E.W. Harris — How a “Bad Ghost” Made Good
I’ve known E.W. Harris for a long time. At this point in our lives, it might even be accurate to say “longer than most.” We both have older friends, to be sure, and better ones, without question, but we have been in each other’s orbits for a good while now. We survived the same small, Georgia hometown, went to the same lame, midsize high school, and escaped to the same anonymously huge state college. He’s a couple years older than me, and was already well established in Athens by the time I got there, but still, we ended up running in some of the same circles, working some of the same jobs, even dating some of the same girls. His house was always a warm, welcoming hangout, full of odd characters, art and music, booze and conversation (he even supervised the first time I ever got drunk!). He drew people in, myself included, and just through his effortlessly magnetic presence, made them feel like they were part of something special. Something real. I have seen him play more times than any other musician I have ever known, or ever will know. Indeed, on that particular front he’s probably lapped the field ten times over. It would be nearly impossible for anyone else to catch up.
Schlepping drums for E.W.’s old folk-rock outfit Luminous led to some of the first (and only) times I ever got into bars underage — the first times I was ever “with the band” — and covering his acoustic jazz combo The Eric Harris Group for the local alt weekly was one of my earliest music writing gigs. When his cheeky electropop project Ghostdad the Robot booked a gig at the storied 40 Watt club, I put up posters and filmed the show for posterity, and when he transitioned into the hybrid folktronica of The Sky Captains of Industry, and then the E.W. Harris moniker he performs under today, it started to become apparent that all of these projects were coming home to roost, unified under a glorious Rocket City banner. The playful humor and earnest pathos; the sippin’ whiskey and interstellar spycraft; the dirt road behind him and the gleaming superhighway ahead — all merging and morphing into a singular sound anchored by a hard-won, self-assured voice. So when E.W. packed up and lit out for New York, I never doubted that he’d make things happen for himself there too. Because, more than any of the loose connections and disparate, hazy memories I’ve just shared, what I really think about when I think about E.W. Harris is how he was the first person who showed me what it means to be a true artist.
Living in Athens, Georgia, you meet a lot of musicians, pretty much as a matter of course, whether you set out to or not. Between the richly mythologized history, the University’s robust music program, and the ever-present, capital S, downtown “Scene,” the place is never short on rock n’ roll. And once you start wading into that Scene with purpose and design, you meet more than you ever thought possible — more than you might have even realized existed in your sleepy, funky little town. Frat cowboys and hipster new wavers. Gutterpunks and metalheads. Battle rappers and techno wizards. Self-taught improvisors and trained virtuosos. Barroom cover bands and tortured geniuses. And honestly, just a lot of folks who want a fun excuse to gather round a fire or a living room or a stage and rock out with their friends. I don’t say any of this out of judgment. People play music for all kinds of reasons, and any time they come together to do so, it’s a beautiful thing. Rather, I say it as a kind of roundabout preamble to saying this: it is a much, much rarer thing, to meet a true artist. To meet someone who is unaffectedly and unequivocally “the real deal.” Someone who makes music not just because he wants to, but because he has to.
E.W. never had much time for the Classic City mythos — the R.E.M. worshipers and Elephant 6 hangers-on — the downtown gladhanding and hobnobbing — none of it, really. For the first couple of years I really got to know him, he and his bandmates would, more often than not, drive half an hour away from the capital S Athens “Scene” to play a tiny coffee shop in the comparably tiny hamlet of Madison. It wasn’t that he was too cool for Athens. It never once felt that way. It was more that Athens was too “cool” for him. And ideas like “Cool” and “The Scene” were, quite frankly, the last things on E.W.’s mind. They were distractions; the obscurant dust cloud that great art invariably kicks up around its creator. And “Cool” and “The Scene,” for their parts, didn’t really know what to make of E.W. either. I didn’t get it at the time. I desperately wanted to be part of both. But looking back, it makes all the sense in the world. The things that so many musicians want for themselves — the things they see as end goals — were the things that mattered the least to E.W. Though I don’t want to speak for him too much here, it always seemed like navigating the trappings of even minor fame was harder on him than any aspect of songwriting or performance ever was. And whether he was singing in front of three people in Madison, or 300 in Athens, he sang his heart out just the same. I imagine it’s still that way, even now. He’s really all about the music.
As such, I should probably get to this new track, which is absolutely stunning (Release date July 10th; link below). Though “Bad Ghost” already exists in its more traditional folk form on Harris’s 2016 album Mimetic Desire, this new version, with its shimmery electronic flourishes, gorgeously layered vocal processing, and triumphant, extended instrumental break, has accumulated a cosmic depth and interstellar emotional resonance — a sorrowful admission of guilt and regret that’s wended its way across space and time, and would gladly sing itself right into the Sun if only it could put things right. Though Harris has always made old school synths and samplers work for his electro-acoustic, back-porch-of-Skylab aesthetic, it’s clear that with the full force of a label and a professional studio setup behind him, the ionosphere is the limit for his baleful tales of replicant femmes fatale and galactic outlaws forever on the run. If “Bad Ghost” is a preview of the space operas to come, then both the past and the future are his for the taking.
Presave link: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/ewharris1/bad-ghost
This is the first music review I’ve written in something like a decade. Sure, I eventually made my own way into that oh-so-cool, capital S Athens “Scene,” and spent a few really fun years there, right in the thick of it, getting to talk to and write about all sorts of musicians, making music for all sorts of different reasons. But I didn’t meet many more people like E.W. People who took their art and themselves seriously, while still managing to hold onto things like their kindness and their integrity. People who worked hard at things they hated, just so they could afford to work harder at the thing they loved. People who weathered every setback imaginable, and soldiered right on into making their own next opportunity. I met a few, but not many. He’s a true original. One of a kind. And still my greatest example of what it means to live the artist’s life — an example that, at least in part, led me to leave The Scene behind and write my first novel, rather than just endlessly commenting on the work of others. But I’m always happy to write about E.W. Harris. In the same way it’s often said that the people best suited to lead never get elected President because they’re too smart to apply for the job, he may never be an indie folk superstar a la Bon Iver or Sufjan Stevens (and he might be just fine with that). But he absolutely deserves to be. He’s put in the time. He’s done the work. He means every word. Take it from someone who knows — someone who’s been in his magnetic, interplanetary orbit for a good long while now. E.W. Harris is the real deal.
-Dave Fitzgerald
