Galen Hartley is a singer/songwriter/absurdist folk poet who actually spends most of his time building violins near Bordeaux, France. We first heard about Galen because a band we here at BMN like very much called Bakakai had produced Galen's record and sent it to us. There must be something in the water over there because we have gotten so many great things from France in the last year. We caught up with Galen to hear more about his musical endeavors.
How did the band form and what does the band name mean?
There's not really a Galen Hartley band, but a lot of very talented friends have been very generous with me since I started making solo records in 2011. This time around the band is pretty much me and Luka Merlet, who went to art school with my ex-wife, Rouge Hartley, with whom he still regularly collaborates. Luka and I had already worked on a few other projects (notably a documentary about my work as a violin maker) , I was well aware of his many musical talents , and when I heard the mixes he was working on with his band Bakakaï it became fairly obvious that it would be super fun to make a record together. And so we did !
Previous musical projects? How'd you first get into music?
My dad was - still is - a very musical fellow and when I was around fourteen I started messing around with his guitar. Up until then all I wanted to do was draw superheroes, but my friends and I were starting to go to all-ages punk shows, getting into bands like The Violent Femmes, and the whole grunge/lo-fi/indie ambience of 1993 made it seem perfectly reasonable to pursue a destiny as some kind of songwriter.
My parents were happy enough to support me in my new obsession and at some point I got a Tascam 4-track recorder. In 1999 my girlfriend and I opted for early retirement and spent a year eating porridge and making , respectively, a website about her vagina and and a couple weird and very lo-fi pop records (Panty Boy's Orgy of the Senses and Monsieur Guy's I Don't Know What Love Is). For some reason I started taking myself more seriously and with some lovely and talented friends formed a prog-folk band called Elephant Island. In hindsight a lot of it seems overwrought and unnecessarily complicated, but at the time it was a lot of fun and we even managed to tour Canada once without getting too far into debt. I also spent a long time accompanying Sara Marreiros , a Portuguese-Canadian singer, where I came to know the wonders of fado. And then I moved to Montreal where I simultaneously abandoned all professional musical ambitions and launched my solo "career".
First concert that you ever went to?
One of my first for-real concerts where I actually paid for a ticket must have been Ani DiFranco at the Royal Theatre in Victoria BC.
What's your writing process like?
I pretty much always start with guitar parts and vocal melodies. I'll find a tiny idea that I like and I roll it around and see if it fits with other ideas until it starts to seem like a song. Then I try and get some words together, which usually takes forever. But I like just chipping away at the thing until it seems done. I like writing when I'm away from home. And I like reading and stealing other people's ideas. Often it's hard to know exactly what I'm writing about until the song is about halfway done and then the central themes and corresponding vocabulary become clear and I can tie it all together with a vague and impressionistic ribbon. I don't mind if it only really makes sense to me, but I do hope to offer at least some kind of shared emotional experience to whoever might be listening.
What other artists or songs inspire your music?
Nina Simone ! The conviction, the fearlessness, the depth of raw emotion ! I have no illusions regarding how far my work lies from that kind of majesty, but if we're talking about things that inspire, well dang, she is very much where it is at.
Roy Orbison ! The drama, the grandeur, the purity of his voice ! It is unapologetically way over the top and brings me much joy.
Adrianne Lenker / Big Thief ! I very much fell out of touch with modern music when my son was born six years ago (and I certainly wasn't on the cutting edge of things before that either) , but Big Thief has caught and held my attention a good long time. I love her lyrics. So much beauty, weirdness and intimacy. Fantastic sounds, production, arrangements etc. And this is just me projecting my own personal whatever, but they seem like really lovely people too. Which is a bonus.
Mississippi John Hurt ! To whom I owe practically everything when it comes to how I play guitar. Maybe it's less obvious on this album, but his fingerpicking style is for me some kind of founding principle on which entire universes can be built. And his voice is so sweet !
Anna Calvi ! An amazing guitar player and songwriter. There is a powerful, wonderfully ambiguous/queer sexuality in her work which I think makes the world a better place.
Os Mutantes ! The joy and madness of this band is not easily surpassed.
Cat Power ! I am not an unconditionally devoted fan, but her album Moon Pix is burnt into my mind as one of the great masterpieces of the twentieth century. Her voice is magic. An ocean of feelings conveyed directly into your subconscious. Plus Jim White and Mick Turner are also magic and so that makes three magic things all on one record... It's magic ! The world needs magic.
Nick Drake ! A baby could have guessed this one. He is pure class ! I was FASCINATED by Pink Moon for a very long time. I had really never heard songs like that before and I wanted to be pretty much just like him. Sometimes people make the comparison after a show, but more often than not they say I sing like James Blunt, which I think is supposed to be a compliment but really just makes me sort of embarrassed for all of us... Me , France, James Blunt... Seriously, what are we supposed to do with each other ?
Kate Bush / Wuthering Heights ! I don't need to say anything else about this song.
Fine Young Cannibals / She Drives Me Crazy ! This song weirdly represents so many things I aspire to and yet will never be able to achieve because I either take myself too seriously, or not seriously enough. This whole album makes me so happy.
What's the live experience like and your philosophy on playing live? Do you think the music live should be identical to the recorded version or should it be it's own thing?
For the time being the live experience is more of an acoustic singer/songwriter show. No thought yet as to how this album might appear on stage. I think Luka and I could happily record music in a garage for decades without worrying about playing any of it live. But if a booking agent said, "Hey, come play a bunch of shows!", obviously that would be acceptable too. Booking agents, are you there ? The full band show will be TIGHT.
Anyway, for me what's important in a live show is just connecting with people. Just playing the songs as honestly as I can and hopefully creating a space where people can connect with that and feel whatever they feel. That said, I totally get that a lot of folks (myself included sometimes) would like to hear their favorite songs played the way they're used to hearing them. That does make sense.
Has the band tour? What has the touring experience been, best shows? worst shows?
I don't tour a lot by myself, but I have spent a fair bit of time on the road with a trio called Transat. Xavier Barthaburu plays cello and sings. Thérèse Labrousse plays 5-string violin and sings. Kind of a chamber-folk-chanson-francaise ensemble. They are my family.
One not so good experience was at a folk festival outside Bordeaux where we were supposed to sleep on site after the show. The organizers got us confused with another band and when we asked , at midnight, where we ought to lay our weary heads, they were like, "Ooooooooooh... uuuuuhhhhhhhh.... hmmmmmmmm... be right back..." It took them about two hours to set us up in two dirty caravans with lawn chair cushions for mattresses ! Sure, that is ok I guess. BUT ! They had also forgotten about another band and so Thérèse was evicted and had to come sleep on the floor with us. There were only three bands that night ! And they forgot TWO !
Another time I was diagnosed with rheumatoid purpura on tour in Toulouse. I could hardly walk ! Xav also had a 40°C fever that weekend. But we did get to play at La Chapelle , an iconic punk squat in an abandoned church. It's a mixed bag sometimes.
But generally the shows are great.
What's up next for the band?
I think it is pretty likely that Luka and I will work on another album or ep in 2023. That would be super fun. Transat is supposed to record in January, too. Luka might come film some of that. We'll see... There will surely be some touring, but nothing to announce at the moment.
Thanks for the interview ! Hope you like the record.