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Ed Harcourt emerges from the campus bookshop, black hair and a crumpled black suit shuffling casually between the stained grey buildings that surround his tour bus and next to it, the Liverpool Academy. It's not the most beautiful part of town, and certainly not the part you'd chose to wake up in, but when you've got a new album and a single to promote you have to be prepared for the fact that the rooms don't always come with a view. After two relentless years of it however, the 24 -year-old writer, performer, Mercury Music prize nominee and proud owner of a "number 35 or something" in the midweek chart, is close to finding the limit.
"I was in Manchester and I had a meltdown on stage. I just lost it. I suddenly thought, what the fuck am I doing on tour, what am I doing here and who are all these people? I was aware of what I was doing and someone was going 'Stop being such a miserable bastard' cause I couldn't get into it. Then someone else went, 'you're a performer' and that's when I just stopped and said 'What am I, a fucking robot? Am I a monkey that you can just wind up, that goes ooh ooh ooh?'
There's a real sense of exasperation in Ed's voice as he recalls the events of the previous evening, and I'm beginning to understand why he's thinking of getting the Russian for 'tortured soul' tattooed in fat letters across his back. "I told them that the only reason I was being a belligerent cunt is because I feel that I'm not doing as well as I could, I'm letting them down and I'm getting more annoyed with myself. I just started spilling my guts to the audience. It was a real mood swingy kind of set. It was kind of draining."
Two years ago Ed's first album 'Here Be Monsters' gained major recognition when it was nominated for the Mercury Music prize. With the imminent release of 'From Every Sphere' he hopes to go even further. "'Here Be Monsters' suffered because I had really bad bronchitis, I wasn't able to sing properly and my head wasn't in a good place. I'm hoping this album's going to do better. You'll need to listen to it about 20 times to really get it." The first single, 'All Of Your Days Will Be Blessed', is an edgy and energetic introduction to the new work, its potent imagery and searching chord progression a welcome indication of uninterrupted form. Despite the heavy schedule Harcourt's output shows no sign of drying up. Inspiration, a songwriter's closest ally, rarely eludes him and as a result there's a wealth of material ready to go for album number three. "I get stuff in my head all the time. Ideas, titles of songs and lyrics, I just wake up and whatever state of mind I'm in it just materializes. I've already got about 40 or 50 songs for the next album. What I'm going to do is chose 15 songs and that'll be it (clicks his fingers). It's going to be a really fucking strong album. It's going to be much louder, much more intense, very melodic and poppy, but with stuff there that people won't expect."
As the conversation continues a more animated, playful character begins to reveal itself, and for a moment he looks more like the Ed Harcourt who finds himself face to face with a yeti in the video for 'All Of Your Days Will Be Blessed'. "I don't know what's going on there," he says smiling. "It was quite fun. I think it's more kind of charming than wacky. I'm not really into wacky. Every one always thinks Ed's really wacky underneath but I'm not." So what are you? "I don't know, that's probably why I write songs, to try and work it out."
Six hours later, on stage at The Academy, he's taking the audience through a selection of tunes from the new album, thanking them profusely for each favourable response, and rewarding them with favourites from 'Here Be Monsters'. Of the new batch a number hit home first time round, others you just know will benefit from a long-term relationship. The lo-fi beat box and melancholic pulse of 'Jetsetter' give way to an optimistic vocal and yearning chorus that seems to be over before it's even begun. 'Ghostwriter', with its industrial rhythm and sedated Latin piano motif takes a sudden manic left turn, followed by another, but is harder to take in than the uncomplicated joy of 'Watching The Sun Come Up', or the simple beauty of 'Metaphorically Yours'. Harcourt cultivates an uneven relationship with the surprisingly small but appreciative audience, playing up to their banter one minute, looking like he could down tools and leave the next. Then, following an unfortunate mistake by the guitarist, he disappears suddenly, only to return a minute later with two rapiers. James Brown used to fine his band for making errors, Ed Harcourt duels with his. The night is wrapped up with an uplifting sing-a-long to 'Apple Of My Eye', the ripples of which follow the audience out onto the cold street. It hasn't felt like an easy victory for Ed Harcourt tonight, but then who said being a tortured soul was easy?
Photo by Thomas Toti
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