Episode 18: Jason Hawk Harris
Jason Hawk Harris released his debut album in 2019 on Bloodshot Records, the critically acclaimed “Love and the Dark”. Rolling Stone named “Phantom Limb” one of the 25 Best Country and Americana songs of the year. Though he currently resides in Los Angeles, Jason was born and raised in Houston, where he heard a lot of country music in his home. However the music of Queen led him to pursue training in classical composition as a teenager. The songs on “Love and the Dark”, many of which draw lyrical themes from personal stories of loss, pain and addiction, swing with the soul of country while being carried along by dynamic and orchestral arrangements; an intriguing and compelling combination. We discuss Jason’s creative process, including how some of his songs start out as a single unbroken line drawn on a sheet of blank paper; how he likes to “wrap a sad song in a happy jacket”; and one of his first musical projects, “Mr. Meticulous and the Sloppy Joes”.
Jason Hawk Harris hit rock bottom during the writing and recording of his debut full-length Love & the Dark. In the last few years he endured life-altering hardships—illness, death, familial strife, and addiction—yet from these trials, a luxuriant and confident vision of art country emerged. With an unlikely background, Harris is a singer/guitarist/songwriter who walks his own line, one that touches on Lyle Lovett’s lyrical frankness, John Moreland’s punk cerebralism and Judee Sill’s mysticism and orchestral sensibility. There’s even the literary and sonic audacity of an early Steve Earle, an outlaw unafraid to embrace harmony. Jason’s grandfather exposed him to country music at an early age, and his family celebrated holidays with group sing-alongs. In his teens, Harris began listening to punk, indie rock, and, notably, Queen. In some part inspired by the instrumental flair of Freddie Mercury & Co., he later took the educational plunge into classical composition and was eventually wait-listed for the master’s program at UCLA, when things took a turn.
While touring and performing in the indie folk band The Show Ponies, Jason started writing his own songs, intuitively returning to his country roots but incorporating his classical and rock ‘n’ roll performance skills. He released his first solo offering, the Formaldehyde, Tobacco and Tulips EP in 2017 and hit the road. Meanwhile, his world fell apart: his mother died from complications of alcoholism; his father went bankrupt after being sued by the King of Morocco; his sister was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and gave birth to a premature son with cerebral palsy; and—subsequently—Jason got sidetracked by his own vices.
Love & the Dark is not THAT country narrative, though; that of surviving through pain. But it’s not NOT that either. This is his personal narrative on death, struggle, and addiction, of a life deconstructed and reassembled. While his music acknowledges mortality, pain, and hardship, it’s also Jason Hawk Harris’s way of working through it. Love & The Dark is a hypnotically convincing album; you can feel the unknown, but you need not fear it.
