PAUSE Meets: Harry James Jr

Did I read that your mum worked for Marvin Gaye? What kind of music was playing at home?

Yeah, my mum worked with him, so the music around our house was a lot of Motown to Rod Stewart, to Millie Jackson. I think that’s helped a lot with my musicality now, it’s helped my music theory because when you’re making a beat, it’s not just about the drums sounding hard, or the base sounding hard. If you layer in beautiful guitar chords — that’s the melody and that’s what hooks you to the song, and that’s what I got from growing up in music with my mum. When I got to school, all I wanted to do was hit it hard with drums and a hard base, but when you mix that with musicality, that’s what gave me my early sound and identity.

You changed your stage name from Fugitive back to your birth name, was this inspired by a change in musical direction?

When I got to about 20, I was only producing, I wasn’t Fugitive anymore, I was Harry and I kept it real because that’s who I am, this is me now, this isn’t a gimmick, I want to do this whether I make money from it or not, I only care about the art. My full name is Harry James Byart and when I made the change, I went to see my Nan and Grandad to tell them. My Grandad has always loved my singing voice, he’d say, “Your singing voice is so beautiful” and want me to sing more, and this is a man who loves Frank Sinatra. So, when I told him I was changing my stage name to Harry James, he was like, “I can’t believe you’ve said that, because when you were born, your middle name was going to be John, but I told them to call you Harry James because he was my favourite musician and I knew you were going to be musical.” How crazy is that? I swear to God, that’s 100% the truth.

What direction are you going towards with your new work?

My mum is half Spanish and half Greek, so that’s where the Spanish influence in “Honest” comes from. I want to keep showing people who I am, it’s been a long time since I released music and I’ve been experimenting for the past ten years — all the music you’re getting now is a culmination of everything I’ve learnt, and throwing away things I don’t need. I collaborate with a lot a people from across the creative field, I’m a creative director, I own a label, I do merchandise for people, I direct videos. Being Harry James Jr. allows me to do what I want to do as an artist, and when I produce music, it gives me the avenue to have a creative outlet and allocate it to the right places to get to where I want, because something that might not be right for me, might be right for someone else.

It was kind of hard for me because I came out at such a young age and I experimented and grew up in the public eye. There was a time I hated my past, but as I’m getting older, I love everything I’ve done because you’ve had a real journey with Harry— whether it’s as Fugitive, the rapper, or Harry the producer, or Harry the director, it really brings you into my world. When I think of people like Jay Z or Diddy and that great businessman in them, they make great music and then they allocate it to the right places. Diddy would produce a great record for Biggie and then when it came to his own work, he might go in a different direction. Great artists allow themselves to explore through different outlets. Many people make great music, it’s also about where you put those ideas and where they sit in the bigger picture.

When did you first become interested in photography?

When I started out, I didn’t have a team, I didn’t have the money to pay for people, so I’d have to do everything myself, and a photography shoot could cost you £300 to £500, so I just brought a camera. I found one from Luke Biggins, my good friend and a legendary director who passed away recently. He got me in touch with his mate Roger who did me a huge favour by selling me a second-hand camera for a lot cheaper than he should have. He believed in me and gave it as a friend, I must have been 16 at the time, and I’d say it’s been in the past 2 years I feel like I can go into a video and not get scared to be working with an artists money. It’s now that I have the confidence to know I can do it. But I had to go through failing so many times, it didn’t happen overnight, it was a lot of dedication and it taught me discipline.

When I was a lot younger and all my friends were going out to Ibiza and partying, I didn’t do that, I still haven’t been to Ibiza and partied. When they were doing that, I was saving my money to go to Toronto or Atlanta, even when I didn’t have anything set up, I’d go out there and sleep on friends’ sofas. Once you keep doing something, it becomes second nature to you, it doesn’t feel like you’re messing up. People put a lot of pressure on views and numbers, and this, and that. I’m terms of music, that doesn’t matter to me anymore, I want to do this regardless, whatever the outlet, or whatever the emotion is that I want to put out there, that might connect with the second or third song from a project. As long as I get it out there, that’s all that matters to me. I was in a situation where I nearly gave up on music once and it would be such a shame not to share it all.