The roots rocker unveils a new band and a harder
sound
By Alan Light Special to MSN Music
Act 1, late 1990s, Austin, Texas: Ben Harper climbs into the van that will take him
to his performance that evening. The driver, Jason Mozersky, turns to Harper and
utters the dreaded words "Can I play you my demo?" Harper agrees (we can only
imagine how reluctantly), listens to Mozersky's band -- which has the dubious
name Wan Santo Condo -- and is "blown away."
Act 2, 2005, Los Angeles: Working without his longtime band, the Innocent
Criminals, Harper is recording the album that will become the 2006 double-disc
"Both Sides of the Gun." He invites Mozersky, with
whom he has stayed in touch, to add guitar to a track. Mozersky brings along two
friends, drummer Jordan Richardson and bassist Jesse Ingalls, and they wind up
backing Harper on the song "Serve Your Soul."
Act 3, 2007, Manchester, Tenn.: In addition to his own blazing performance
with the Innocent Criminals at the Bonnaroo festival, Harper plays a late-night
"Superjam" session with Led Zeppelin bass player John Paul Jones and drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson from the Roots. The turbo-charged, Zep-heavy set plants the
seeds of a new sound in Harper's mind.
Act 4, summer 2008, Los Angeles: Harper and the "Serve Your Soul" trio, now
renamed "Ben Harper and Relentless7," return to the studio, this time to record
a full album. The 11 songs on the resultant "White Lies for Dark Times" reveal
the 39-year-old Harper to be more tightly focused and more consistently
rocked-up than ever before. A full-scale tour begins prior to the album's
release, putting the former van driver and his friends in front of sold-out
audiences and massive festival crowds.
The fact that Ben Harper is married to a movie star -- Oscar-nominated
actress Laura Dern -- doesn't make this Hollywood-style rags-to-riches story any
less impressive. On the phone from Memphis, following a performance at the New
Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival the previous night, Harper said that, as
unlikely as his new band's story may be, the direction it offered was completely
natural.
"This will sound trite, but I swear it's super-sincere," he said. "Everything
I've ever done has brought me to the place where I could make a record like
this. And the proof is in the music."
MSN Music: I have to ask about the name. I count four of you. So why
Relentless7?
Ben Harper: It just has a better ring to it than "Relentless 4." It was a
name I was kicking around for a while and just kept looking for a chance to use.
The fact that it stuck around, never went out of my mind, seemed to represent
some kind of staying power, and we just couldn't come up with anything better.
What can you do with these musicians that you weren't able to do with
the Innocent Criminals?
It's a different direction, sound, feel. Every group you play with, every
different configuration brings out a different sound and energy.
Let me be clear: They're both incredible bands. The Innocent Criminals could
go on a stage before or after anyone and handle it. But I wanted to step out and
take a risk, do something new, and it was right in front of me. It was there for
the taking. The real risk actually would have been not doing it.
Did you hear a certain sound you wanted to chase with this band, or
was it something that emerged while you were working on the album?
Two years ago, I played with John Paul Jones at Bonnaroo, and I just
connected with that deeply. That show was a huge signpost of where I wanted to
be with my music. The nucleus of this band represents what happened that night.
They really represented that sound that I was reaching for -- before I even knew
I was reaching for it.
On the "Both Sides of the Gun" album, when they came in for the song "Serve
Your Soul," it was just screaming at me that there was a chemistry in the room
that was not to be overlooked. So I set out to reconnect with that energy before
we knew that we were making a record. And then quickly, before we knew it, we
had five songs done. It needed to be its own body of work, with its own
identity. The music demanded that.
It seems like you are very much trying to present Relentless7 as a
band of equals, with you as one member rather than the guy up front. Is shifting
to that role a hard adjustment to make?
It is a band, in absolute terms. My history doesn't allow me not to leave my
name up front -- and my record label wouldn't let me do that, either. I floated
the idea of just being Relentless7, and maybe a couple of records down the line
that can happen.
The album was a diplomatic process, very mature, very collaborative. A lot of
riffing, pulling things out of thin air. A true combination of bringing things
to the table that we already had and also listening to each other -- there was a
lot of improvisation, of hearing something cool and saying, let's pursue that.
But I do think that the Innocent Criminals had built up the right to call
ourselves a band, too, so that's not incredibly new for me. You can hear that I
have to be careful, more than usual, talking for both bands without offending
people, because words can be misrepresented. It's hard to build the new band up
without feeling like you're taking the other band down, and I don't ever want to
do that. I never surround myself with people whose music and playing I don't
trust implicitly.
At a glance, when someone sees this album's title, and songs like
"Lay There and Hate Me" or "The Word Suicide," they might conclude that there's
a much darker sensibility than we usually get from you. Is that a fair
characterization?
I think it's a counterbalance. There's that bombast, the element of darkness
and depression, but there's also the element of uplift. I hope that people can
hear the optimism in songs like "Shimmer and Shine" or "Fly One Time" or
"Faithfully Remain." But it really is both -- unless I'm just kidding myself and
it's just a really depressing album. You tend to lose any sense of objectivity
in the middle of the storm.
A few weeks ago, at a benefit in New York, you shared the stage with
Paul McCartney and
Ringo Starr. You
mentioned the set with John Paul Jones, and you made the "There Will Be a Light"
album in 2004 with the Blind Boys of Alabama. What do you take away from
experiences like that?
It's the highest showing of artistic appreciation when that door is opened to
you by the likes of them, the very few that are in that place. It's just so big,
so immeasurable. It's something that makes you better, stronger, more creative
-- and you get to keep that; nobody can take it away. It's like, this hand is
for history, this hand is for the future, and you can hold on to both.
Do you see anything that's consistent with all of these legendary
artists, or that helps explain their longevity?
They are as hungry and as passionate for music as the day they first picked
up their instruments. I was in the studio with Ringo, and the intensity and
focus he had, it was like he was making his first record. There's a reason they
stayed that great for that long. And it lets me know that you cannot ever take
your foot off the gas.
Alan Light is the former editor-in-chief of Spin, Vibe and Tracks
magazines and a former senior writer at Rolling Stone. His writing has also
appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, GQ and Entertainment Weekly. His
book "The Skills to Pay the Bills: The Story of the Beastie Boys" was published in 2006.
Alan is a two-time winner of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in
music writing.
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