Jason Harwell (Image courtesy of Rebuilt Records)

'Independent Folk. For Independent Folk...'

Co-Founder of Small House Records, Niki Tulk, recently caught up with Athens, GA-based Singer/Songwriter and President of Rebuilt Records, Jason Harwell, to find out more about his music, his faith and what it's like being a 'White, Southern, Evangelical, Male' living in the United States of America...

Niki Tulk: Many artists are reluctant to pin down their music into a specific style or genre, but how do you typically describe the sort of music you write?

Jason Harwell: I call what I do ‘independent folk for independent folk’. I write music that’s in the folk tradition of being a storyteller, although sonically it not traditional folk music. So it starts with telling stories of things that I’ve seen and experienced. I grew up listening to Pop radio, so there’s a huge Pop influence in the sound and the melodies and my songwriting. So it’s a kind of Indie-Folk-Pop-Acoustic-based music that I make.

Niki Tulk: So where did the Folk music influence come from if you grew up listening to more conventional Pop music?

Jason Harwell: Well, I grew up in the Southern part of the United States, and while I listened to Pop radio when I got a chance, my Dad listened to country music and old folk music and he listened to a lot of gospel music in the South, so you can’t really escape it, growing up with all these kinds of influences. Very early on, I knew a lot of folk music, bluegrass, a lot of banjo stuff… people in my family would play the banjo, so you kind of grew up with it, even though that wasn’t always what I’d choose to listen to… cause when you’re a kid, you think that the music your parents listen to is kinda lame. So I guess that’s where that stuff began to seep in…

Niki Tulk: That’s really interesting… now when you say ‘gospel’ do you mean ‘southern Baptist black gospel’? That tends to be our reading of the term here in Australia…

Jason Harwell: Well that’s where it all came from but in the South you also have a lot of Southern white gospel singing groups… like the people who influenced Elvis — he grew up listening to these white Southern gospel families. And they were all families, like the Gathor Family and the Carter Family… so the music was a derivative of black Southern gospel. It’s similar but it’s a little bit different, it’s actually a little more cheesier!

Niki Tulk: So the Folk component of what you do is the communication, in actually telling a story and passing on something to other people…

Jason Harwell: Right. And that’s what we’re known for in the South. That’s why the people from the North kinda laugh about us, ‘cause we’re story tellers — that’s just part of the culture, you tell stories. We’re not very direct people… why tell you something straight-ahead when I can try to make it entertaining for you? So you grow up with all these characters you know. Like in your family there’s always these legendary stories… there’s always that Uncle that’s known for telling stories… so when you grow up in an environment of telling stories it seems to be natural when you start to do it yourself.

Niki Tulk: As an Artist do you have a core vision or question that you find yourself constantly exploring in your work? It might not be a deliberate or conscious thing…

Jason Harwell: Hmmm…. my gut reaction, when I think about the songs I write, and what makes me want to take them out of my bedroom and actually put them on record and perform them for others… I think the reason why I want other people to hear it is that I guess I feel like in my faith — especially growing up as an American evangelical Christian, where so much of the culture is shallow and surface-level — in America, you sort of become a Christian to get rid of all your problems. There’s this idea that if you are a Christian, your life can’t be hard any more; for some reason it’s meant to solve everything, be a cure-all. But no-one’s like that. That’s not realistic. And yet people feel this way about themselves, so they put on this facade. And every Sunday — we call it the ‘shake and howdy’ — it’s shaking hands and being like ‘Hey there Bill, how are things?’ ‘Oh they’re stella!’ But they’re not, they’re not at all! So I guess I feel like that when it comes down to it, what I hope to do with these songs is to go ‘okay I’m a believer in Christ, I’m doing my best to search for truth in this crazy world we live in, to make some sense out of the things that happen’ and to let people know, ‘hey man it’s okay if you’ve got questions, it’s okay to doubt… what’s important when you do these things is what you do next.’ I guess that’s what I hope to do, even in a non-Christian context, as far as performing, is just to let people know, ‘hey you’re not alone. You might be having some doubts about life and if there’s anything else ‘out there’, or you’re stuck in a tough job… whatever your situation may be, you’re not alone in that. It’s okay to have doubts… what really matters is like... well now what do we do? Let’s keep looking for truth.’ In some small way, I hope that’s what this music is about, and I hope that’s what it does.

Niki Tulk: Implicit in what you’re saying is the idea the art that you make is directly connected in with the person you are, and the way that you live… there’s an integrity across the board… you’re presenting a potential path for people, in a way… a path of… ‘hold my hand, let’s explore the questions, you’re not alone’, and there’s a sense of a relationship in that…

Jason Harwell: It’s all I know how to do, and it’s partly that I don’t think I’m good enough... I think there are great writers who write songs that are not factually true, but are true in a deeper sense. But I don’t think I’m good enough to do that, so I cling to this… I need to write it as it was, that’s the only way I know how — to the best of my ability — to persevere the truth of it. And I think you’re right — it’s just so that I can put it out there. It’s why with the EP (‘The Broken Headphones’ ) I have mixed feelings about it… not because of the way it turned out — I like the way it turned out, I like the songs — but the recording was a really difficult process. And I’m not real proud of myself of the way I did that in some ways… I feel that I saw the worst of me. And so that’s why it’s called ‘The Broken Headphones’. There was this whole incident where I actually destroyed this guy’s headphones and lost it in the studio! It was very not like me… but there it was…!

Niki Tulk: The straw that broke the camel’s back, as they say…

Jason Harwell: Yeah. And you could say ‘here’s why I did that’…or whatever… but it was nasty. And there’s this tendency where I want to clean it up for people… but I thought — no. This is the story. Let’s put it out this way. And this gives me something to talk about, ‘cause now I get to talk about forgiveness, ‘cause I needed it from the guys I was working with. And it’s a powerful story to me now and one that’s added value to my life and my songwriting. I needed to have that low point… but yeah, it’s not easy!

Niki Tulk: I’ve been musing on the fact that all true art and all true beauty seems to comes out of suffering… there’s a beauty that can come out of pain that’s unlike any other… the rich colour of Autumn leaves… appearing as the leaf dies... and even childbirth...

Jason Harwell: Yeah… and to allow it to be what it is… and not try to sugar it up a little bit to make it look nice… or fix the story! We do that in everything we do as people, we want to present the best parts of ourselves to people we haven’t met… but yeah, I’m with you. I think that when we let it be what it is… when we take our stranglehold off of it… it has a life of its own.

Niki Tulk: And that’s the scary bit too…

Jason Harwell: Sure. Well you know, it can backfire on you. People can reject it…

Niki Tulk: Now, you’re a sculpture graduate as well as a singer/songwriter aren’t you?

Jason Harwell: I am.

Niki Tulk: Do you think the different media of sculpture and ‘sculpting sound’ in music… do they connect in any way for you?

Jason Harwell: Oh absolutely! It’s all about building things. It’s what I do and it’s what I’ve always done. As a kid I used to take my toys apart — you could always tell if I liked my toy, ‘cause it was the one I was dismantling! I wanted to know how it worked. I loved it! I was into Leggo, building blocks… so when I got to sculpture I thought, wow… I can do this on a bigger scale, I can tap into my childhood love of constructing things. Machines and things that do stuff. A similar way to how I approach my songwriting. It’s still building. There’s an idea that I want to put forward, and idea that I want to get across. And then it’s like, okay, how can I build this song around this idea to effectively convey this message, at least the best way I can, so yeah, it’s totally about building.

Niki Tulk: Do you feel then there is a strong visual element in your songwriting as well as in your sculpture? Or is it more kinetic for you? For example, with sculpture you actually get to handle it, you touch it... it comes into being through acts of movement… Do you ‘feel’ your song, or do you ‘see’ it?

Jason Harwell: Wow! I think it’s the element of movement that I’m always looking for… when I got into sculpture I didn’t want to build things that just stood there. Even the things that stood there, I tried to make them move visually. My early work had all these gears involved… this idea that mechanics where involved... moving…. then I built pendulums that would swing. Then I built the one-man see-saw… the ‘Me Saw’. So there’s this idea that I needed it to move for some reason. If it moved, it was somehow more real to me. I was actually probably better at drawing… drawing was my natural gift. I’m probably better with graphite or charcoal than as a sculptor, but I couldn’t interact with it, it wasn’t in my space. But with sculpture it kinda asserted itself forward — you could move out of the way, but it was there. So when I think about my songs, there’s this whole idea of ‘I don’t know where this road goes, I don’t know where this story goes, but I want to be moving’. With each album I get to make I look at it like the next section of the book. And I don’t know if the story ultimately is going to be a great one, I don’t know, but it’s sort of like this movement forward… so that’s where the major theme is. I need it to move. I need to go somewhere… to be doing something.

Niki Tulk: And how does that carry over into the context of live performance for you?

Jason Harwell: I don’t know… live performance is such a struggle for me. I really enjoyed your article about it… yeah it was just really fantastic… and it gave me a lot of things to chew on...

Niki Tulk: Oh… thank you!

Jason Harwell: When I played in a band in college it was a lot easier because I was on stage and there were other guys — my brothers were there and we were playing together, we were sharing this experience. So even if there was no-one there, or regardless of what happened, I didn’t lean so much on the crowd, I didn’t need them to affirm me because I had these other guys. It was just fun for us to be together. But as a solo performer, I’ve constantly battled with the whole idea of performing. It’s been tough. I don’t know… when I put a set together, the times I’ve felt good about a performance has been when I feel like I was able to take the audience somewhere. Maybe not somewhere profound, but through the songs and through the discussion and even through the humour — like through some of the funnier songs I try to do — just to try to take someone somewhere then bring them back to a point at the end where it’s like, we’re back where we started, but hopefully we’re a little bit different in our thinking, so let’s move forward… but I would say that those moments have been fewer than I would have hoped…

Niki Tulk: Or that you’re aware of… sometimes I think that can be happening and you’re not even aware of it… sometimes a whole lot can be going on for people on the inside but you’d never know it… they don’t always give out those signs...

Jason Harwell: Yeah, for sure. I totally agree with what you’re saying. What I try to tell myself in these times is... back in the days in the band we would play a show and we’d leave and we’d be like ‘man, we really blew that! That was horrible’ and of course those would be that ones that people would say ‘man, that was fantastic!’ ‘something spoke to me in this…’ I guess the lesson is for me to not really worry about it. What you were talking a little bit about in your article was to be faithful to this calling and to do the best you can…

Niki Tulk: How do you see that Faith and Christianity — and I’ve deliberately separated them ‘cause they don’t always go hand in hand — sit in your culture? You live and work in what’s known as the ‘Bible Belt’ in the state of Georgia… and I haven’t always heard complimentary things said about this ‘belt’...

Jason Harwell: Yeah, it’s a negative connotation. The stereotype connotes this feeling of ‘brow beating’…really heavy-handed Christianity — people preaching hell fire and brimstone, you know, ‘fear the Lord, he hates you and your sin… you must be saved or you’ll burn in Hell!’. Very fear driven. So most people don’t really like that! It’s a negative thing to say, but we’ve earned that… I always joke about it, ‘cause I’m a white, southern, evangelical male, living in the United States of America. So I have oppressed everyone! That’s kinda the joke… we’re the worst of the worst! So it is difficult to talk about faith in a place like the South, ‘cause everyone rolls their eyes, like this guy’s gonna try to convert me right now… So it’s a difficult line to walk, because you want to be who you are, and you want to be… I’m going to use the word ‘bold’ — though that’s a dangerous word… it’s loaded in the US, in the South, because ‘bold’ can sort of suggest that you should be on the street corner… like telling everyone ‘repent or perish’. But I want to be the man of Christ that I’m becoming without hiding that, but at the same time respect the people I’m in front of. And I think that’s something that we don’t necessarily do. I’m reading this great book that’s called ‘Finding Common Ground’ or something like that; it’s written before the Millennium and the author’s talking about how in America we look at it like we’re in the midst of the ‘last great harvest’ or whatever… that Christ is coming back so let’s go get ‘em! And he’s like… ‘well, maybe, but if you stop the work of the sower, then at some point, there’s nothing else to harvest’. So we need to continue to sow… and he just talks a lot about how because we’ve decided that we’re just going to harvest… we’ve decided that’s it’s the end, so by any means necessary let’s communicate to these people… let’s tell them what they need. And that’s difficult ‘cause I don’t necessarily feel like that’s what I’m supposed to do. I feel like I need to respect people where they’re at. So I guess when I talk about my faith and Christianity I think it’s implicit — at times it’s explicit — but what I’ve found to be true is that even in the Bible Belt, you need to treat people with respect, understanding that if you’re going to enter into a conversation, a dialogue, whatever… that you have to listen to them. I imagine that’s what Christ did. When Jesus talked to people, he actually listened to what they had to say! And I don’t think we do that very well in the South, stereotypically. So that’s been my way to try and change that… to be who I am… to try to not hide from that, but at the same time to understand that I don’t need to change everyone in the room. That’s it’s really my job to present these songs and trust that God can do what God wants to do.

Niki Tulk: It’s like that bit in the Bible where Jesus sends his disciples out and says ‘go into the town, stay somewhere, say peace be on this house, and if they accept that peace, stay and eat… he doesn’t even tell them to ‘say’ anything… just be with them…

Jason Harwell: Yeah… meet people’s needs.

Niki Tulk: He doesn’t tell them to ‘force’ anyone to accept their peace though… there seems to be a lot more respect of people’s right to say ‘no’ in the Bible than perhaps we’d like to admit...

Jason Harwell: I think it’s a powerful thing. I can choose to accept the life that Christ has for me or I can reject that. But he actually gave me a choice. He wants me to choose to love him obviously, ‘cause he loves me more than I know. But I feel like, Man! if Christ himself doesn’t force himself upon me, then why should I do that to someone else? That doesn’t seem right. I think we’re scared. We’re scared to let our light shine… we shouldn’t have to say anything sometimes. I think there are times when we need to, but with wisdom and discernment… instead of just kicking the door in with your guns blazing in traditional American style, being the loudest guy in the room. We don’t have to do that. But I think we’re scared, because we’re so ingrained with this thought that… and the typical line in the Southern Baptist way of doing stuff is ‘you could go outside right now and be hit by a car’ you know, ‘this could be your last day on earth, so what’s it gonna be?’ It’s very final, and ‘cause that’s what we grew up with, it’s hard to not feel this pressure to go, ‘okay, I’ve got the ear of this audience, so I should present the Gospel’…

Niki Tulk: The word ‘fear’ is coming up a lot in what you’re saying…

Jason Harwell: And I think it’s generational, in that what American Christianity has become in some ways is way to do things, a way to believe, a sort of belief system… set of rules… whatever… and I think we’re so scared because so many of us are not having authentic, real experiences and relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ — and Christ himself — that we don’t know what that’s supposed to look like. We’re so terrified that we’re doing it wrong, that we try so much harder, we push that much harder on those things that we’re supposed to be doing. Yeah, but it’s all fear driven… I think we fear where we stand with God and so then we go out and try to earn it by works.

Niki Tulk: It’s interesting isn’t it, those verses that say ‘we’re no longer under a spirit of fear’… and ‘perfect love casts out all fear’…

Jason Harwell: Absolutely, I don’t think fear… man, I don’t think that brings about transformation… like love does.

Niki Tulk: Yeah, I heard a preacher say one time that he didn’t know of anyone who’d been converted by the fear of God, but very many who had been converted by the love of God…

Jason Harwell: Yeah, absolutely!

Niki Tulk: Now, if we can get a little controversial for a moment…

Jason Harwell: Let’s do it!

Niki Tulk: What’s your take on Contemporary Christian Music (CCM)? How do you think CCM sits with, or reflects or reacts to this culture you’re describing? I’m particularly interested in Art — if one can call it that — being the ‘fruit’ of a context… it never exists in isolation… it comes out of something….

Jason Harwell: Well, to speak back to fear… this self-preservation in Christianity. We feel like we’re being attacked in America ‘cause we’re an increasingly pluralistic society. You know, for example, it used to be that if you had the Ten Commandments on the wall of the City Hall or something, nobody batted an eye about that. But now those are rallying points — people want those to come down because they promote a specific religion. So, there’s always these debates. So what we do, is we sink back into the walls of our fortress and hope to just insulate it… we take that ‘be in the world, but not of the world’ be to mean that we’re just supposed to wait it out until we go home! We just want to cut ourselves off from the world. And it’s not where it [Christian music] came from. I think Christian music actually came from the ‘Jesus People’ in the Sixties, whose hearts I think were in the right place — but what it’s become now is this separate ‘let’s have our own thing’. We’re scared that music will influence our kids to go out and shoot people, or whatever… so we’ve created this whole industry that is like a really bad photocopy of mainstream music, or mainstream movies or mainstream whatever... for every thing that’s big in the mainstream. It’s why we’ve had such a resurgence of The Chronicles of Narnia in the last few years, because of Harry Potter. It’s this mystical tale… Gosh, you know, people are burning those books in the streets…. protesting this magician! So how is that really much different? Well, it’s because CS Lewis was a Christian, that’s why… so it’s safe, and that’s where this idea comes from. And that’s where it ceases to be art and becomes propaganda. It’s because there are all these rules imposed on Christian artists who exist in that CCM context. And if you don’t talk explicitly about God or Jesus in your music, people go ‘well, he’s selling out!’ and you’re cut off. So I don’t know… I’ve sort of tried to ignore it… I don’t know if that’s a good strategy or not… I say to myself that’s not what I’m here for… I don’t like the sound of the music, I don’t like the fact that it’s not outreach, ‘cause we’re not going out. What is this? This is like music for kids that are already in your classroom. And I do think there’s a place for this. Worship music we need, congregational worship music, but when it becomes a product… you just don’t know… it creates this whole thing where no-one knows what’s really going on. So I’ve just tended — for better or worse — to completely not engage with it. I’ve decided that I’m not a CCM artist, I don’t have any part of this… I’m going to go and hang out with these people over here…. the people I feel like I should be spending time with. That’s why we try to avoid that term, it’s hard ‘cause you don’t want to be pegged as a ‘Christian Artist’ because it is just an extension in the minds of most ‘normal’ people in America — the unchurched — it’s music for the people who are on the street corner yelling at you. It’s propaganda, it’s like fire-me-up music for those people who go out and ‘convert the masses’. It’s very shallow.

Niki Tulk: It’s the lack of authenticity. You can pick that up in any style of music I suppose...

Jason Harwell: Yeah, and there’s no attempt at depth. It has nothing to do with a deeper search for understanding, for a deeper relationship with Christ, for a deeper sense of purpose even. It’s just like the same song being written over and over again in different styles of music… you know, it’s lowest-common-denominator Christianity.

Niki Tulk: Yes, there’s often a frightening sameness to it all… a lot of my job here at Small House dealing with Christian radio is actually educative… that ‘different’ doesn’t mean ‘bad’… that a ‘style’ is not a ‘standard’...

Jason Harwell: Ooo… that’s good!

Niki Tulk: I’ve even had a DJ on a Christian station here tell me that he could hear what we were trying to do with our production, but that it really needs to sound more like Hillsong if we want to get anywhere with it… I had to politely tell him that what he’s hearing is NOT us trying to sound like Hillsong and somehow falling short… we’re actually on about something entirely different… we haven’t just missed the mark…

Jason Harwell: We’re not even aiming for it!

Niki Tulk: That’s right! Now we’ve touched on CCM, but would you — in any way — describe your music as ‘Christian’? You may want to redefine the term ‘Christian’… but that’s okay…

Jason Harwell: On one hand I want to say absolutely not, but that’s not totally true. The music that I care the most about… these are all songs about my relationship, my experiences with this living God that I’m trying to come to know, and I’m trying to understand and how that influences everything else. So it has to be… but I hate to say ‘Christian Music’, ‘cause it’s not in that genre of music for Christians. I hope it’s for… whoever. So it is Christian, ‘cause I’m a Christian and I’m presenting it ‘as is’. I guess I separate that maybe from the source of the music to then talking about the actual music itself which I would not classify as in the genre of Christian Music. But I can’t deny that’s where it is.

Niki Tulk: The label ‘Christian Music’ has then become dissociated from what it’s meant to reflect… the morphing of language…

Jason Harwell: It’s a marketing term people hear ‘cause we want to be safe. You go ‘oh, that’s Christian music… I can listen to it’. Like you can buy it not even knowing what it is… but someone approved it for you.

Niki Tulk: Small House gets described as a ‘music ministry group’ in some settings and an ‘independent record label’ in others… people have all these different associations with words….

Jason Harwell: And it’s frustrating. I get frustrated about words ‘cause they’re abstractions anyway. When we put a thought into words, we’re just hoping for the best when it comes out of our mouths. Rather than taking it as it is and sort of — I guess I feel this way ‘cause I come from a visual art background — critically thinking about something before I decide if it has value or not. And thinking for myself… we just don’t do that… we just want to try to rectify it up front and that annoys me to no end ‘cause I think we’re missing out. ‘Cause truth isn’t just confined within someone’s definition of what Christian Music is… I think we’re missing it ‘cause we’re failing to look for it. Yeah, so it’s frustrating when we put so much emphasis on words which are so faulty anyway.

Niki Tulk: Different uses of language too. Language as art. Language as poetry. Language trying to encapsulate in a sound something you’re feeling. As opposed the the abuse of language by our corporate, global culture… language now is often a disassociated term used to sell you something, to define you or box you…

Jason Harwell: Right!

Niki Tulk: Now, one final question for you… what would you ask of emerging artists — those perhaps just starting out in the music industry, or with a little bit of experience behind them — to enable them to critique their own work? To make them really think about what they’re doing…

Jason Harwell: I think one important question that I try to think about is — especially for musicians who are Christians — whatever the ‘end’ is… when you get there, what do you want this to look like? When it’s over, what would that be, best case scenario — where do you want to end up? For some people that’s maybe ‘well, I’d like to have toured the country, or the world or whatever’. Whatever this is, where are you going? And I think for Christian artists we get stuck on not making good long term goals. I’m not talking about plans, but goals. Well, we go ‘I just want to go where the Lord calls me’ or ‘I don’t know, we’ll just see what happens’… And while our plans will certainly change — I don’t think we ever really nail it forty years in advance — I think you need to know what you’re working towards. I think it really comes back to spending time in prayer and being like ‘Lord, what are you leading me into now?’ Like I said, he never gives me the next seventeen steps of my life, but I think it is important to consider why you’re doing what you’re doing and where you hope to go with it… what you hope to do with it, what do you hope the outcome to be… ‘Cause it gives you somewhere to aim for. Sometimes I think we get stuck — you’re an artist, you’ve been doing it for three years at some point and you realise you’re in the same position you were three years earlier. And I think at that point the air comes out of your sails and you give up. And I think about how much more art could have been made, how many more people could have been encouraged by what you had to say, but you didn’t ‘cause you were lazy up front. And this is something that challenges me, ‘cause I’m the guy I’m talking to here. What do I feel at this point in time I want the outcome to be, and let me work in that direction. Trusting that if the Lord has put me in this position that he will make my way straight. But yeah, that’s what I always want to know… ‘what do you want to do… where do you want to go?’

Niki Tulk: And you have to be pretty honest with yourself… we often ask the same thing of musicians who come to talk to us here at Small House… A lot of the time, when they’re really pushed, they actually want to be famous… and have a label to do all their ‘hack work’ for them… they might cover it over initially by lots of talk about wanting to ‘reach as many people as possible for the Lord’… but essentially they’re in it for themselves… they want that star status. And that’s cool if they do, but they’d be better off coming clean and admitting that… to us, but more importantly, to themselves… then go find another label…!

Jason Harwell: Exactly! That’s definitely where that comes out for me too. But I don’t think people realise it. Like you said, having to deal with that sort of question they go ‘oh, oh wow! I didn’t even realise that’s what I wanted’. But yeah, it’s pretty clear. Well there you go, you didn’t kill seven years trying to do something else.

Niki Tulk: Yeah that’s right! I think that’s what labels and managers should be doing… especially when it comes to mentoring young artists… helping them tap into and find what it is that’s really really on their hearts to do.

Jason Harwell: Right. Absolutely! It’s important. And I think that helps when you hit the low points that are inevitable, if you play a few bad shows in a row… ‘like why am I doing this?’ If you don’t have your eyes set on something over the waves you just get beat up by them, pummelled, left directionless...

Niki Tulk: It’s so true! Thanks so much for you time Jason!

www.jasonharwell.com/
www.rebuiltrecords.com/

See also:
Jason Harwell & Jonathan Rich discuss CCM on YouTube.