in that special way. Jackson and I were dancing our asses off.
Baltin: Jackson just did the tour opening for James Taylor, who he's friends with. And, you're talking about, to me, one of the 10 greatest songwriters who ever lived in the rock era. I think it's really cool to see artists who are open to different things. Are there people that you really admire for the way they take their ego out of the way?
Harper: Jackson is the most humble, ego-free human I've ever met. Jackson has taught me more about ego than failure. And so what you say resonates deeply with me.
Baltin: I think a lot of artists who've headlined arenas wouldn't open for someone younger than them. But, it can also like you say, be a lot of fun.
Harper: It's a lot of fun. And I've accomplished enough in my life to where I'm not concerned who's going on first or second. One of the greatest joys in my life is having seen Jack Johnson's success. He spent a year opening up for me and being able to open for Jack, which I did two shows recently at the at the Gorge in Washington and in San Diego. Not only were they as much fun as I've had on stage in ages, but also the collaborative process. I got to sit in with Jack at the end of each night like I got to sit in with Harry. These are moments that are as much musical as they are life memories that we get to create with one another as peers, no matter who's going on when.
Baltin: I just talked to Chris Isaak, who did a tour with Lyle Lovett. Is there that one artist that you'd want to spend a whole summer on the road with?
Harper: Yeah, anybody from The Roots to Sheryl Crow to Paul Simon. There's a top 10 list of people whose songwriting and music I've always loved and admired and would always love to go out on the road with for a month, six weeks and have at it.
Baltin: What's the one Paul Simon song you wish you had written and why?
Harper: "Slip Slidin' Away," that's the one.
Baltin: Tell me about the new album.
Harper: The new album is acoustic. It's stripped down. It's songwriting for songwriters. And it's a record I've wanted to make for a long time. There's a couple of songs I've written for other people over the years that I always wanted to do my own version of. A song called "Masterpiece," that I wrote for Rickie Lee Jones. Then a song I wrote for Mavis [Staples] called "One More Change," which I'd wanted to do my own version of as well. Songs that I've been sitting on waiting to put on record for years.
Baltin: Are there things in there that emerged in the writing that really surprised you because it has been a crazy few years?
Harper: Yes, and I hope we can hear those. I hope that those few crazy years are audible in this record because it is being written in real time. It's not that one doesn't reach into the past at all. It's as much reaching into the future and the present as it is anything behind us, behind me, I should say. A lot of it's as personal a record as I've ever made because the time to sit still for me brought out a lot of dialogue. An introspection that I hadn't had the time or whether it's not having the time to have sat with it or it also takes a certain amount of bravery to dive into darker areas in one's life. But it also takes the time to look that bravery in the eyes.
Baltin: When you listen to both Wide Open Light and Bloodline Maintenance are there moments that really stand out to you that you feel you wouldn't have written before?
Harper: Yeah. like sitting in my backyard, which was about as much outdoor activity as I was getting at that time and the sun felt different. And I looked up how long it took for the sun to travel to hit your bones and I was like, "Ah, it takes eight minutes for the sun to hit your bones." That made its way into a song called "Eight Minutes," on the new record. And on Bloodline, sitting and watching what was effectively a cultural, socio-cultural race riot from the confines of a pandemic was so many things. One of which was completely out of body and excruciating. And how Black Lives Matter, in my opinion, is a product of the lack of reparations from slavery. And that, of course, found its way onto the record. And also sitting still enough to have reparations because my father is connected to, is directly connected, was connected and still is posthumously connected to my perspective on the movement. And his presence in not only a song like "We Need to Talk About It," but there's a song on Bloodline Maintenance called "Need to Know Basis." My dad and I used to talk about how random landing on the planet is. We get caught up in black and white, but all we ever are is born. We didn't have a say in that one ounce of it. And there's a song called "Need to Know Basis." And the lyric is, "You're the reason aliens would come down to earth." Because my dad used to say, "Man, humans are the reasons aliens won't come to earth." But my dad was so eccentric, I'd say, "But you're the reason they would come." And he would laugh. Outer space must look small from inside your universe, because my dad was super eccentric. But my dad's love was on a need to know basis. And towards the end of his life, and I told him, I was like, I need to know, man. I need to know where we sit with this father-son thing. Because I could tell he was maybe on his way out, because he lived hard. So just those moments that I got to kind of revisit posthumous conversations with my dad and sitting in the sun for eight minutes, making sure I got all eight minutes of those rays. Those are just a couple of stories, takeaways from how those three years worked their way into the creative.
