pd
18-08-2009, 02:05 PM
http://www.stormcock.net/files/image/pd/COV79_CD_175.jpg
Roy is featured in "The Word" magazine as part of a feature on cult heroes.
Roy has put an unedited copy of his brief but excellent interview on his site at http://www.royharper.co.uk/shop/display_page.php?page=press/word_2009. It's eight questions and answers and I'm certain that some of the answers were not quite what the interviewer was expecting. Here's a snippet:
1. Why do you think you inspire such devotion?
I don't think that I properly realize that I have anyone devoted to me. There's something called Roy Harper, and then there's me, a person who seems to trundle along in a parallel universe to that narrative. In the times when I realize that the narrative may have devotees, it's tempered with a thought that there are a lot of people out there who may be in some way antipathetic. In other words, I think that Roy Harper divides opinion a lot. He's not really someone you can really treat as wallpaper. There's some very high class incidental music out there. Pink Floyd, and Coldplay immediately spring to mind. Moby and even Eminem on a lesser level. Stuff with a capability to be used as soothing or familiar background sound. Complimentary audio to a particular lifestyle, or to being played in the workplace at reasonably low volume. Things that might seem to suggest, but don't finally say very much other than they are very well produced high class music art. Often image is the key component. You could describe this as a way of writing in which any lyrical content is purely subject to the music or the image, and is actually ancillary, and often even incidental. The reason why this kind of music art is always going to be fashionable is that it doesn't disturb people, and it usually compliments the status quo. Which is great, I don't have anything against that, but it's not where I'm coming from, that is, me, the founder of Roy Harper. I'm coming from the same kind of place Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Richard Fariņa and Big Bill Broonzy came from, where a song can be a contentious point of view, often a bold a statement, or a strong opinion based on available empirical fact. Any and all of which can be loaded with emotion. Some people really get it, lots don't, people who can't be bothered to decipher meaning in lyrics think of me as purely esoteric, and there are billions who know nothing of me at all. One thing is for sure, I don't think I leave many who do.. sat on the fence. And Roy of course, well he's likely to carry on for quite a while after I've left. He's nothing I can actually stop now.. he's become a slight disturbance out there in cyberspace.
More... (http://www.stormcock.net/node/606)
Roy is featured in "The Word" magazine as part of a feature on cult heroes.
Roy has put an unedited copy of his brief but excellent interview on his site at http://www.royharper.co.uk/shop/display_page.php?page=press/word_2009. It's eight questions and answers and I'm certain that some of the answers were not quite what the interviewer was expecting. Here's a snippet:
1. Why do you think you inspire such devotion?
I don't think that I properly realize that I have anyone devoted to me. There's something called Roy Harper, and then there's me, a person who seems to trundle along in a parallel universe to that narrative. In the times when I realize that the narrative may have devotees, it's tempered with a thought that there are a lot of people out there who may be in some way antipathetic. In other words, I think that Roy Harper divides opinion a lot. He's not really someone you can really treat as wallpaper. There's some very high class incidental music out there. Pink Floyd, and Coldplay immediately spring to mind. Moby and even Eminem on a lesser level. Stuff with a capability to be used as soothing or familiar background sound. Complimentary audio to a particular lifestyle, or to being played in the workplace at reasonably low volume. Things that might seem to suggest, but don't finally say very much other than they are very well produced high class music art. Often image is the key component. You could describe this as a way of writing in which any lyrical content is purely subject to the music or the image, and is actually ancillary, and often even incidental. The reason why this kind of music art is always going to be fashionable is that it doesn't disturb people, and it usually compliments the status quo. Which is great, I don't have anything against that, but it's not where I'm coming from, that is, me, the founder of Roy Harper. I'm coming from the same kind of place Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Richard Fariņa and Big Bill Broonzy came from, where a song can be a contentious point of view, often a bold a statement, or a strong opinion based on available empirical fact. Any and all of which can be loaded with emotion. Some people really get it, lots don't, people who can't be bothered to decipher meaning in lyrics think of me as purely esoteric, and there are billions who know nothing of me at all. One thing is for sure, I don't think I leave many who do.. sat on the fence. And Roy of course, well he's likely to carry on for quite a while after I've left. He's nothing I can actually stop now.. he's become a slight disturbance out there in cyberspace.
More... (http://www.stormcock.net/node/606)