HARBOUR Is Having Fun With Their New Album
Interview by Tiara Grace
HARBOUR is just what you’re looking for. The Ohio-based indie rock band has been touring but just prior to the release of their new album To Chase My Dreams, Or To Just Lie Down?, they’ve put out singles including “Swimming in my Head” and “I’ve Only Started Running”. After teasing the release of the album since late last year, they are finally showcasing their work with fans.
Read on for a conversation with the band’s frontman Ryan Green and guitarist Devon Turner.
Ease Up: Essentially, who is HARBOUR? Tell me a little bit about you guys and how you formed the band.
Ryan Green: We are a five piece from Cincinnati, Ohio. We started in 2014 and I'm the only original member, but we started with just a bunch of friends from high school, basically, and then as everybody grew up, they kind of started getting married, having kids and stuff like that. So I had to get some new guys and I kind of just stole all these guys from all of our friend bands around the city, all of the local bands that were doing good things, and I just kind of stole these guys from those bands. I was like, “Well, you guys want to go on tour? Do the thing? They're like, “Yeah, let's do it.” That's pretty much our origin story.
EU: I've interviewed bands before and some of them say they kind of all came up together from high school, so it's really interesting to hear a different type of formation as well. Well, I actually really enjoyed listening to the music on the album a lot. Particularly I loved "Too Close" and "Bahamas". "Bahamas" is actually, I will say, as of now, my favorite. So I want to kind of ask you about that song, specifically how you guys got to develop it, like, what came first, the music or the lyrics? Just kind of touching upon that.
RG: I think that one, I think the music came first, but they kind of came simultaneously. That one, for the most part, came together really quickly. I was actually working on a different song or a different demo that had a similar chord structure, and then I was just playing around, trying to figure out where I should go with that. And I ended up writing what became the chorus of "Bahamas". So I started playing just that chord progression. I echo out of the logic session I was in and opened a new one and just completely and just put that chorus in there and recorded that real quick and just started like, singing over top of it. And then I just wrote some lyrics real quick. And honestly, those lyrics all just came to me super fast. So, I just put those in there and then I brought it to the guys and we developed it and turned it into what it is.
EU: I also wanted to shout out the music video. I listened to the song first and I went to your YouTube channel to watch the music video. Really cool. I really liked how you guys did the visual interpretation of what the song represents. How did you guys kind of come together to create the music video?
RG: How did we?
Devon Turner: I don't know. I remember you coming to me and just being like, we have this idea to get on a party bus and just kind of do the whole music videos on a party bus. I don't remember how you came up with that idea, though.
RG: I don't either. I think I just thought it'd be fun. Honestly. It was our first music video we've ever done, too.
RG: Yeah. Because we've been poor people forever, we've been broke, so we've never had the money to do that kind of thing. So we really want to do more of that with this album. And so that was the first song and we just I mean, we're not video writers or anything. That was our first time working with our video guy, who we use now, and we're going to continue to continue to work with, so we don't write videos and stuff. I just came in, I was like, I have this idea we can develop it more if we want, but I just thought it would be cool if we were just playing on a party bus and we just got a big group of our friends, and we just kind of went nuts. He was like, “Sounds fun to me.” That's all we did.
EU: Another song that I really thought stood out was I think it's called "Only Started Running", which I feel is like the opposite spectrum of "Bahamas", which is more upbeat. This one's not upbeat. It's kind of sad and solemn. So, can you tell me a little bit about this writing process for this track?
RG: Okay, yeah, that one that's actually going to be the next single coming out later [January]. [It came] out on [January] 27th and it's the last single that [came] out before the record. That one, honestly, I wrote that one in like an hour on the back lyrics and everything. I was just sitting down and I was just playing that guitar part and humming. And then once I picked out what I wanted it to be about and I was like, It feels kind of sad. I just kind of wrote an honest song about how I feel about the current state of the music industry, yet it all came to me super fast. I literally wrote front to back the whole thing in like an hour.
EU: It sounded very interesting to listen to because I was listening to all these really upbeat songs and this one just kind of hit me and I was like, “Oh, wow. So it's cool to hear that it took you such a short amount of time to kind of come up with a song that means a lot, which is really nice.”
RG: Sometimes it works that way, I guess. You don't have to force anything. It just comes out of you if it's that serious to you, I guess, yeah.
EU: So with this particular group of music as it compares to your previous work because I went back and listened to your EP With Love, and I really liked those tracks, too. I liked "Saddest Game" a lot. I don't know if that's, like, a call out, if that's one that's really popular, but I really liked that one.
RG: That hasn't been, like, a big popular one. We brought that one back not too long ago. Sometime last year, we brought it back and started playing it again for a short period of time. We just break out some old ones, wipe the dust off, and play some oldies, and that was one of the ones that we brought back. And you're like, Damn, we should be playing this more. This one's fun.
EU: So how does it compare creating and developing that EP to this new project? Because I hear some similar melodies, but obviously a lot of differences. So could you elaborate on that?
RG: Back in that period of time, we had pretty much just started being a band. We had been a band for like a year at that point, and we were still kind of trying to figure out what we were or find our sound and everything, and I think we were just trying a bunch of stuff, and we didn't demo anything out, either. So we would write a song just on acoustic guitar, basically, and then play it live and try and put it together as much as we could. But we never got to hear a final product at the time until we got in the studio and tried to put it together. And sometimes when you do it that way, you get into the studio, and it either works or it doesn't. So that was interesting about back then, and now I feel like we kind of know who we are. We know what we're going for. We can kind of jump in and out of different sounds and genres if we want to because we kind of know who we are. And I don't know, we're a lot more relaxed now, I think.
RG: Writing is just like playing anymore. We're just having fun.
EU: Now, knowing kind of where you guys sit in terms of sound, do you have any specific inspirations for your music prior to becoming a fully formed band? What were you guys kind of pulling from?
RG: I've got a bunch of influences. I love bands like Hippo Campus, COIN and Cage The Elephant and Kings of Leon victory. Yeah. Big ones like that. I mean, those ones haven't really changed, but then I've gotten into other bands throughout the years that have kind of, “Oh, I want to write something like that”. I'll try and do a little bit of that here and there.
EU: I like Cage The Elephant, so that's cool to hear, and I kind of sensed that. So, since you guys are Ohio based, what's kind of like the scene in Ohio for your sound and what's your experience? Have you been playing live venues?
RG: Honestly, there's not a huge scene here, at least not for our genre. In Cincinnati, there's a really cool DIY scene. There's a lot of cool bands that are doing unique different things, but there's not a lot of bands that are, I guess, trying to do what we do so far and stuff. They're doing their own thing and they're murdering it and everybody loves them and stuff. But I don't know if we're in a van and trailer tour in the country trying to get opening slow spots for bigger vans and get on festivals and stuff like that. And I'm not sure everybody else around here is doing that kind of thing, but I feel like there's two different scenes here.
EU: I feel like especially with your music, I think it would be really cool. I don't know if you guys have been up to, like, Connecticut, but we have in New Haven, Connecticut, we have like a really big music scene.
RG: Really? Yeah, we went through there on our way between New York and Boston. Yeah, we played two nights in New York on this last tour. We just got back like two weeks ago and we played two nights in New York and then we had to go up to Boston, Massachusetts. But we've never played in Connecticut before.
EU: Yeah, New Haven has a lot of rock bands and like indie rock, which is really cool. But yeah, and I also wanted to ask you, since you guys are kind of building up your fan base and continuing to make music and put out new projects, what do you want your fans or even just like, potential listeners to grab from this upcoming project?
RG: Dev.
DT: I don't know. I think this is my favorite music we've ever made or put out.
RG: I think it's all of ours.
DT: In general, I just can't wait for everyone to hear it and hopefully they just like it as much as we do.
RG: Yeah, I think it's kind of it sounds like it seems a little bit matured. It's still like playful and fun for the most part. Like, we're probably never going to shy away from that or anything. That's kind of our thing. We're just upbeat, fun, loud. That's probably always going to be our thing, even if every song is not that. But I don't know, I just want people to listen to it and be happy. Just feel happy when they listen to it and have fun.
EU: So what's next for you guys? Obviously the album is coming out really soon and I know you kind of mentioned playing in different venues, but what do you guys see for yourself in the future?
RG: This year is a big plain white canvas right now. We haven't really figured it out. We want to tour as much as we can. That's what we just did all last year, but while simultaneously working on the record. This year, I think we're going to take a breath, kind of take a break from being in the studio, because we've spent so many hours in the studio the past year, year and a half, and I think we're going to kind of take a little breather from that and just focus on working on our live show and getting out as much as possible. We want to play festivals. As of right now, we got nothing on the docket, and we are playing it by ear.
EU: I’d like to ask, especially since this is a new project for both of you, which one is your favorite track? Like, which is the one that you're going to recommend to your friends or your family?
RG: Okay, so I think "Sleepyhead" might be my favorite HARBOUR song ever. I love that song. But besides that, listening to the album, I think "Fish Tank" would be one.
EU: He's [Devon] nodding in the back.
DT: Those were my two answers.
RG: Really?
DT: "Sleepy Head" and "Fish Tank".
RG: Those are the ones I keep going back to, I think.
EU: And also, again, kind of talking about how you matured or how you feel your sound has matured, too, Another question I have, even from the very first project you put out, what would be your favorite track?
RG: Very first thing we put out, probably "What I'm Looking For", my favorite track from that. I think that's the one that kind of really kick started HARBOUR. I think that's the one where we [went] okay, this is what we are. That was, like, the first one that we wrote because, honestly, we did have a different band name. There are only three of us at the time and then we were working on that record, and we were like, dude, we need a new name, and we need to start flesh with this record. And that was the first one that was like, all right, this is what we are now. So I think that one nice.
EU: Is it the same for you?
DT: It's absolutely the same. To this day, I think that's still my favorite song to play live.
RG: Really? Yeah.
DT: That's the fun one. We probably will play that one live forever. I hope so.
Keep up with HARBOUR on social media: Instagram, YouTube, and be sure to stream their music on Apple Music and Spotify!
