Claremont, California, sits roughly 53 kilometres east of downtown Los Angeles. Principally a college town, Claremont also boasts the near-60 year old Folk Music Centre, their mission is to “present to the public a look, touch and play experience with instruments from all over the world”. The store was established in 1958 by Charles and Dorothy Chase and became a cornerstone for many musicians including their grandson, Ben Harper.

“It informed me that music could be something that was free of boundaries and tap into what you hearing in your head and what you were feeling in your heart in a way that was hopefully unique to yourself,” Harper says of the institution in which he spent much of his youth.

“It was an hour plus outside of Los Angeles so it was completely disconnected to anything related to the music business and the music industry. I was able to connect with players from childhood, even from the earliest of ages, players from all over the world.”

Those players included Jackson Browne, David Lindley and Taj Mahal who assisted, in various degrees, Harper’s musical development which, over 20 years, has birthed 12 records and countless collaborations. He doesn’t take to my phrasing that he is a self-taught musician, rationalising “by [saying] ‘self-taught’ I think I would be doing a disservice to all the people that came in and let me sit at the hem of their garment.”

While Harper is an established and unique voice in music – one who can traverse through numerous styles and blend genres form soul, funk, roots and blues through to hip-hop – his touring life began with a hodgepodge of opening gigs with artists such as the Fugees and The Roots to, ah, PJ Harvey. The Harvey experience, specifically, endears with Harper.

“At the time the band was all black, we’d step to the crowd and I’m playing a lap steel guitar which is something a lot of those kids at the time had not seen, I may as well had an accordion,” he laughs.

[include_post id=”464513″] “So I’ll never forget the looks on their faces and I’ll never forget the reaction by the last song in our set. It went from being completely unconventional and foreign to something that turned a corner and was accepted in circles that you may not expect it to be accepted in.”

Love The Beatles?

Get the latest The Beatles news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more

What fascinates me about Harpers body of work is his willingness, or aggressive pursuit, of collaboration. As a live performer he has shared the stage with artists as diverse as Pearl Jam and INXS, on record he’s had a brush with a Beatle and been backed by the Blind Boys of Alabama, Relentles7 and the Innocent Criminals.

He’s made records with Charlie Musselwhite, his mother Ellen, and – under the ‘supergroup’ moniker Fistful of Mercy – with Dhani Harrison (son of George) and Joseph Arthur. What draws him to collaborators? “Usually its about the person and the musician themselves and having some type of a kinship whether its lyrical or musical or just a reference for that person. Whether it’s G. Love, Solomon Burke or Ringo Starr.

“All those are born out of meeting those people in the process of touring or being in the same studio at the same time recording, I usually kind of connect with them. Say, collaborating with [Eddie] Vedder. We were opening for Pearl Jam for a long time, years, and a friendship was born there and it grew into a collaboration slowly but surely live,” he says. “They’re usually born out of friendships. I don’t mean to be a name-dropping prick, either, but that’s the conversation we’re having.”

While this may be me projecting, the list of collaborators above seems quite daunting, as large an understatement as that certainly is. Surely an anxiety must come with collaboration when working with mythical beings such as Ringo Starr, a musician with an unparalleled status and that body of work. “Well fortunately the anxiety happens afterwards,” Harper explains.

“When a girl walks up to you to dance, you don’t want to drop the ball. You want to step up and act like you deserve to be asked. Even though no man is worthy of any woman, really. You have to deserve to have been asked to dance but usually afterwards is when you go ‘oh my god, that just happened’.

“You better believe if Ringo asks you to play with him you deserve to be asked. You have to own what you have worked all your life for. But you actually can’t let it seep into being a part of something you think you deserve. It’s an odd situation,” he says.

“When a girl walks up to you to dance, you don’t want to drop the ball. You want to step up and act like you deserve to be asked. Even though no man is worthy of any woman, really

Next to an unexpected amount of Beatles references (one more to come), passion is a key theme of our conversation. On each subject Harper speaks with such passion one could be mistaken for thinking that whatever topic is at hand is his life’s devotion. This passion is echoed throughout his lyrics. Harper is fluent as a storyteller as well as a confessor and observer. “I’m inspired by lyricists everyday, from Drake to Ed Sheeran,” he says.

“I’m always listening, I always read, I’m not big on old-school forced [lyrical styles] ‘the fog rolls from the mountain tips to the rolling streams yada yada yada’. I don’t get caught up in that. That’s not my bag. I’ve always just written from experience or an idea or just out of pain, frustration.”

Frustration occurs only once during our conversation. When asked about meditation as a practice Harper is momentarily lost for articulation, searching for words to describe his experiences with Transcendental Meditation.

After a moment, he settles: “I have taken meditation to the point where I even have a mantra, gone all the way to the gate there and even maybe turned the key, and its great. There’s been times where I’ve utilised it to effectiveness. I do support it and I believe it is of great value but I don’t set my watch, or my internal compass, to it. I think there’s also a great deal to be gained and learned from ones own exploration of anxiety and unsettledness. I don’t want to be that comfortable to where that goes away,” he says.

“[There was] a great George Harrison quote on the [Dick Cavett show]. George was talking about stage fright, [he said] ‘I get terrible stage fright’ and Cavett said ‘well, don’t you meditate?’ and George said ‘yeah, but I’ll meditate for half an hour or forty minutes before a show…to clear my head and rid my body of the nerves then I come out of the mediation and go Oh fuck, I’ve gotta go on stage!’ And he’s right back in the same place,” he laughs.

Being back in the same place neatly ties this whole thing up with the Innocent Criminals. After an eight-year absence Harper and his beloved band have reunited. They’re releasing a new record, Call It What It Is, and touring Australia in March. For Harper, the awareness of how cherished the Innocent Criminals were by his fan group came with the “heat I took for having [broken] up that band.

“There was a certain group that fell off me [and] a certain group that moved with me in all my motions and different bands, so thanks to those folks. But when we did get back together in the studio a year ago this October I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like or where it was going to go. I just said ‘lets get in the studio and see what happens’.

“A year later we have the record Call It What It Is. And not only was it musically beyond anything that I recall, I think this record is a completely new frontier for this band and set the stage for what’s to come,” he explains.

“But also on a personal level, and on a friendship level, everyone including hopefully myself – you’d have to ask them, because no one really should be victimless assessing their own pros – but I felt the camaraderie and the brotherhood in a new place and everyone had personally grown, not only grown but grown up, and grown into a place where it made it possible to actually have a wide open road.”

Australian Tour Dates

Wednesday, 2nd March 2016
‘On The Steps’, Opera House Forecourt, Sydney

Saturday, 5th March 2016
The Riverstage, Brisbane

Tuesday, 8th March 2016
Kings Park & Botanic Garden, Perth

Friday, 11th March 2016
Entertainment Centre, Adelaide

Saturday, 12th March 2016
Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine