Roy Harper
Roy Harper
Roy Harper is an English folk rock singer, songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since 1964. Harper has released 32 albumsacross his 50-year career...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth12 June 1941
age bits classical echoes hall listening music stuff
As a really young child, I was listening to the echoes of the age before, music hall and stuff like that, as well as classical bits on the radio.
english-musician inwardly leader people raging revolts
As a revolutionary and leader of people at the barricades, I failed. But as a person who inwardly revolts all the time, I'm a raging success.
brought exposes therapy
At school, I was always daydreaming and fiddling in inkwells, but I had to learn to grow up and become articulate. And doing that was what brought me into writing songs. It's like therapy for me, because it exposes what I'm really thinking.
ethic fashion move original parcel shift
Don't shift because fashion has shifted. Don't move from the original ethic you had, the original reasons. They're part and parcel of you.
attitudes life music towards
I wanted to modernize music, but more than that, to completely modernize people's attitudes towards life in general.
I've seen such things as you would not believe. I've seen motorbikes driven down hotel corridors - and had a go myself.
against religion stand taken
I've taken a stand against religion for as long I've been able to write and think.
emotional english-musician known wait
I've never known anything but emotional turmoil... I go from day to day in a kind of frenzied state. I can't wait to do this, that and the other.
enjoy fantastic heaven spending time
It's fantastic to put your hands in the earth. I enjoy spending my time in heaven here. I don't care what you say, this is my heaven.
album burden handed hell led saw song zeppelin
They showed me this album sleeve, the new Led Zeppelin album, and I said 'very nice' and handed it back. 'No, go on - look again' they said, and then I saw this song 'Hats off to Harper'. It was very, uh... to be honest, it's been more of a burden than anything. A hell of a thing to live up to.
burning carefully definitely forms intensity listened lyrical melodies music quite reckon records seems studied sustain
I've listened to a lot of music, and I reckon that my records are definitely better, more stimulating, and more carefully constructed than any others. I've studied the melodies and lyrical forms of many artists, but no-one else quite seems to sustain the burning intensity of my own work.
bothered middle next past step
I've never bothered much about the past, I'm always in the middle of the next step and so the past is really scattered.
attitude english-musician interested leave rather
I've always had a 'take it or leave it' attitude to fame; I'm much more interested in what I'm doing, rather than in anything like that.
bunch familiar huge mentally state turned
If humanity was still in the feral state, we wouldn't have any need for these huge conurbations that we have now, that have turned us into a different bunch all together. In the feral state we would be much more secure, much more familiar with each other, much more mentally well-balanced.