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BRYAN HARVEY
guitar
Plays Guitar Left Handed with default stringing.
In band(s) : HOUSE OF FREAKS, GUTTERBALL
Bryan Harvey’s main musical contribution was his work as the singing, guitar-wielding half of House of Freaks, a two-man band that challenged many contrivances and routines in the rock scene of the late 1980s. Though House of Freaks’ success did not reach beyond its college radio and cosmopolitan following, the duo played a part in rekindling a taste, with certain artists and labels, for duets and dry recording methods, stripped of artificial embellishments.
In an electric-rock format the two-man act was perceived as a novelty. The formation would inspire a number of similar two-person undertakings (most recently the highly successful White Stripes), although few have matched HOF’s potent blend of songwriting, musicianship, and rhythmic complexity. Harvey’s incisive ease with melody and the duo’s trademark “trashed wall of sound” make their songs as current today as they were then.
Bryan Harvey was always loath to modify his musical vision for the sake of commercial conformity, although reluctant associations with the requisite industry wheels marked a couple of HOF albums. Along with HOF partner Johnny Hott, and later in the rock group Gutterball, Harvey tried to stay true to an unadulterated creative thrust, delivered live or captured on tape with as little interference in the process as possible. ‘Lowgrading’ the sound was an acceptable ploy in the pursuit of a genuine-feeling experience.
Read Bryan's very candid reflections on the industry and music-making in the book UNCOMMON SOUND. BUY IT NOW.
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