HAR MAR SUPERSTAR INTERVIEW

Har Mar Superstar…OCT 4TH OZ

Sitting way off in the corner of some restaurant in Brisbane, me and Har Mar Superstar conducted this interview. I didn’t have a Dictaphone with me so I used my camera and just ran it for the audio. We ordered a dozen oysters (natural) for starters, some calamari (two portions of the salted stuff), and a main course of two 300g sirloin stakes, his with the pepper sauce and mine with red wine.

Har Mar: So your just gonna use the audio…so it’s a picture of my crotch.

Morgan: Yeah basically, I’m just gonna hold it here and not film it. So yeah, later when I’m typing this up I’m just gonna be looking at your crotch for hours.

HM: Okay Perfect.

M: Right so I’ve got a few questions I wanna ask ya, first off where did you grow up?

HM: I grew up in a town called Owatonna Minnesota. It’s like an hour south of Minneapolis, kind of a town of 20,000 people, pretty small. Weirdly a lot of good musicians came out of there. Like the drummer from Morphine, and then just a lot of guys who went on to be in really good indie bands came from there. But I moved to Minneapolis to go to a fame style arts high school when I was 15.

M: Really what was that called?

HM: It’s called the Minnesota centre for arts education. Yeah so we all lived in dorms, and we’re like living in dorms and drinking forties and having sex. It was really great. It was like early college you know, except with a bunch of theatre and music and visual arts stuff.

M: So what…I mean was there any scene there that you fit into, when you first started?

HM: Oh what in Minneapolis? Yeah I mean my first band was called Calvin Crime and it was like a noise band, so we were kinda part of the noise scene. I played bass and keyboards and sang in that band.

M: When you say noise do mean like Merzbow.

HM: Not kinda like Merzbow but heavy. There was this label called Amphetamine Reptile that we were signed to when I was 17 and it was like Helmet and the Cows and Boss Hogg, Hammerhead, Unsane, like those kind of noise bands. Little bit of melody but mainly destroying distortion.

M: That’s interesting cos when I first heard of you I always associated you with Gonzalez, Peaches, Princess Superstar, it seemed to be that first wave of electro stuff, almost like you were coming via Berlin.

HM: Yeah it’s weird, I didn’t even really know all this stuff was going on outside of Minneapolis. I just wanted to make this RnB weird fucking one man boy band thing, and I started doing it and touring and playing shows totally unaware of Peaches and then all of a sudden I saw her when I was just getting going and touring. She and Gonzales came over and supported Elastica, it was amazing, it was like “Oh my god your like me but you”, like we’re the same guy. So that was really cool you know. I was always afraid that people would think that I was coming out and trying to ape Peaches, but we both kinda came out at the same time and made friends right away and started playing shows and stuff.

M: Did you go…were you in Germany at all?

HM: No I never went there, it’s weird I dunno how that happened. I mean I was never really into the dance scene and there was kind of a lot of indie hip-hop in Minneapolis, but I just took it to a kind of weird RnB sex level.

M: Yeah cos in England it seemed like our electro scene was kind of DMX and…

[At this point the waitress asks if we would like something to drink. I order a coke and Har Mar has a beer. I notice she has a tattoo on her wrist of a love heart with a knife dividing the centre and a banner across it, which reads DAD]

M: Right so we had DMX and you know still kind of niche stuff, and then electro clash came out and it was pretty big…

HM: Yeah I tried to avoid that scene, cause I mean I liked it but I didn’t want to be classified, or be part of a club. I felt like it got so popular so fast that a lot of people got
left by the way side, because they were part of the scene which was unfortunate for them because there were a lot of talented, awesome people, but I just wanted to be my own thing. I was touring with rock bands more. One of my first tours in the UK was with the Pattern, the next one was with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

M: So yeah so electro clash kinda finished, and then, now we’ve got this whole new electro scene that’s really French. Where...I mean…what do think of this new style?

HM: I love MR Oizo, and a lot of that Ed Banger Stuff is really awesome. I particularly loved when Justice came out. Dance music could be…it was kinda too soft for a while, and I really like the heavy distorted bass. It’s what I’ve always been into. It’s like going out to a dance club having something heavy to get down to is amazing, it’s just like far more sexual and fun.

M: So let me just go back again, to the heavy thing. Were you quite influenced by Hardcore and stuff?

HM: Yeah not like especially. I was into bands like the VSS. They were a heavy like punk band, but they were kinda dancey they had keyboards and there was a lot of that going around. I mean I’ve always been friends with the faint and bands like that, I mean I make beats with them for my stuff. So we were all in that scene, we were all kids who would collect each others seven inches and go on tours in our vans and stay on tour for two months straight when we were eighteen and sleep on each others couches. I mean we were all like punk kids.

M: How long has Har Mar been the thing that you do?

HM: I think I started when I was 19, so like eleven years ago. I had this other band called Sean Na Na that I still do today. It’s more like an Elvis Costello type pop band and I play guitar, and I write all those songs too.

M: Was there a point…I mean I’m always interested in the point when peoples careers, not tip or whatever, but go from being something where your trying to get shows and your trying to get people to book you to do shows, to bang, your getting shows. What was that transition like for you?

HM: Well I always did all my own stuff, like managed the bands and called up the clubs, and sent out the packages. I did all my own bookings for five years and I was touring for nine months a year. When Har Mar really started taking off I sort of entrusted it to someone else to take care of. It wasn’t like in the UK when its real quick, in the US a lot of people go DIY forever and are real protective. Cause your not making much money.

M: So when did you get the girls in?

HM: That was after I did a residency at manumission in Ibiza for four months. There were 60 girls who danced at the club, and I got booked for Glastonbury, so I was like it would be cool to have like ten on stage who could come over and work out their routines. So I asked who wanted to come to Glastonbury and they were all like “Me, me, me”.

M: Tell me about manumission. You were there for four months!?

HM: I mean I would play every Monday. I had a flat in London and so I would commute and spend every three days in Ibiza and then on the other days play festivals, it was really draining, it was insane, but it was a lot of fun.

M: So tell me some of the crazy shit that used to go on?

HM: Well it’s the kinda place where you leave your hotel room like “Hey I’ll be back, I’m just gonna go grab a Coca-Cola from the store” , and you come back four days later, war torn, clothes ripped off, and fuckin’…you know what I mean? Probably my Favourite story is that Duran Duran were kinda hanging around the club, and I kinda like ran the back room, so that when the celebrities would come I would be playing. I mean I played live on my nights, like I was one of the first people to play live on the island, I mean people had no idea that you could sing a song it was really crazy. But, I was in charge of taking care of all the special guests and stuff kind of like greeting them and stuff, and one of my favourite ones was Simon Le Bon and his daughter were in the front row when I was singing, I went to make out with his daughter and he grabbed my head and I ended up making out with him instead.

M: Whaaaaaaat! You made out with Simon Le Bon.

HM: I made out with Simon Le Bon. Yep he was kind of throwing himself in front of the bus.

M: Okay, so have you ever heard of the Oblique strategy cards? They’re an arbitrary system for composition devised by Brian Eno. Its basically just a deck of cards with sentences printed on each that are supposed to help people with writers block. So yeah, what would your one oblique strategy be?

HM: Play scrabble.

M: Cool, so I’m gonna ask you this question and the answer of this next question will be the first question I have to ask the next person I interview. So, what’s the one question you’ve always wanted to be asked but never have?

HM: How did you become so amazing and sexy and undeniable to every person on the planet, man and women?

M: Sweet.