Q&A - Harper Lee

Since The Shins' album has been delayed yet again, fans of indie pop might as well spend the interim getting acquainted with Harper Lee.

Harper Lee, a bedroom pop duo made up of singer/guitarist/keyboardist Keris Howardand guitarist/drummer Laura Bridge, breaks its reclusive streak after two years with this year's He Holds a Flame EP (read Aversion's review). The duo, whose members' resumes boast membership in Sarah Records' Brigher, Trembling Blue Stars and Hood, originally planned on recording a lone single then disbanding, much like its namesake retreated from the public eye after writing To Kill a Mockingbird. A slew of releases -- including three full-lengths -- later, the Brighton, England act's still soldering on.

After nearly abandoning the project, Harper Lee returns with a new EP that shows a command of the Sarah Records-styled bedroom pop that would be a precursor to acts such as Death Cab for Cutie, The Thrills and The Shins. Aversion coaxed Howard out of hiding long enough to talk books, the indie-pop boom and major labels.

It's been two years since we last heard word from Harper Lee, and now we only get four new songs. What gives?

To be honest, when we finished our last LP, All things Can be Mended, it was in the back of my mind that it might be our last release ever. I hadn't any real plans to get back to songwriting for new a Harper Lee record and had been spending the last 18 months concentrating on other projects. It just happened that last Autumn I started to write again, and the end result was the new EP.

With light indie pop bands like Death Cab and The Shins getting pretty huge on both sides of the Atlantic, why do you think your style of bedroom pop hasn't gotten much attention outside of the underground?

We can moan and groan about why we've never really made the big time for hours, and we do, but ultimately we've only ourselves to blame. I'm sure we could have been more successful if we'd put more time into promotion and playing live but fundamentally we're quite lazy. I don't see it as a conspiracy or any reflection on the worth of what we've been doing.

That said, say Virgin Records decides Harper Lee could be the next Death Cab or Thrills. Do you think your sound and recording style could work in the major-label structure?

I don't see why not. I'd love to spend a bit more time in the studio and think the band's sound would really benefit from the investment of a bit more time and money. It's not as if we're a scratchy, lo-fi, garage band who would be lost if they were given six months in the studio to record an LP. I think Harper Lee have always had potential to cross-over into a larger market and given the budget I'd love to pen our OK Computer. As much as they seem to be reviled by indie circles, Coldplay have shown in the U.K. that a band can be massive by playing rather angst-ridden, guitar-based pop. I don't think there's anything in the genre that makes it hard to translate to the mainstream.

So if you've any pals at Virgin, tell them we'd love to talk!

Although your songs have that Sarah Records hushed, intimate feel going for them, they're also deceptively upbeat. That's quite a change from all the wet-blanket pop complainers that seem to get a lot of attention these days. Is keeping things a little upbeat an important part of your songwriting?

I'm encouraged that you recognize that it's not all doom and gloom with Harper Lee. I think we have wrongly been tagged with the misery-pop label in the past, and I think this misses out on the fact that although our songs certainly tend to be reflective, and, admittedly, on occassions, pretty damn downbeat, I certainly don't perceive us as depressing. Maybe upbeat is a slight overstatement, but hope has always been a really important element, even in the sadder songs. I guess it's the idea of the darkest time being before dawn, of the bad times clearing the way for the good.

With a name taken from the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and a song, "William Blake," for the English poet, you guys seem to have a bent for literature. How important is a good book in your daily routine?

It's all a ruse to try and make people think we're bookish and bright. I can't speak for Laura but I currently read hardly any fiction. I read loads of classic literature in my late teens and early 20s so have quite an impressive bookcase, but find it quite hard to engage with modern writing. Instead I read lots of non-fiction, mostly history books. I'm currently obsessed with the Second World War, so have been spending a lot of time reading the books of Anthony Beevor and watching Band of Brothers on DVD. I think I'm turning into my father.

-- Matt Schild