Interview with Patrick Harmon of The Party Faithful

I’ve known Patrick Harmon of The Party Faithful for about two years. During that time, there has been a lot of change in both his personal life and his artistic one. Over this past summer, the band that was once “Lolita Bras” was laid to rest and The Party Faithful emerged. They have written new, more energetic and optimistic songs, which, in live performance, are fun, bouncy and full of life. They are on the brink of releasing their brand new CD entitled, “Seven Cycles”. Recently, Patrick sat down with me to talk about the new songs and a bit about what makes him tick.

When did you become interested in music, writing, playing?

The house that I grew up in had a piano and both my mom and sister play. By the time I was four, I was already starting to pick up melodies on the piano.

Did you have any formal training?

I spent several years playing piano by ear and then took some lessons around the age of twelve. I started playing guitar when I was about fourteen. I played by ear for a while and then decided I wanted to learn what the hell I was actually doing and took lessons for about six months. All told I’ve had maybe twenty guitar lessons.

When did you start writing songs?

The first songs I wrote with my sister when I was really little, probably six or seven years old. The first time that I really tried to write a real song, inspired by the Beatles or something was when I was about fourteen. By the time I was sixteen or seventeen, I was writing songs that made sense.

What influences you in the subject matter that you choose?

I always got inspiration from what I was living through or what I was reading. Usually those are connected anyway. I have found that there’s a weird tendency for me to pick up books, even without meaning to, that are exactly correlating with what’s going on with me. Or else I’m reading that pattern into it. But sometimes it is eerily coincidental.

What’s your process when you write a song? Is there a series of steps that you go through or is it organic?

It’s pretty organic. Most of my songwriting happens with the band. There will be a chord progression I’ve brought in or Erica’s (Erica D’AndreaGray, bass/keys) brought in and we’ll jam on that. Some really solid musical ideas will start to come out of that and I’ll just sing nonsense on top of it. Out of the nonsense, I usually get a line or two just coming up from the unconscious and it makes sense or I just like singing it for some reason. If I keep singing that line run through after run through, it means it’s supposed to be in the song. I keep it and I use that as my starting point for writing the whole song

You said that you write with the band, do you want to talk a little bit about them and what they do?

It really varies from song to song. Often times I’ll find that I’m extending a part too long or not long enough and that’s when Erica or Paul (Paul Frick, percussion) will jump in and say well why don’t we do just one of that thing or let’s do eight of that thing and it starts changing the idea. What’s new with the latest batch of songs is that Erica has grooves of her own. In the instance of the song that leads off our new EP called “Time Goes Looking”, we knew that a bridge had to happen but we couldn’t figure out what it was. We were banging our heads against the wall and then Erica just started playing this thing completely unrelated and we got into it. I was like God, please let this be in the key of A and it was. It just fit perfectly.

So, tell me the story of “Time Goes Looking” because I thought that was an interesting set of lyrics.

That one was one of those songs that I felt was transmitted to me because I was getting nowhere with the lyrics on that one. But I did have this line, “ time goes looking for an answer” and I kept singing it every time we would jam on the song. But I really didn’t know where to take it. Then on July 4th I just sat down at the computer, which is often how I write lyrics – on the screen. I just started writing some poetry and a song came out. It wasn’t “Time Goes Looking” but I got the confidence from writing that song to take a crack at Time Goes Looking” and it just came out. I just started relating the verses to time as if it actually had a personality and I had ideas in my head of whom I was talking about to so that I could describe some real genuine feelings to what I was talking about.

I would say that pretty much all of the songs on this record deal with cycles of death and rebirth and those can happen in the course of relationships as well. In the last year and a half or so I went through some very painful breakdowns of relationships and there are a lot of feelings that come along with that and one of them can be anger or resentment.

Is this song an expression of that?

I was definitely venting some of that because that’s what the music called for. It was an aggressive song. And I needed an outlet to say those things anyway, so I think that while I was writing it I had one person in mind but then I started realizing about half way through that this applied to a number of other situations. My perspective on the song now is that I’m as much the person that I’m talking about as the person that I’m talking about. Both parties involved in the song are leaving and there is a sense that they are both going the right way.

Is that what you meant in the lyric, “what was lost doesn’t matter”?

It’s just a fact of the matter “you can’t stay”. The staying point has come and gone. You have to go. It’s gone whether you like it or not, but, it’s ok “It’s gonna find a way”.

I think I was just trying as honestly as I could to just call it like it was and play with words at the same time – just having fun with imagery and the words.

Let’s talk about “Iron Hands”.

“Iron Hands”, identifies the problem. I think that it’s a portrait of being too emotionally guarded: hence the whole notion of armor. It’s really simple – it’s like if you’re covering yourself in armor no one can see you – you disappear right in front of people’s eyes I find that a little bit harrowing – I don’t want be that person but I am that person sometimes.

So, when you wrote that song what was going on?

I was THAT person. At that time I was very definitely that person

Well, you were actually saying you were that person so there was a part of you that was fighting it.

Yeah, I knew better – that’s why the song has stayed with us and we want to reinterpret it and do more things with it because I think it’s a very honest song.

What are your long-term artistic goals?

I feel like The Party Faithful is going to me my Guided By Voices or my Iron and Wine – not to say that I’m “it” in the band. I feel like The Party Faithful is an artistic identity that is just going to be the one I want to keep using from now on. I just want keep trying to do better work. As soon as we finished doing these recordings I was already thinking about what I want to do differently the next time and I really can’t wait to start recording again.

The Party Faithful’s CD release party is Tuesday, November 6th at Luna Lounge.

For more information:
The Party Faithful website
The Party Faithful on MySpace

~ by maryvent67 on November 1, 2007.