Interview: Harry Jay Robinson

Credit: Joel Johnston

Leeds-based musician Harry Jay Robinson is an artist that is impossible to define. The rapper, singer and producer released his first single at the start of 2019 and has since generated a buzz with his mesmerising lo-fi aesthetic. At the same time, he has balanced his time playing with Far Caspian, one of the most exciting indie groups around. We spoke to him about his new single, creating music, his upcoming EP and balancing melancholy with humour.

The new single ‘Shelter’ dropped a couple of weeks ago, talk about the inspiration behind that?

The new one is one of those lonely, winter night kind of songs. As soon as the clocks went back and things go really miserable, I was just sat in my room really late at night, just in those lonely evening moods and I just wanted to make a soundtrack to that feeling. It’s almost a sleepy daydream about being more connected and closer to someone.

You are also on the keys for Far Caspian, how would you say your sound and approach differs from your work with them?

I’m really good friends with Joel (lead singer) and the rest of the band, he writes the songs and I kind of turn up and do what I’m told. But just being in such close proximity to them, I hear and see all the Far Caspian stuff being written. Me and Joel just feed back with each other and just chat about processes and stuff. But it is a completely different genre, I’ve always done way more like hip-hop stuff as opposed to Far Caspian who do more singer-songwriter stuff, we come at it from a completely different angle. Although there is some overlap on the kind of lo-fi aesthetic and dreamy production style.

And what would you say the challenges are as a solo artist in comparison with working with a group?

Doing everything yourself can come with that existential creative fear, when all the ideas are your own it’s easy to get inside your own head and question yourself. When you spend ages listening back to a song you’ve made it’s easy to get caught up in it, but it can be really freeing. What I’ve done in the past, was not necessarily co-writing but taking other bits from other people. Like the first single that dropped this year ‘You Are Not Charles Bukowski’, came from a sample of Joel from Far Caspian just playing the guitar and I used that as a springboard, so it’s collaborative in that way.  

You have a new EP dropping soon, can you tell us some more about the kind of themes you explore on that?

It’s been a good two years in the making, having the freedom to do what I wanted, but knowing that what I wanted to do was to make something that fit tightly in its own pocket. I have a couple more songs to drop before the EP, but basically, it’s a concept EP, thematically it’s about winter, vulnerability and loneliness. ‘Shelter’ is half-way through the EP, and everything that is built around it kind of walks through similar themes.

Given that both Far Caspian and yourself seem to merge and transcend different genres, could you talk a bit about the influences on this EP?

When I first started writing the EP, I was listening to a lot of ‘jazz rap’, y’know Loyle Carner, people like that. I’ve also been listening to a lot of lo-fi indie music, which has influenced how I mix guitars and how I stack up vocals. Also, I just listen to all that 24-hour lo-fi radio kind of stuff, which definitely has had a big influence on production, which has had an influence on samples I make. I tend to avoid using music samples, but I’ll kind of make my own samples manually then use them. A lot of the process in making this EP are the sort of samples you’d hear in that lo-fi hip-hop, I’m just creating and using them.

Your debut solo single ‘You Are Not Charles Bukowski’ was intensely personal, was it important from the outset to bring people up to speed with you as a person?

Pretty much. There is a context to the music I’ve released this year, because I had released music years before this project under the name Heretic – and I was more of a straight forward rapper. I just had one of those moments where I felt like that previous project wasn’t working. Now I have a specific genre that I’m trying to create, back then I was just doing any and every type of rap music and just throwing it all together. Then I decided I wanted to leave that behind and do things under my own name. I felt like the best way I could do that was by creating a sound for myself, and for the things I’m talking about to be really personal and about myself. Now I just write and don’t really think about how it’ll play for an audience, because often writing can just be therapeutic. This felt right stepping out with my own name and trying to actually be myself.

There is a real confidence in everything you’ve released so far, was it important for you to only start releasing solo material when the time was right?

Yeah I wrote my first song when I was 14 and I’m 23 now, so I had all of those years of making badly put together music, y’know stuff that wasn’t good but had a glimmer of a good idea. Now I’m at the point where I feel confident enough to properly put my name to it.

Credit: George Yonge

Almost all of your music is self-produced, was this because you wanted to establish yourself before working with other producers?

All of my music is done in my bedroom, with the exception of bits of help from Joel (Far Caspian), but apart from that everything is done at my desk in my bedroom. I record it all, mix it all, master it all. It’s going to have to be just me for now, because obviously I’m a new artist and I don’t have an expensive studio or anything, but because what I’m making is so personal, I feel so much more comfortable making it just being alone in my room. It would feel very odd to make this music in a room with a lot of other people. I’ve never worked on projects with other people except in other people’s bedrooms or whatever.

Obviously, you sing, you rap, you produce – is it important for you to balance those three? Or can you see yourself leaning more heavily into one aspect later in future for example?

It’s interesting, because I’ve considered making projects that are either purely rap or singing. I mean ‘Walls’, which I released earlier this year was basically all singing apart from 8 bars at the end. I don’t know whether I’ll lean specifically into one of them, but it’s definitely about finding a balance. There is a way where I can figure out using them all in conjunction with each other. Maybe one day in the future I’ll do a straight-forward R&B singing project, but for the time being I feel like I’d be losing something by only focusing on one thing. You can convey different emotions with each, it’s like having different paint brushes.

Both in a couple of your song titles and in your lyrics, there is a sort of dark sense of humour in there, is it important for you to balance the melancholy with some lightness?

I think that’s just more my personality. Everyone is going through it one way or another, we all have these things and issues that make us miserable, but the way I often communicate about it is by being self-deprecating and taking the edge off that way. That Bukowski title, was actually taken from the TV show ‘Inside No. 9’, one of the episodes is about an English teacher who wants to be a writer that quits his job and then a homeless guy moves in with him, and he sees himself as Charles Bukowski. Having an experience myself with addiction and that kind of thing, it’s very easy to buy into the idea of the ‘tortured artist’ but then having that reality check of, sort yourself out mate, that’s not what life is about.

Do you have plans for shows or a tour in the UK on the back of the new EP?

I’ve wanted to for ages, but it’s a case of balancing itself with everything else. I started playing with Far Caspian at the start of last year, before they really started to take off but since then we’ve been on two tours and been around Europe. I’ll have to find a balance between that and solo shows, which hopefully I will do but I’ve not got anything set in stone. I’ll have to see what happens with the EP release and where Far Caspian are at.

Obviously the new single and EP are the big things for you right now, do you a plan for the future?

I think it’s difficult for someone in my position, like I’m doing this all myself so everything is so contingent on other things. Like, I dropped this song today, and that will give an indication of how well the next song does and then how the EP will do. It’ll depend on who listens to it and who responds to it. Then I have to think about every Far Caspian song that comes out that could have an effect on where that project is going next and how busy I’m going to be. I set myself targets in terms of what I create, but in terms of career goals, it is impossible and I’m really happy just riding the wave for the moment.

Listen to Harry Jay Robinson on Spotify / Apple Music / Soundcloud.

Listen to Far Caspian on Spotify / Apple Music / Soundcloud.

Photo Credit: Thumbnail/Homepage (Barnaby Fairley)