Harley Carmen, talented songwriter and performer, has released his second album, This Old Highway. The 12 original songs by Harley probe complex emotions people have as they go through life.
Harley Carmen grew up in the British Columbia’s Kootenays surrounded by music. He recalls how his mother would suddenly walk over to the piano and start playing what she called “mountain music”—songs like Irene, Goodnight and Will the Circle Be Unbroken. His father would play along on the harmonica, and his sister would sing. It was a big event for Harley when his older brothers came home for visits, because they played guitar and sang music by the likes of Merle Haggard, Elvis, and Buddy Holly. From age five, when he made “drumsticks” from broken-down furniture and vinyl-topped kitchen chairs “drums”, he played along with the songs of Johnny Cash and Charley Pride. His twelfth Christmas morning marked the extraordinary arrival of a real set of drums. “It was an act of pure self-defense by my parents,” he grins.
Harley’s older brother introduced him to CCR, Waylon and Willie, John Prine and Kris Kristofferson. He was so taken with the latter’s Silver Tongued Devil that he gave the record to his mother for a Christmas present. He’s still not sure who was more surprised when they opened their presents and realized they’d given each other exactly the same record! Later on, in high school, Harley got into The Who and the Rolling Stones, but still fed the country aspect of his soul with artists like The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Bim (Roy Forbes) and the Eagles.
Family has been a strong influence on his music from the beginning. He smiles and allows it was “pretty cool” being the youngest, and his first song, Little Brother sums up the early times. Later, moved by his parents’ deaths, he composed Phone Call to Heaven, My Father’s Birthday and Owed to Fanny and Al.
In his early 20’s, he joined his first “real” band, covering the Top 40. He remembers their first gig and the first song they played, Sweet Home Alabama. “There were only about 15 people in the place, but they didn’t leave, and at the end of the night, when I actually got paid, I felt like a friggin’ rock star,” he chuckles. More gigs came, and one band evolved into another. In 1987, Harley both discovered Steve Earle, whose music would become a ruling passion in his life, and made the move to Vancouver, to play “some pretty hard rock” with a number of bands for the next 12 years. They were writing their own music, now, so getting it “out there” often meant playing five nights a week. Vancouver is also where Harley found Kim, his lifetime love and muse.
Even as a drummer playing hard rock in the big city, Harley had been trading the bright lights for starlight, escaping on weekend camping and fishing trips to the country. Harley and Kim bought acreage in the Thompson Nicola, started their own businesses and built a home on Pinerock Ridge. He also returned to his musical origins. He drummed with a succession of local country/rock groups, and then turned to the guitar. “That turned out to be a seminal point in my life,” he says. “I’d always written poetry, but I was never able to complete anything. The guitar let me take a thought and finish it.”
Some of those finished thoughts are on Harley’s album Love & Loss and his new release This Old Highway. He captures the spirit of community in Country Music Capital (aka Merritt Song), airs and affectations in Not a Real Cowboy, remembering roots in songs like The Road Where I Come From and Faces From The Past, recognizing the twists and turns of everyday life in Some Things Get Better and This Old Highway.
A final word from Harley: “I’ve always thought that a big part of a song’s strength comes from its lyrics and I truly hope that my songs somehow convey that sentiment. And I would like to thank all those who have ever inspired, supported or acknowledged me. Special thanks to Ben Karlstrom for his insight, talent and friendship… he’s a monster.”