THE first thing Ed Harcourt wants to do when we meet is head straight for the pub. Admittedly, it’s a hot afternoon and he has been in his publicist’s office for hours, signing copies of his new album, Strangers, and box loads of photos for fans.
Harcourt, however, is well known for his drinking and doesn’t mind admitting that the shades he’s wearing aren’t just to keep out the sun.
“Have a look at this,” says the singer dubbed Britain’s answer to Tom Waits, raising his sunglasses to reveal a bloodshot pair of eyes. “I was out till six this morning. If I start talking rubbish, just stop me.”
In contrast to the clean-living artists who dominate the charts these days, 27-year-old Harcourt has never felt the need to tone down his social life for the sake of his career. His fans love him for it, but when his last album, From Every Sphere (2003) — the follow-up to his Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut, Here Be Monsters (2001) — wasn’t the huge hit that had been expected, some suggested that the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist needed to cut out the late nights and pay more attention to his music.
“I agree the last album was a bit lazy, especially the lyrics,” says Harcourt, who is shorter but better looking than his photos suggest. “I wasn’t in a good frame of mind when I wrote it. I was breaking up with someone and found it hard to focus. All that nonsense people talk about misery making good music. Everyone works better when they’re happy.”
Advertisement
It’s no surprise then that Strangers is easily Harcourt’s best album. It’s much more immediate than his previous efforts, more rock’n’roll, more radio-friendly and definitely more fun. Harcourt wasn’t just happy when he wrote it, he was head over heels in love.
“I met a great girl, fell in love and she was the inspiration for Strangers,” says Harcourt, grinning. “That’s why it’s so upbeat in places. The first two albums had a lot of sad songs that were growers, but I decided I didn’t want to be some sort of whining troubadour you had to get used to. I wanted to make music with balls and attitude and joie de vivre. I wanted people to hear how happy I was.”
Happy, but not exactly comfortable. After a spell based in upmarket Hampstead, Harcourt — who wrote his debut while living with his grandmother in the Sussex countryside — moved in to a grotty flat on the far less salubrious Harrow Road.
“Hampstead looks lovely, but it’s dull,” says Harcourt. “I wanted to live like a bohemian and feel inspired every day. I spent months holed up with a drum kit and a piano in a flat above a mechanics shop that was falling apart and full of mice and ants. It sounds silly, but you know you’re alive in a place like that. Well, you know something’s alive and it’s crawling about under your bed.”
Harcourt has moved in with his girlfriend, the musician and singer Gita Langley, a slight, strikingly pretty twentysomething who guests on two songs on Strangers and played violin at Harcourt’s recent London shows. Langley is clearly a good influence — she not only inspired the album, but has calmed Harcourt down.
Advertisement
“I have always been a volatile person, but I’m getting that under control now,” he says. “I can still go crazy when I’m drunk though. I like to climb things — houses, drainpipes, trees. I had to be talked down from the roof of a house last year. I know it’s silly, but I don’t do it nearly as often as I used to.” Harcourt thinks he may even have worked up why he climbs to dangerous heights.
“Until recently,” he says, “I was terrified of growing old. Climbing things made me feel like a child again. Now though, I’m actually looking forward to getting older. I’m looking forward to making music for a long time, seeing what I can achieve. I feel like I’m going to get better and better.”
It’s a far cry from Harcourt’s state of mind last summer, when he was reeling from what he calls his first flop. “My career took off really quickly,” he recalls. “I was signed one minute, had a record out the next, then was suddenly being compared to Tom Waits. Career-wise, nothing had ever gone wrong for me. When From Every Sphere didn’t do as well as I had hoped, I lost a lot of confidence. I didn’t even know if I should be making music any more.” It was a call from Michael Stipe that helped Harcourt recover. Stipe phoned to tell the singer how much he loved his last album and to invite him to support R.E.M. on a US tour.
“That was a godsend for me,” says Harcourt. “It made me realise that, actually, I am good at what I do. Within a few weeks, I was in Denver, playing to 10,000 people and hanging out with these fantastic, world-class musicians. I played to a crowd of 15,000 in Minneapolis and they loved me. That’s the best confidence builder I can think of. When I went to work later on Strangers, for the first time, I wasn’t trying to sound like Tom Waits or Nick Drake or whoever. I realised I was good enough to just sound like me.”
Even in the States, though, Harcourt managed to get into trouble. The night before his first gig in Denver he got drunk and ended up in a fight with a group of Mexicans who thought he had tried to throw gravel at their car.
Advertisement
“Ah, that was a misunderstanding,” says Harcourt. “I wasn’t actually aiming at them. I had only been in the country a few hours and I ended up with a black eye. R.E.M. were very polite though. They didn’t even mention it. When I turned up for the show, they complimented me on my suit, gave me a bottle of wine and told me to have a good time. And you know what, I didn’t get into another fight the whole tour.”