Entertainment Swindon

November will see Nick Harper performing at The Vic (Swindon) performing his new album ‘Earth Day Blue’

Ahead of Harper’s 3rd November performance, legendary Abbey Road Studio talked to Harper & producer John Leckie

Earth Day Blue

Recorded in Abbey Road Studio 2 on Earth Day 2024, September sees the release of Nick’s 14th studio album,  ‘Earth Day Blue’. Produced by John Leckie and mixed by Tchad Blake. ‘Earth Day Blue’ is what John wanted to create: the essence of an NH gig captured in a studio environment.

“The Bard of Wiltshire”

— Mojo Magazine

Nick and John had first ‘worked’ together when Nick, aged 8, recorded his first ever songs whilst Nick’s father Roy was recording his own seminal work ‘Lifemask’.

“If anything Nick Harper is the closest thing we’ve got to Lewis Carroll. His songs are the musical equivalent of Carroll’s Looking Glass, peer through and you find a fantastical, magical world. Not always sugar sweet but forever different.”

— Maverick

Son of  legendary UK singer-songwriter Roy Harper, Nick was born in London and raised in Wiltshire. Having played the guitar from the age of 10 and surrounded by the likes of Keith Moon, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and Dave Gilmour as he grew up, it was no surprise when Nick made his recording debut on his father’s Whatever Happened to Jugula? in 1985. 

Nick’s talent and energy entranced Roy’s fans and it was inevitable that he would begin touring and recording in his own right. The 1994 EP Light at the End of the Kennel was swiftly followed by his powerful 1995 debut long player Seed prompting The Independent to describe him as “hugely talented”. 

After a chance meeting with Squeeze frontman and songwriter Glenn Tilbrook in 1996, Tilbrook was so impressed that he offered Nick a job playing with and supporting Squeeze and promptly signed Nick to his own label, Quixotic Records. Following tours in the UK, USA and Japan, Nick recorded the 1998 album Smithereens with Tilbrook as producer. This album and subsequent 40 date solo tour, including dates in New York and Glastonbury, confirmed Nick as a formidable talent in his own right.

He teamed up with Tilbrook again on 2000’s highly acclaimed album Harperspace. This is the album that confirmed his position at the forefront of a new generation of British Acoustic Performers.

To call Nick a superlative singer/songwriter could put his highly lauded guitar talent in the shade, and to call him a guitarist’s guitarist might slight his distinctive, soulful voice and passionate songs. Not forgetting the wild ride that is one of his live shows – from personal introspection to biting political satire via a charmingly caustic wit that would make Groucho Marx proud. He often segues from his own compositions to well-loved covers he makes his own – he takes on Prince, Presley, Zappa, Jeff Buckley, Led Zeppelin, Monty Python and Public Enemy (yes, on an acoustic guitar). He also has the alarming ability to break guitar strings almost by sheer force of will… and then change them without dropping a beat.

For over a decade, he has been dazzling audiences and reviewers alike with this heady mix of virtuosity, boyish charm, showmanship and sheer bravado. His talent and showmanship were recognised in 2003 with a (Glasgow) Herald Fringe Angel award for excellence in live music during his Edinburgh Festival run. 

Between albums Nick is known for touring with a vengeance – he’s now appeared at Glastonbury Festival six times – but also for his charity work devoting energy to fundraising projects as the founder of Avebury Rocks in Wiltshire, raising substantial funds for a hospice near his home. In 2007 Harper’s charity single Blue Sky Thinking from the album Miracles for Beginners went to No.1 in the iTunes charts with proceeds going to the Love Hope Strength Foundation (LHSF). Nick had just returned from Nepal after helping the foundation set (what was!) a new world record for the highest gig on Earth near Mt Everest Base Camp. Nick has been on two further treks with LHSF to Machu Picchu and Mt. Kilimanjaro fundraising for local medical centres. 

‘The Last Guitar Tour’ saw Nick touring the UK throughout spring 2010 supporting his 7th studio album ‘The Last Guitar’ This album had more than a few songs inspired by Nick’s travels and treks with Love Hope Strength and with legendary producer Tchad Blake at the helm the album took on a new, bold and forthright sonic quality. 

After the success of ‘The Last Guitar’, Nick once again teamed up with Tchad Blake to produce a classic recording, ‘Riven’ in 2013. Nick also called on old friends Jeremy Stacey (‘Blood Songs’), Ben Jones (‘Harperspace’) Jon leveller (‘Blood Songs’) Jakko Jakksyk and his daughter Lily to add to his own performances. 

2014 saw Nick go right back to the beginning and produce a recording made in 9 days of 9 songs called NIX, his 9th studio album. This album pleased long time fans of Harper for its unadulterated style, featuring Nick on acoustic guitar and vocals with nothing else added – more immediate and closer to his live performances.

After leaving a streak of rip-roaring, celebratory shows in 2016, road-testing his back catalogue of 12 albums, Nick Harper & The Wilderness Kids (aka Port Erin) returned with a new album Lies! Lies! Lies! and UK tour for 2017. 

Amidst a backdrop of flags being changed and mottos applied, ‘’350 million reasons why, written on the side of the bus’’, saw Nick and The Kids nailing their colours to the mast. 

The album was recorded (in 7 hours!) at Studio La Fabrique, France (Radiohead- Moon Shaped Pool, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds-Push the Sky Away) with legendary producer Tchad Blake (The Black Keys, Pearl Jam, T-Bone, Peter Gabriel). Blake brought his masterful touch to the unceasingly creative cauldron of Nick, his songs and now, his band. 

‘The Wilderness Kids’ met up with the renowned solo acoustic singer-songwriter at a record store day event, where they jammed on some of Nick’s tracks from his ‘Best of’ triple LP set ‘The Wilderness Years’. Nick immediately realised the potential, promptly picked up a baritone electric guitar and the pace hasn’t let up since. The exciting energy and chemistry between the 4 had Nick’s fans in rapture and the combination of the much-loved songwriter added to the zest present in this new gang, made capturing the zeitgeist in the words and music of the new album inevitable. Lies! Lies! Lies! is an intelligent, yet exuberant album rooted very much in the now.

“Album of the Month: Dubbed ‘the acoustic Hendrix’ and the ‘English Jeff Buckley’, with this amount of melodic and sonic ingenuity, Nick Harper could be dubbed ‘the new Beck’ – but that would be a bigger compliment to Mr. Hansen than it would be to Harper.”

— Guitar Magazine

Nick started 2018 on tour playing songs requested by fans who had emailed in to Harperspace. Dubbed the ‘100 Things’ Tour it was very popular with Nick’s long-standing fans and unearthed some ‘forgotten’ gems from the back catalogue for welcome airings. Instead of a show formulated away from the fans and presented to the public en masse, this tour was formulated with the fans and then presented on a more individual, intimate basis. 

This was a precursor to Nick’s first outing as an exponent of the spoken word! Nick’s poem ‘A Wiltshire Tale’ had grown into an epic paean for his home county and with the backing of Wiltshire Creative and Salisbury Playhouse, the show toured the South West in the Spring and Summer of 2018.

58 Fordwych Road in Kilburn, London was where Nick spent the first few years of life. It was also a hang out for Nick’s parents’ bohemian friends. The 58 Fordwych Road Tour recreated that flat in 2019 and Nick aired some of the most seminal acoustic classics as a tribute to his dad and his contemporaries at a pivotal point in music history, whilst relating anecdotes and tales from swinging sixties London. Nick played gems by Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourne, Jackson C. Frank, Sandy Denny, Paul Simon et al. As well as the one and only Roy Harper of course!

“If you’ve never seen Harper live, you’re missing out on one of the musical phenomenons of our age.” – Rob Adams

— Herald (Glasgow)

Source: Abbey Road Studio/Nick Harper.