Beth Hart - Riding the hard won wave of success.
Beth Hart
Riding the hard won wave of success.
(FEB 2015 )
When last we spoke to Beth Hart the powerhouse vocalist had just completed sessions with Joe Bonamassa for their second hard soul collaboration album See Saw, that would go on to garner them a Grammy Nomination, while she was doing promo for her fifth studio release Bang Bang Boom Boom which hit #3 on the Billboard Blues Album Chart and eared her Blues Music Award nominations. She gushed about the life changing experience of appearing with Jeff Beck at the Kennedy Center Honors to celebrate Buddy Guy performing the Etta James classic ‘I’d Rather Go Blind,” which has become a must see to be believed sensation. The night proved to be even more significant as it gained Hart the opportunity to team up with show producer Michael Stevens and musical director Rob Mathes on her new album of all original material Better Than Home, due out in April of 2015. Innocent Words spoke to Hart from her nearly snow bound Boston hotel room in the midst of her U.S headlining tour that has sold out ten shows in a row, to a ravenous growing fan base, who shower her with love and affection in tribute to her artistry.
RB: Hello Beth, I went to your show in San Francisco, It was fantastic.
Beth Hart: You did, oh great, I’m so glad you liked it, we had great time in San Francisco what a great place.
RB: It was packed. Did you know there were fans from all over the world there? I met many from up and down the west coast and a guy who flew in from Paris to see you.
BH: Oh my gosh, I didn’t know that, it’s so great. Sound was really good there to huh. Isn’t it the best when you get good sound. When there is good sound it is so much more powerfully effective of a show. It makes all the difference.
RB: I could tell you were really manipulating that dynamic and bringing it way down and having everybody sing along. That’s got to be a lot of fun.
BH: Absolutely. That’s so much fun.
RB: So how is the tour going? You are in snow bound New England.
BH: It has been so frikkin cold man we are trying to stay bundled up. In Minnesota is so crazy I think it got up to thirty below one night. Crazy.
RB: But everybody brings the love and warms up the room.
BH: Yeah the rooms have all been good. I got this new drummer (Julian Rodriguez) I think tonight will be his seventh show with us. He is playing so great and he has learned all those songs I am so proud of him. Every show it just gets better and better and we’re getting closer and closer. You know I’m changing up songs each night with him, so it’s not like he getting to play the same songs again and again. But he’s fuckin right there man.
RB: You said something about that at the show, that the band learned fifty songs in a couple weeks.
BH: I sent him Seventy Two songs, and then I felt bad and I scaled it back to fifty four. He made fifty four
charts and learned fifty four songs and then he had only eight days of rehearsal, so his just great.
RB: You have been working with a bunch of musicians recently, on tour and in the studio. Do you enjoy putting on the hat of band leader vs featured guest?
BH: You know when I was young I didn’t want to be a band leader. It made me way to uncomfortable, I was way too insecure. I was of afraid of confrontation to be able to lead anything. So I always put it on someone else, either a band member or a manger. I don’t what happened but in the last maybe seven years, I really fell into feeling much more confident and having no fear of conflict. I’m sure it’s connected to A. getting older and B. doing a lot of therapy. I don’t have that fear now and I really have a lot of confidence in know how I hear it and what I want from it. I also know that I am really kind with how I do it with people. I also don’t hire people that are assholes. I hire people that are great at taking direction, that are very talented and cool people. It’s easy I really enjoy it.
RB: You’ve also got to work with some amazing band leaders; Beck, Bonnamasa and Buddy Guy. You must have learned a lot from them.
BH: Yes they’re incredible. You one of the things I learned the most from them and they all equally have it. Instead of them dictating what they want, they get the people that already give them what they want in the first place. Then they inspire them with kindnesses. Jeff is the king of that. He is the most kind, inspiring joyful person. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say we’re all rehearsing in a room and the key board player plays something and Jeff just loses his shit and says “oh my god that is so amazing.” It’s like he’s got this enthusiasm of a twelve year old, it’s just incredible. He just makes everyone in the room feel so good within themselves. Of course they’re gonna give more and play better. So they get a great group around them by inspiring them instead of dictating to them. It’s just lovely.
RB: Kill em with kindness.
BH: Bring the best out people by showing them you see them, you love them, you respect them and you’re excited.
RB: Matt Anderson is opening the show for you, have you spent any time with him?
BH: (sigh) I am such an asshole man, because this guy has been blowing our mind night after night and I have yet to go back and see him and tell him how grateful I am and he has been kicking our ass. I shake before every show, thinking “holy shit, are we gonna be able to come up to this guy?” his voice, playing and his personality.
RB: I’d love to hear you do a duet with him. To hear your voices together would be phenomenal although it may blow the windows out. You should do the Koko Taylor and Willie Dixon number “Insane Asylum,”
BH: The first thing I’m gonna do tonight is pull him aside and say “my god, you are so brilliant. You’re the shit.”
RB: The new album Better Thank Home is ready to drop, I’ve been listening for a week now it is so beautiful. The last album was triumph and the album with Joe led to Grammy and BMA nominations, it’s been quite a ride the past two years.
BH: Thank you, it is so wonderful to be working so much and be working with such great people. To have the audience’s that are growing and expanding its proud a lot of joy to me. I’m pretty neurotic and always thinking the worst or the best and it has been nice to be thinking more in the positive. I’m so thankful you know, I’m no spring chicken and it’s nice to things expand in the last couple years it has made me feel really happy.
RB: The album is very personal and revealing are the songs all new or a collection that have been hanging around a while?
BH: A couple have come from the past. I wrote ‘St Theresa’, and ‘Tell Them To Hold On,’ a couple years ago. I started ‘Tell Him You Belong To Me,’ years ago, but it took me a couple years to finish that. Quite a few of the song I wrote right after I finished making ‘Bang Bang Boom Boom,’ with Kevin Shirley. I was challenged by the producers Michael Stevens and Rob Mathes to pull away from the blues and really go back to a singer songwriter. I didn’t want to do that and I didn’t know why in the beginning. I said to myself “why am I so not wanting to do this? I can’t just chalk this up to I’m really into writing blues and soul right now there’s got to be more than that.” I arrived at the point that it hurt more to write singer songwriter stuff. I have to pull those denial doors open. I have to look inside and face my stuff. I don’t like to do that, I’m a human being and I like to feel happy sometimes. But they were adamant and I said ‘fuck it,’ and I started working on it. And songs like ‘Better Than Home,’ and Mechanical Heart,’ came out.
RB: Making a softer, introspective album is it Scary or freeing?
BH: It’s both. It is the scariest and it’s the most freeing. You when you’re really scared of something and you say “I’m not going, I’m not going,” then you finally go there and go,” oh my god it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be,” that’s what it was like writing this record. It was really freeing and really cool.
RB: The tour is sold out that must also feel great.
BH: It is the longest run I have had in the states in many years. It’s been a long time, over a decade.
RB: I will speak for the legion of fans saying it is long overdue. I hope it continues. You are going to Europe for the summer do you have plans for a fall U.S tour.
BH: Up until now I’ve been in Europe 90% of the time and the states maybe ten. We are going to switch that ratio to maybe 60% in the states and 40% everywhere else; Australia, New Zealand, Canada. We are also working on opening up Asia. Why not venture into new place and see if you make a connection. It’s great you get to tour and meet new people and make a little money. I’ll be back in the states in the fall
RB: I ‘am so happy for you, that you are riding this wave of success after working so hard to get here.
BH: Thank you. Do you think it’ll last a little while? I hope it lasts a little while man.
Beth Hart -Seattle Sept 2015
rick j Bowen ,Beth Hart, Stacy Jones
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