An Interview With Erie Native Musician Roger Harvey

Contributed

Erie native Roger Harvey, right, has recently released his third studio album with collaborator Simon Flory. Reader contributor Nathaniel Clark had the opportunity to talk with Harvey about his childhood in Erie, his growth as an artist, and his vision for this album entitled Progress.

On Oct. 4, Erie native Roger Harvey released his third studio album under his own name titled Progress. A few days after its release, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Harvey about the album, his musical identity, and his enduring connection with Erie.

For many persons involved in the local Erie music scene, Roger Harvey is a recognizable name: the Girard/Edinboro musician got his start as a teenager with an 8-track tape machine, recording and performing punk music all over the county. However, as Harvey got older, his artistic aspirations began to change.

"A lot of punk rock music is very political. And so as a young person that was really uplifting to me because I would rally around with a bunch of people. We'd all coalesce around these ideas. At some point through punk rock I started to hear about different folk singers who sang about a lot of the same things, but in a very different way," Harvey explains. "Woody Guthrie was the first (folk) person that I connected to and I just thought it was so cool that people could talk about the range of things in life which included, of course, politics."

Traversing musical boundaries, Harvey's folk career began as he started to explore other musical communities. Spending some time in Philadelphia, the artist eventually landed in Nashville, Tennessee where he recorded his first two proper folk efforts. Both 2015's Twelve Houses and 2017's Two Coyotes meet at an intersection between acoustic folk and rock'n'roll. At the time, it was a place Harvey felt perfectly at home.

Flash forward to 2024 and Progress. Eschewing the genre-melding of his previous records, Harvey's latest LP stays exclusively in the realm of folk. With a tracklist covering The Almanac Singers, Merle Travis, Joe Hill, and countless others, the album is essentially a love letter to the enduring nature of folk music. Harvey expands, "These songs that have been contextually sung for so many different protest movements throughout history but also sung at home. [...] There's something about these songs and the message that uplifts people through hardship, and that was something that I connected to."

A keen example of this enduring quality is the track "Keep on the Sunny Side." Originally written by Ada Blenkhorn in 1899, the track became a setlist closer for Harvey in 2021. The song calls for its listener to look on the brighter side of life but also acknowledges the hardships that ordinary people face.

The lyrics of Woody Guthrie make an appearance on the track "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)." Connecting to the real life plane crash over the Mexican-American border that killed four named Americans and 28 persons labeled just as "deportees," Guthrie turned his anger at their namelessness into music. While the inspiration for the song dates back to 1948, its meaning holds water today as America's immigration policies and departments continue to strip individuals of their humanity. It is worrisome that a song written over 70 years ago shares thoughts that are seen as radical today.

Outside of the lyrics, the soundscape of Progress serves as a massive factor in its commitment to the enduring nature of folk music. Every instrument, sound, and vocal was recorded in-room, directly onto analog tape. "I love to be challenged as a musician. I love to put myself in uncomfortable spaces," Harvey told me throughout our communication. Essentially, the music-making process for this album was closer in-line to Harvey's time recording on 8-track than any of his previous folk material.

"I mean, though I perform with an acoustic guitar a lot, I generally play with some sort of electrified instrumentation, whether that's a pedal, steel guitar, or electric guitars, a full drum kit, and stuff like that. So I really wanted it to be a modern take, but I wanted it to have some of those traditional elements to it," Harvey said.

A key assistant in making this traditionalist turn was fellow folk musician and album collaborator Simon Flory. Originally meeting through a common personal friend, Harvey and Flory toured together around Texas in 2019. Throughout that stint the musicians connected over songwriting and sobriety. Specifically, the two found themselves with shared ideas about the world and their love of traditional country and folk music. So, as Harvey prepared to go on this journey, he naturally reached out to Flory.

Harvey explains, "It just came to my mind that Simon might want to do [the record] with me, but more so, that Simon is the perfect person to do it with. Because I knew if I went down to Fort Worth, Simon has this incredible community of people. It was that incredible community of people that served as the setting for the album. Fort Worth, Texas is as much of a collaborator on Progress as Harvey and Flory."

Harvey continues, "The whole record was recorded live with no overdubs, corrections, or any editing that modern digital audio workstations have to offer. What is left is pure, unbridled creativity between collaborators. Reaching out to the greater Texas music community, Flory brought in various musicians to fill in the atmosphere on Progress. The sounds of fiddles, harmonicas, and banjos feel as at home here as they would on the porches of people shooting the breeze."

With the album now available to the public, Harvey has returned to Nashville. While going on the road from time to time, the musician's sights are mostly set on what's next. With a new album already brewing and close to completion, Harvey is optimistic for the future. From what he was able to tell me, the new record is taking on both imaginary and realistic elements as he talks about where he grew up.

"For me, it's Girard, Pennsylvania. But I want it to be like anywhere, because I think the experience I had, for a lot of people, is something they can relate to," Harvey said.

Throughout our discussion, Harvey made his vision for music as a whole clear. Evident by his inspirations and background, the musician looks to bring people together. Whether in punk venues or folk shows, Harvey has always looked at the community that music can build. "I mean," he says, "the whole point of songs is to illuminate this kind of shared experience that we often fantasize about. Especially if it's something really deep, we feel like 'I'm the only one that's going through this,' or 'no one else could fully understand what I'm going through.' Music gives us this bond to feel like we're not alone. And so that's a really rewarding part, like a deeply rewarding part."

Progress is currently on all digital streaming platforms and available for digital download on Bandcamp. There is also an incoming vinyl pressing that is available for pre-order on Roger Harvey's website at rogerharveymusic.com

Nathaniel Clark is a fourth year Secondary Education: English student at Penn State University. They can be reached at nathanieluclark@gmail.com