Sitting in Starbucks with Zac Harris in Bournemouth town centre, he seems nervous; perhaps because this is the first profile piece anyone has ever written about him. He asks if they do Earl grey tea, an interesting request for an 18 year old. “I’ve never been served tea in a mug before”, he says, a comment that could reflect on Harris’ personal life or perhaps on Starbucks’ etiquette. Zac nervously plays with the strings on his teabag, revealing vulnerability you wouldn’t associate with someone in the public eye.
Zac Harris is an 18 year-old singer songwriter from West Howe in Bournemouth. He’s just started to make it big on the local music scene and further afield; supporting Pete Doherty at the Bournemouth Opera House and playing a private exhibition gig at Selfridges in London being just two highlights of an impressive portfolio of past gigs.
Zac has always loved music and used to sing along to the radio when he was younger. He attempted keyboards but began playing guitar when he was 12. He was inspired to write songs and perform his music when he watched a DVD of Jeff Buckley performing live. “Watching that, I just knew what I wanted to do,” admits Zac. Buckley has been and still is a huge influence on Zac and reviewers have duly noted it. One admirer even went as far as saying, “Your music’s dope, it’s like the soul of Jeff Buckley reincarnate.” To Zac, though being compared to such a great musician is a compliment, he doesn’t want to be branded as the next Buckley. He says, “It’s really flattering when people say that I sing like Jeff Buckley but I don’t want to be Jeff Buckley; I just want to play my own stuff.” Today Zac’s inspiration comes more from bands like Radiohead, artists like Patrick Wolf and interestingly, the lifestyle and poetry of the beat generation of the 1950s.
Playing to a crowd of 10,000 people last year is one of Zac’s greatest achievements but more so, is his opportunity supporting Pete Doherty. He notes that this is the biggest crowd he has ever played to “who were there for music”.
He is a fan of Pete Doherty and went to a Babyshambles gig in The Twisters, when he was 14, “I didn’t know it was 18 plus until I left the venue. That was crazy, it was a good gig.” He talks about it being weird, supporting someone as famous as Pete Doherty and saying that it was “an honour” to play on a bill with so many talented people. Zac was full of nothing but praise for the other artists. He met Pete Doherty after the gig and simply says, “He was cool.”
The compere of the Opera House gig managed to get on everyone’s nerves says Zac. “The crowd were chucking pint glasses at him by the end of the night, he laughs.” Pete ended his set by throwing a chair and table off the stage, nearly injuring someone. The security apparently said it was the roughest night they’d experienced. Zac on the other hand, simply describes it as “a great night,” and adding, “It was an experience,” he says grinning.
Zac is sure of his goals and aims for the future. He is hoping to complete his debut EP for release in the first quarter of 2009. He is very excited because he’s never done an official release before and he is recording this with Stuart Semple, the artist, who has produced work for The Subliminal Girls including music videos and CD releases. Zac has been frustrated by delays on the release, especially glandular fever, which meant he couldn’t sing at all. He will definitely be releasing something soon, though and is hoping, “It’ll be nice and special as well.”
The next step for Zac after that is to get on the bill of a whole tour, supporting a band. His dream is to support Radiohead, but realistically he’d love to support Kid Harpoon, another up and coming artist. Zac sees him as another musician doing something similar to what he is, namely in the way he plays guitar, “He strums the hell out of it and I give my guitar hell all the time.” He says he loves the sound it gets and the aggressive feeling he can achieve in his music by playing like this.
Zac has already played with artists like Sue Denim of Robots in Disguise, supporting on half of her mini tour. He did a duet with her, singing Leonard Cohen’s ‘First we take Manhattan.’ “The tour was really good fun and I met some wicked people as well,” says Zac.
Zac talks about his family fondly and states how supportive they are of his music. His dad used to play him Manic Street Preachers and Bob Dylan when he was just a kid though which could have affected him and says of his son’s talent, “I have always enjoyed Zac's music and ideally I think with his unique abilities, and by that I mean his voice, style of guitar playing, song-writing and performance he will be able to get the type of contract with a record company that will enable him to develop a long term career.” Zac’s sister, 15, also plays guitar and sings but he sees her as a writer instead. “She’s good with words,” he says. Zac’s close friend, Mike Dent, a 17 year-old student in the band Metropolise said, “I've known Zac for 6 years and he's been my best friend. He's a great guy, he's very nice and his music is fantastic. There are a lot of solo artists in the Bournemouth area, but Zac really does stand out from the crowd.” Dent also said, “I've always known that he would get far at some point and supporting Pete Doherty at the Opera House proved that.”
As Zac talks about the Bournemouth music scene he becomes animated and opinionated. He thinks there is a lot of demand for live music in the area and he loves living here. He stresses that a lot of people criticize the music scene here but he believes that, “a music scene can only be as good as what you put into it.” He thinks that people in Bournemouth are lucky because there are so many good venues, like 60 million post cards, ibar and The Gander. “I’m pretty much in love with Bournemouth, it’s an inspiring place to live.”
Recently Zac has been expanding his sound and his style, experimenting with “using beats” in his live performance. He happily acknowledges that it went down well and he is excited about improving and expanding on this. “I feel like I’ve got so much I want to do,” reveals Zac. He doesn’t want to just keep one style as an artist and says he’d rather grow and evolve as a person. “To me that’s what’s exciting.”
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