The Three Lives of David Ryan Harris
Writer: Stephanie Ramage
Scrapbook, Issue 7, Published online on 01 Dec 2003
Hate is a strong word. But there are definitely things that singer-songwriter David Ryan Harris resents. Cell phones ringing at his shows, for one.
“Hey, watcha doin’?” the beefy black musician mocks in a reprimanding falsetto, bringing his music to a halt. “I’m at the show. Where are you? Why aren’t you guys here?”
People cower in the audience, a few slink out, digging in purses or unsnapping phone holsters. He continues in a prissy, breathless way that brings the Olsen twins to mind: “Oh, no, I gotta go, he’s making fun of me…”
Then Harris chuckles and tells the standing-room-only crowd about how his much anticipated CD, out in November, was a long time coming, but is hopefully worth the wait and the money. Despite the note of financial sobriety, Harris is doing pretty well. “Of the three record deals I’ve had, I probably made the most off of the first CD I put out myself,” he says.
That would be Atlanta, the acoustic solo project released in 2002 that hums, shuffles, wails and moans with the slow, dark sweetness of gospel, blues, and rock — all rolled into one heartfelt missive from Harris to the fans who’ve seen him through two bands and, seemingly, three lives.
Harris barreled into the public consciousness in the early 1990s with the band Follow For Now, an angrily grinding funk-rock group around which mosh pits seemed to forever bloom. Signed to Chrysalis, FFN succumbed to ego in 1994 as accusations surfaced that only Harris’ songs were being performed despite a supposedly collaborative charter.
After the hurricane of Follow For Now, Harris found peace in near-anonymity as Dionne Farris’ guitarist. Farris, formerly of Arrested Development, endured the spotlight while Harris contemplated the confusion of his life; he wanted to be with his kids and play music. “I couldn’t understand how God could have given me this talent and then put me in a world where I couldn’t really take care of my family the way I wanted to with it,” he says. His marriage ended, a subject Harris eases away from with a drawn-out silence and the slowly enunciated phrase “That did not go well.”
His 1997 self-titled solo album, released on Columbia, was promotionally starved and died quietly.
Fast forward to life number two. Harris joined the Brand New Immortals, along with bassist Johnny Colt, formerly of The Black Crowes, and friend Kenny Creswell. The Immortals were signed in 2000 to The Music Company, a short-lived imprint of Elektra headed by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. “I’d quit drinking and quit partying and Johnny and I sort of met under those conditions,” says Harris. “He’d quit drinking and his thing had to do with disillusionment and feeling like he wasn’t developing creatively. Kenny was around and a friend of ours and we were making music just to make music.” Brendan O’Brien produced the band’s only release, Tragic Show, a record that fell through the cracks of commercial marketing. It was melodic but not soft enough to fit into the singer-songwriter bin and not hard enough, in Harris’ words, “to be like Drowning Pool.” When the label folded, the band dissolved amicably, a little dazed by their whiplash love affair with Elektra, but not broken.
Life #3: Harris began spending more time with his acoustic guitar and decided to “get rid of the variables” — the sound mix. He took a deep breath and dove into the crystalline waters of acoustic solo-hood. In September of this year, after five months of recording the latest as-yet-unnamed CD with a full band, Harris told Paste, “I don’t know if I’m going to keep any of the tracks the way they are. I don‘t know if it’s where I want to be right now. The success of the acoustic shows has been really eye-opening. [The album] may be acoustic.”
This revelation came after wrapping up a tour opening for John Mayer and Counting Crows. Mayer and Harris became friends while playing Atlanta’s club scene. They bonded over their mutual love of blues artists like Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Johnson. Last spring, while Harris was playing a gig with Edwin McCain in Nashville, Mayer called and invited him on tour. “I don’t really want to go far out there on this one,” says Harris, feeling his way along the words. “I don’t want to give myself an endorsement, you know, that isn’t there. But maybe, I guess, I don’t know, but just maybe, I was an influence. We’ve hung out together and played guitar. We get along well with each other. Our voices, I think, are a little similar. I guess, in a lot of ways, I was sort of Obi-Wan Kenobi to John."
Source: Paste Magazine
