www.telegraph.co.uk

Dhani Harrison, interview: something in the way he plays

Dhani Harrison has a similar voice and guitar style to his famous father – but his 'baloney’ music is quite different, he tells Neil McCormick.

By Neil McCormick

20 Sep 2012

'If you are a family butcher, serving customers since 1870, no one goes, 'Oh, I’m not sure if their steak is as good as their dad’s’,” says Dhani Harrison. He is smiling broadly, amused by the notion of ordering a prime cut from Beatle & Son. “In almost any profession, even if you’re the kid of an actor, people are very supportive and want to see the next generation.

“It’s like, 'Go Michael Douglas! Have a great career!’ But in music, for some reason, people tend to be very sceptical. It’s funny, because music is one of those things it is natural to go into. You hear it so much growing up, it kind of permeates you and eventually you spew out some music of your own.”

Dhani Harrison, son of George and Olivia, has a band, thenewno2, who have just released their second album, thefearofmissingout – an internet-ready typographical approach adopted because, as Dhani explains (still smiling), “One day there is going to be no spelling, punctuation or capital letters in the world, it’s just going to be one big blurb.”

They don’t sound anything like Dhani’s famous father’s band, which is to their credit, though I like to think that if the Beatles existed now, musicians that creatively ambitious would be venturing boldly into this kind of sonic terrain, mixing organic and synthetic instruments, electronic and analogue sounds, meshing rock, hip hop, folk and dubstep into new forms that capture a 21st century sense of everything happening at once.

“I suppose it’s kind of electric experimental surf rock psychedelic space blues,” suggests Dhani, but once again, he is not being entirely serious.

“It’s stoney baloney music, quite a complex jigsaw puzzle, a strange octopus dance. The music I want to hear in my head sounds somewhere between Jimi Hendrix and Massive Attack. It’s not really like my dad, but there will always be similarities because we have the same vocal cords, and I learnt the guitar the way he taught me.”

Still youthful and fresh-faced at 33, Dhani looks a lot like his father in his prime. He’s got a lovely spirit, very relaxed and open. He sits in the interview with his close friend and bandmate Paul Hicks, son of Tony Hicks, of the Hollies. “We grew up in studios, running around like little toddlers surrounded by music,” says Paul, who spent years working as an engineer at Abbey Road, where he was involved in mixing and remastering various Beatle projects. “There’s a whole Sixties generation whose kids are making music now, but it would be hard not to. It seems obvious.”

While Paul pursued a music career from the outset, Dhani initially resisted. “I pretty much lived in the studio with my dad. I was on the Travelling Wilburys’ album when I was eight, but I kind of waited for a long time to choose my way because I have seen how utterly brutalised the other children have been in the press.”

The other children being, of course, singer-songwriters Julian and Sean Lennon, and more recently James McCartney (though Zak Starkey seems to have ducked criticism whilst establishing a career as a session drummer). “Julian’s first record was great but it was produced in a very similar style to his dad, and consequently everyone compares it. You’re never going to come out of that well. So I kept my head down.”

Dhani grew up mainly in Henley-on-Thames, earnt a degree in physics and industrial design, and was set to start work as an aerodynamicist for the McLaren Formula One team, when his father died in 2001. Dhani had been helping George on what turned out to be his final recordings, and went to LA to complete the Brainwashed album with the producer Jeff Lynne. This appears to have been a turning point in his life.

“I was very empty after my father passed away. It was an emotional time, as it would be for anyone, but to be in the studio every day was kind of cathartic and healing and it just seemed very natural to continue.” He toured as a guitarist with Eric Clapton, set up a label, Hot Records West and oversaw various George Harrison and Beatle projects (as inheritor of his father’s business estate), all the while slowly gathering a group of musicians around him.

Thenewno2 took their name from the cult Sixties TV show The Prisoner, and released their first album, You Are Here, in 2009. More of a collective than a formal band, they are based in Los Angeles, because, Dhani jokes, “it’s easier to find able-bodied musicians ready to join the gang in LA than down the pub in Henley”. As guitarist, programmer, vocalist and lyricist, Dhani is the focal point, but he is generous in praise of all the musicians and artists who work with him. Activity is based around his studio in west LA, close to Venice Beach where he lives with his wife, the former Icelandic model Solveig Karadottir. “I live by the beach, I ride my bike. If I have a pint I don’t have to drive home. It’s the only part of LA that’s kind of civilised.”

The concept for thefearofmissingout came whilst eating at a tapas restaurant. “The menu said, 'If you suffer from FOMO, please order the combination platter.’ I was like, FOMO, what is that? Fear Of Missing Out.

“As soon as you identify the complex, everyone understands it. Social networking is pure FOMO. Facebook is not really about where you are, it’s about where you aren’t, looking at other people saying 'I’m up a mountain’ or 'I’m on a boat’, posting pictures of their salad on instagram. LA is the capital of FOMO, it’s all about, 'Where is everybody else going tonight?’ So that became a starting point for the lyrics, a light-hearted but quite real look at what we are all experiencing: too much information.”

It is a strong, strange album that repays close listening. “It’s headphone music,” suggest Dhani. “We’re all studio rats, really.” With his label in place, and the band’s six-piece line-up now firmly established, he insists there is a lot more to come. “I’ve started slow but it’s experimental music, and what record company these days is going to let a band make seven albums in the hope that they might one day make a Dark Side of the Moon? So consequently you have to do it yourself, and take your time, and not expect everything to happen at once.”

He is well aware that being heir to George Harrison’s $200 million estate confers advantages: “If I was trying to make money at this, I’d have probably given up a long time ago.” The goal, he says, is “to have a good time being a musician. I like to learn as much as possible from my friends and people I work with, to push myself forward and master things and experiment. It’s not a competition. People make a big deal about my dad, and musically he is a big deal, but that’s their issue, not my issue. I’ve been OK with it my whole life because he was my dad, so I’m getting on with it.

“It’s great fun being in this band. We’ve got something in place now that allows us to release records, and tour, and have creative freedom and be sustainable, and in the modern music business that’s an achievement in itself.”