Olympic Games Q & A: Harry Heart
Sydney-based singer-songwriter Harry Heart is back and “rocking our trousers off” with his latest single Baby Calm Down, an upbeat narrative full of cascading riffs and warm melodies. We asked the rising artist how he’d spice up an Australian-held Olympics and the story behind his new song.
If you were organising another Australian Olympics, who would be the local musical acts that you just had to have playing the Opening Ceremony?
I’d get Chris Cheney (The Living End) to come out and rip a dirty big solo, do the slide guitar with the half full bottle of beer trick, and receive a gold medal for doing so, just to remind everybody of what it means to be Australian.
Would you rather do a duet with Nicky Webster or Midnight Oil in front of the world?
Sharing the stage with Peter G would be alright. He wobbles about quite a lot though. I’d like to have a wobble with him…
Would you be more likely to compete in, the track and field or the swimming?
I’m asthmatic so that’s a pretty insensitive question. Insensitivities aside, I like swimming, but I fear I don’t have the lats nor traps for it. I used to play a game on PS1 called Track and Field all damn day, I was alright at it, it was just tapping X heaps. So probably track and field.
Which other local artist do you think you could beat in the gold medal boxing final?
Marcus from Spookyland. Only because he declared himself a weakling in his previous EP title. It’d be a f*cking awful final though, don’t how we would have got that far in the first place. The system’s rigged…
What would be your Olympic event of choice to compete in that you might have a chance at doing well in, and what would be the event that you’d love to compete in despite a possible lack of talent?
I used to be pretty bloody handy on the Judo mat. Is that in it this year? I didn’t get invited, which is strange because as I said, I’m pretty bloody good. I would love to compete in table tennis. I can actually hold my own in the pong realm, but that’s one of those sports where the good players are machines, physics-defying machines!
Where would be your ideal city to perform in, both as a musician and as a hypothetical Olympian?
Somewhere like Reykjavik, Iceland, solely for the statistics. If I play to a handful of people then I’ve played to a big percentage of the population, which is good for the resume! As an Olympian (and I will disregard the word hypothetical there) it’s not so practical, paying for the excess luggage back to Australia would be expensive, because of all the gold medals…
If you accidentally got the athlete’s village evacuated, what would be there most likely cause?
Probably by convincing each and every athlete to give up on their dreams.
For the uninitiated, how would you describe Harry Heart’s sound and live performance?
It’s best described as alternative rock that isn’t too alternative and isn’t too rocky either, but it’ll still blow your trousers off. It’s not too song-writerish and poncy, but you’ll be listening to the song-writing.
We’re loving the new track Baby Calm Down, what’s the story behind the track?
This track is a fun one to play. It’s all about blokes being put in a position where you’re supposed to talk like you’re the dog’s bollocks and act like you’re in charge, but not all men naturally feel like that, thank god. This song is all about that, the convolution between masculinity, emotion, and bravado.
Lastly, what are three things that fans should know before catching you live?
- They should know at least six dance moves.
- Know my dad on a first name basis.
- Please know at least one lyric to the new single!
