We had an opportunity to share a video from David Harland last year. This year we are happy to ask him a few questions about his new instrumental album, The Escapist, as a gift to help us all escape from the stressors of our day. (Spoiler – it does help!)
Please tell us about yourself and how you came to music.
I’m an acoustic guitarist and singer/songwriter. I’ve felt a very strong pull to music since my earliest memories. It’s the thing that’s always made me feel most connected to being alive.
I started playing guitar and bass at 13 years old and have always sung. Throughout my teens I played bass and sang in a rock band with my friends and we had some success with that, but by the time I was around 21 I found myself most interested in spacious acoustic guitar music.
Please tell me about The Escapist. Maybe it’s the visual of the open birdcage but the song has such a feeling of adventure to me.
Oh, that’s fun to hear. The song feels that way to me as well. The album started out with the idea of being a more meditative, calming group of songs to help one “escape” the stressors of the day and just let go and relax. That song ended up being more up-tempo than planned, but it just felt like the title track – it for me has a sense of getting in the car spontaneously and just going somewhere. The open birdcage image just gave me a sense of freedom.
The movement in The Descension on the other hand feels weighted. Are those two songs ends of the same story or a continuum? What is the inspiration?
I’d say it’s a continuum. That song seems to me to be one of going a bit deeper, contemplation, reflection. And although there’s repetition to the piece, I think it opens up as it moves along, almost like a few answers are being revealed.
How important is the name of the song to you? Does it come first, last, depends on the song? As a listener, the strength of emotion comes out in the songs and I never know how the name points me in a direction.
The emotion and feeling is definitely what leads me when composing a song. Once it’s complete is when a name has to be chosen. I often just try to reflect on how the song makes me feel and search out a title that seems to fit. The music is what informs the meaning or vibe of the title for me.
Please tell us about the upcoming release and show.
The album will be streaming everywhere on Friday October 4th. There’s vinyl available for this one too, which if fun.
I have an album release show a week later on Friday October 11th at the Aster Cafe in Mpls, MN.
This will be a fun show; I will be doing a shorter set of songs from the record with my cellist Cierra Alise Hill, followed by a celebratory full band set featuring some of my favorite musicians in the Twin Cities.
Check out davidharlandmusic.com for more details, and follow me on the socials at David Harland Music.
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