Harry Howard and the NDE
Harry Howard and the NDE’s latest LP Sleepless Girls is a cracker. Killer lyrics along with a great rhythm section in Dave Graney and Clare Moore and some of the best keyboard playing you’ll hear from Edwina Preston, the band just goes from strength to strength. Sleepless Girls may be their best yet.
Munster: How was your recent trip to Paris?
Harry: We did an NDE tour of Paris with a different rhythm section we had Craig Williamson who lives in Melbourne on drums who played in the last incarnation of These Immortal Souls and an Australian who live in Berlin Chris Hughes on bass.
Munster: The recording of Sleepless Girls what was different to it as opposed to other recordings you’ve done?
Harry: It’s always a similar process I suppose there was a semi concept behind it to relate the songs to women but that was partially easy as they generally where anyway it just required a few details and a slightly different way of thinking about to. Talking’ bout women generally specking rather than as individuals.
Munster: the theme of women throughout the record was that intentional or did it come along as you were creating the songs?
Harry: Kind of a general thing, that song votes for women was obviously written about women (laughs) and I’m not sure if it was the point. I had the title and a few other songs, about women/girls so it wasn’t a big leap to make, so I sort of thought ‘bout women in general as I was putting it all together, putting gender into song.
Munster: Which women inspire you?
Harry: My partner Edwina always inspires me and She’s in the band, there are general people but I haven’t really thought about talking about that.
Munster: Your lyrics kind of come across as short stories is that your intention when you sit down and write songs?
Harry: I do tend to do that, I guess the first things I ever wrote where stories, the first nonfiction thing I wrote were stories .i love stories and when I was really young I wanted to be a writer. I like lyrics that are stories, they don’t have to be but I find it satisfying to having a story in the song, I very attracted to that.
Munster: Some songwriters I’ve spoken to consider themselves writers first and musos second, would you classify yourself in that category
Harry: Almost. I think lyrics are the most Important thing but the way music and words stick together in a really peculiar way that is incredibly special and I love music so it’s a double whammy of goodness. There’s something special when words and music stick together.
Munster: Tell us about working with Loki?
Harry: He’s great to work with it’s always hard and there are tense moments but it was fun. He’s very open minded to my ideas and so we had a bit of time and where able to muck around a bit. We had time to look at some of the details more, so it was a pretty creatIve time and he gets a good sound. He has his own style and it’s not always what I want but we try and meet in the middle and it’s works out pretty well.
Munster: How did Clare and Dave join the band?
Harry: I knew both of them since the 80’s, we were all in London, part of the Australians in London in the music scene in the 80’s. I wasn’t seeing them regularly but I was in touch with them, I done a MySpace page and put up some demos I thought id do an LP as a project for myself. Id recorded at home and put the demos on MySpace and I spoke to Dave and I commented on how no one says anything on them from the music business that I know and he sympathised with that (laughs). I said I can’t think of anyone to play with so I’ll make an LP at home and put it out just for the hell of it. He rang be 30 minutes later and said he likes playing bass and would I like one. So I was pretty flattered he asked, cause he’s obviously a man of many talents so I was thrilled he wanted to make time to work on my stuff so of course i said yes and we were able to talk music pretty easy. He rang 30 minutes later and said Clare wants to play drums so it was like fuck I got a band now (laughs).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OG4A6BIUBQ
Munster: I first saw you play live at the St Kilda Bowls club in 2012 if id told you would make a further two LPs would you believe me?
Harry: May not have. I was convinced I was going to make one, but I thought making the third was an achievement. It always a bit scary being a songwriter, unless you’re working on a song that’s working well you don’t know if you are ever going to write a song again (laughs). You can kind of assume you are going to write another one you’ll like but the longer the gap gets the less confident you get. I don’t know I was going to believe I would have written enough songs for a third album, but I’m still writing, so it’s going OK.
Munster: What was it like that period being a Australian muso living abroad?
Harry: You know it was a lot of things we were all young, and it’s different when you’re young, in your prime and encountering stuff for the first time and you have unrealistic hopes and things which can’t work out for everyone of course. It was a great time, the Australian musicians overseas I thought were great. The Laughing Clowns where over all the time, I thought they were great. The Go Betweens obviously, and all the bands would hang out at parties. It was a little scene. The Fall wrote a great song Australians in Europe so Mark E Smith, so he was aware of the fact there where many Australians around the place. It was a really interesting time, and there was the contact with Berlin which was a fascinating place at the time. London was pretty fucked, it was very economically ground down kind of place was a hard place to live in. Berlin was like a village in Europe, with the wall and such extreme characters. At the time rock music, or bands music was more popular. So you could be a medium, small to medium player in that game and do quite well and finance yourself over the wall.
Munster: what is it about Oz rock n roll that does so well in Europe?
Harry: I’m not sure but them seem to like Australian music, not sure why that is, partly because England is so influence re music in Europe. English people are aware Australia exists, unlike American where they confuse us with Austria. English people know what Australia is and they were prepared to accept them as credible, but it took awhile. Good reviews in the English press translated all throughout Europe. England is still a scene make for Europe. I think that’s how it started, bands like the Birthday Party got a lot of press in the UK and that went though the continent, then things started to happen more on their own, our label Beast is located in Brittany in France, there’s a whole circuit just in Brittany, Australian bands just can tour there but they now have a taste for Australian music and rate it. There’s a sI’milar thing with Spain with Bang records. But I think it started from the UK and planted the seeds across Europe. It just struck a chord at the time probably, Germans liked Australian music probably because it was fairly direct, the good stuff, and the Dutch and Austria, less so France and Italy at the time as it was hard to get shows in those places in the 80’s but you can now.
Munster: Edwina’s keyboard playing is great it sounds new have and different to everything else yet it still works, do you collate or is it her call on what she does?
Harry: Some of them I might have an idea that is structural to the song and she’ll agree to play those but She’s very headstrong and most of what you hear defiantly is what She’s made up and she has a slightly different perspective, she’s nine years younger than me so She’s got a younger voice. She’s more pop orientated I think then me, and that new wave that was her era she was a countdown kid when I was off in England she was listening to pop that was on countdown and all that jazz. I hadn’t really thought that it…it seems to gel perfectly to me the pop poppy side is her contribution, she’s doing a lot of the lead lines cause I’m singing and playing guitar and I’m not a very skilled guitarists I don’t do a lot of lead mostly strumming and guiding things a long which gives Dave and Edwina space. I think she excelled herself on this record did a lot of great things. Occasionally with my help, but mostly not.
Munster: The Only One, the first song on the LP has been part of the live show for a while now, some bands say we’ve written so many songs for a release and the leftover songs We’ll get to later but they often don’t as if they were good enough they would have used them at the time, so you obviously believe in waiting if it’s good enough?
Harry: That track I considered part of the next record and it’s a good idea if you can, it’s a bit dull to already be playing all your songs from your new record months before, but it’s going to be a better record even if the songs don’t have the novelty, I did introduce that song awhile before we recorded, maybe a year. I knew it was on the next record I just didn’t know when that was. But it would have been silly not to have used it.
Munster: what does 2017 hold?
Harry: I’m demoing some songs right now, we’re thinking about what to do, Edwina and I have two side projects, we have one called Duet which is dark fold where we do originals and covers, we want to record something with that. We want to record with our friend Ben Hepworth which in our other project Atom, which is vaguely Gothic sounding project we’d like to do an album with that project, hopefully this year, if it doesn’t happen this year it might not happen at all. And I’m working on some songs right now, it’s either going to be the next NDE LP or a solo LP. Will see what everyone is up too. I know Dave and Clare are going overseas at some point, everything is up in the air at the moment.
Munster: Favourite Fall LP please.
Harry: Hex Enduction Hour. Or Slates, well that’s and EP. Mark E Smith is great, England’s Dylan.
Munster: my girlfriend compared Mark E Smith to Dylan saying both amazing wordsmiths and songwriters and also have that cranky relationship with the media.
Harry: I think so, some people look at me like I’m an idiot when I see that so I’m glad she agree.
