Originally published by www.liverpool-live.co.uk on May 16th 2013.
Songsmith Ed Harcourt released his latest album Back Into The Woods earlier this year. Recorded in just 6 hours at Abbey Road Studios, the critically acclaimed work features a collection of beautifully stripped down tracks. In keeping with the romance and warmth of the album, he heads out on a tour of intimate churches and concert halls this summer and plays Liverpool’s Scandinavian Church on 7th June.
The venues on the new tour are quite distinctive and they seem to lend themselves to your music, for instance, Trinity Church in Leeds and the Scandinavian Church in Liverpool; was this a conscious decision to do play such places?
Ed: “It was actually, I told my manager that I didn’t want to do the typical venues that I’d done before and I’d played them a lot. I wanted to do something different really and also the album itself lends itself to that kind of environment, just more in relation to the ambience and the sound that it’s going to create in the room. Even though I’m an Atheist, I’ve always enjoyed playing in churches, I like the architecture and I like being in them. I’ve done lots of gigs in London at St. James Church and the Union Chapel, St. Paul’s as well. So we felt that we should use some big classical halls and churches.”
The church is great; it will create a fantastic sound in there.
Ed: “It’s sold out I think!”
Yes, it has! It sold out very quickly. This isn’t the first time you have performed in the city though is it?
Ed: “No, I’ve played Liverpool many times before, I had a run of bad shows in Liverpool two or three years on the run then I had a really good one. I don’t know what it was, I don’t think people liked me in Liverpool and then I had a show which was really cool and it went very well. I was on tour with the Magic Numbers and I think we played Liverpool University and we were egging each other on and we were saying things onstage that caused the crowd to hate me! It was my turn in Liverpool and I had to say whatever the Magic Numbers said and they said I had to go onstage and say that The Beatles sucked! (Laughter) So I went out there and said that The Beatles weren’t very good. I think the crowd knew I was taking the piss.”
I will say though that I came across your music through an advert when I heard about ten seconds of a track and I went out and bought the album on the strength of that snippet. When you first brought out your first album Here Be Monsters there was a brief advert I saw at HMV and they played the introduction to Something In My Eye and on the first ten seconds of that, I was hooked. So congratulations on that, it rarely happens!
Ed: “That’s amazing!”
Your sound has really progressed from that album, how do you feel it’s changed as the last one was a very dynamic gracious album?
Ed: “It was quite a joyous album I guess, I was quite careful about wanting to write a very upbeat record and I got that out of my system and then the next was a bit more downbeat and driven, that came from another place. Every record comes from a different place and you don’t really know when it’s actually happening whether writing or recording and if you’re aware of it. You kind of reflect back on it and go O.K. this album is about that. A lot of the time I’m not really aware of it, it just comes out of nowhere.”
Do you think writing is a very subconscious process?
Ed: “I think so, yeah, there will be moments when I will be inspired by something or by what someone has said. I have to write it down or have an argument with someone! It’s more likely to be me with my tail between my legs! It’s from the perspective though of someone in their mid-thirties who’s married with two kids and it’s not always easy.”
Times have changed since your debut album?
Ed: “I think the first one was a bit more fantastical. Maybe earlier on in my career I was a bit more into stories and more fiction. I think it’s become a bit more exposed!”
You’re baring your heart a bit more than you used to?
Ed: “I think with my next record it’s going to be a more universal thing, the themes are going to be worldlier. I want to talk about the roots of evil, whether you were born into it, where does it come from, how it develops that sort of thing.”
I really will look forward to that, I must admit you’re an artist that I’ve collected every album and it’s been an absolute joy to listen to them. I’m really impressed by the lyrics.
Ed: “That makes all the difference, being a singer and knowing that there are always going to be people that really don’t like you and those who do like you! A lot of the time, you tend to dwell on the negative aspects of opinions and critics and that’s fine; obviously it’s best to avoid it all but it’s just nice when people get it I guess and they understand it.”
I know this is off the beaten track totally but you have your own beer that’s been launched, what’s the idea behind Dark Heart?
Ed: “It was basically to do with the song Beneath The Heart of Darkness, we were trying out different names and Sean my manager he kind of mentioned Dark Heart, which is a great name for a beer and the idea of someone coming up to the bar and asking can I have a Dark Heart, it kind of slips off the tongue quite well and it made sense to it. Someone had a signature beer called Clear Heart and it’s like a very sweet, golden beer so we thought we’d do the opposite – Dark Heart – a dark, musky brown ale!
Yeah but a good substitute for those who don’t want a beer, I didn’t drink in January, is loads of lime juice, ice and tonic water, it’s just basically like having a gin and tonic! It’s really refreshing and it’s great with some Angostura Bitters in there!”
On that note, I can’t think of a better ending. Thank you for your time today and I hope the night in Liverpool is a huge success.
Ed Harcourt starts his tour on May 29th in Bristol and will play a sell out show at Liverpool’s Scandinavian Church before festival appearances at Glastonbury
Back Into The Woods is available to buy/download from Amazon and iTunes