“If You’re Not Getting Better, Then What’s the Point?”

After many years of collaborating with the likes of Cee Lo Green and The Black Lips, Curtis Harding designed his solo debut with the 2014 album Soul Electrical power, the title of which built the Atlanta musician’s intentions very clear. Now three albums into his solo job, Harding specialises in what he phone calls “slop n soul”, a voracious mix of soiled funk and heart-baring soul.

Harding’s most up-to-date album, If Words Were being Bouquets, came out in late 2021 by using Anti-, a label regarded for releasing albums by Tom Waits, Nick Cave and the Terrible Seeds and Mavis Staples. The document was co-generated by Sam Cohen, a Brooklyn-based producer and solo artist who also worked on Harding’s past effort, 2017’s Encounter Your Concern.

Ahead of his first ever Australian functionality at the inaugural Wanderer Competition, Curtis Harding chats to New music Feeds about his hometown, his love of George Clinton and Sly Stone, and his resourceful ideas.

Curtis Harding on His Influences and Job Goals

Tunes Feeds: You’re in Los Angeles at the moment. Are you still based mostly in Atlanta?

Curtis Harding: I are living in Atlanta, but I just go again and forth for the reason that most of my bandmates dwell [in LA]. So, I appear out in this article for rehearsal and I have received a couple of auditions that I have to do due to the fact I’m undertaking some performing stuff. So I have to arrive out in this article for perform purposes.

MF: You moved to Atlanta as a teenager and you’ve been based there ever due to the fact, is that right?

CH: Yeah, I was about 15 a long time aged when I moved to Atlanta.

MF: Atlanta has a whole lot of major songs record and it remains a hotbed of musical innovation. Your journey to discovering the type of audio you needed to make, do you believe that was influenced by the culture in Atlanta?

CH: Yeah, I do in aspect. I believe any time you expend a lengthy sum of time somewhere, the community alone will help establish your character and whichever creative targets you’re attempting to attain. So, surely, Atlanta has performed a substantial position in my artist progress.

MF: Your 3rd album, If Phrases Have been Flowers, came out very last year. In the previous you’ve described your sound as “slop n soul”. How would you break that down for the uninitiated?

CH: I’m rather sure individuals are common with Parliament-Funkadelic. Very well, you know the album Cosmic Slop? It sort of just describes the funk: it is sloppy, it’s runny. It’s just a mixture of diverse stuff, distinct genres thrown into 1, and it sustains the farm when you give it to the pigs and whatnot.

And soul is just what it is. It is your practical experience, it is the experience, it is the mood. So, put individuals jointly, you got slop n soul.

Curtis Harding – ‘Hopeful’

MF: Has George Clinton been a large impact for you?

CH: Yeah, you know, he was fearless. They started out as just about like a Motown act, a soul group, and just the evolution, it just turned into this entire exhibit of characters. And George Clinton was the ringleader of that.

You just go back again and you listen to the tales and you see some of the footage, it is just mind-blowing. From the costumes down to the musicianship, it’s all more than the spot. It’s excellent. So, certainly, they’ve been an inspiration. Nonetheless inspiring – George Clinton’s however going potent in his 80s.

MF: People today like George Clinton and Sly Stone were really adventurous and boundary breaking for the time, but the perform holds up. 

CH: I adore how inclusive the music was. Specifically anyone like Sly Stone, he included all people. It was for the people. I experience like George Clinton and those guys, they had a heart, not just to reach just one demographic of people today, but every person – any person that desired to get on board was welcome.

MF: Do you consider of oneself as part of a musical lineage that stretches back again to artists like George Clinton and Sly Stone? 

CH: I do not consider of myself in these conditions. For me it’s just a labour of like I just appreciate doing it. But I assume, if tunes is progressive, I consider that the foundation wants to be robust, and it’s previously been established. As extensive as you have a strong basis, then you can put your spin on it and choose it as far as you can get it. Then it is up to the next man or woman to do the identical point.

So, it just needs to be pushed ahead, and that’s all I try to do – to get far better and greater and to include my stone on prime of that cornerstone. 

Curtis Harding – ‘Can’t Disguise It’

MF: Do the persons about you, like the musicians you engage in with and tour with, continue to keep you inspired?

CH: Yeah, I have a whole lot of great buddies who are into songs and touring and taking part in persistently. We attempt to preserve just about every other on every single other’s toes. That’s how you get greater.

I try to enjoy with men and women that are greater than me. In a ton of means it’s really egocentric because I’m discovering from them as perfectly, and that way your perfectly never runs dry. You have to encompass your self with folks that inspire you and retain you enthusiastic to do what you do.

MF: Do you truly feel like If Terms Had been Flowers is evidence of you having far better? Is it your ideal album?

CH: It is the very last history I released, so it is the finest just one thus far. But I experience like the following one is going to be far better than that a person. My whole point is, if you really feel like you’re not obtaining superior, then what is the place? If that was the circumstance then I would just take a break.

Music is a little something I’m usually going to do, whether or not it is skillfully or regardless of whether it’s just for entertaining, since it is what I really like to do. I cannot say that I will be undertaking it well into my 80s like George Clinton, but that would be the desire.

Discover out additional about Wanderer Competition right here.

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