Nathan’s Harvest came off the road in from their tour cycle for their last album Red Hands Black Deeds and they were depleted both mentally and physically. Lead singer Nathan Hunt was also going through a severe case of writers block. It was time to hit the reset button and try and recharge. The guys decided to take some much needed “R & R” and they weren’t talking rock and roll. It was more in the lines of rest and relaxation to recharge their minds, bodies and souls. Well, Covid ended up giving them much more time off than anticipated. They decided to use it to their advantage. Instead of slapping together outlines before entering the studio, they treated their first takes with a new level of sensitivity, fleshing out the pieces until they knew them intimately. They finished up the album, named it Rebelator and then sat on it for two years. Well, that well crafted piece of sonic goodness is about to see the light of day on March 11 via Mascot Records. The guys sample so many paints on their musical pallette for this one and the result is something that will surprise you. The first three samplings that the band released from it were just a small dose in the musical uniqueness of this piece of art. We sat down with lead vocalist Nathan Hunt for another of our long runnung pre album release interviews that we have been doing for many years now. He gives us some insight into the making of the album, stories behind a few songs and even reminises about the first album that he ever bought. Can you guess what it was? No cheating; you have to read the entire interview to find out.
I always look forward to talking to you, about anything in general but especially about creating great new music. So many people think life out on the road, that it must be luxurious and glamorous and everything. They don’t realize how brutal it is on you guys. From what I’ve read, when you guys came off the road from this last tour cycle, you were just exhausted, physically and mentally. That really took a toll on you guys.
Nathan Hunt/Shaman’s Harvest: Yeah. I mean we were done, man. Shoot, I wanna say we were out, like eight months straight there on the last run. When the other bands are taking days off, which I would love to have done, we’re going off and doing headlining shows. So it was just, you know, a lot of shows there. I mean even if you’re going out for just a month, you still gotta get it in your head; I’m in road mode, and then I’m in home mode. You know what I mean? It really comes to a point where the performance starts to suffer because it just becomes about survival. Mental survival at that point, and you’re just trying to get through them. Nobody wants to go to a show like that and we don’t want to play a show like that. So yeah, we needed to take a little time off. And we got it! (laughs) A little too much!
You guys, sounds like you spun it to your advantage. You not only mentally and physically used it to bounce back, but creatively too based upon the results of this album.on this album. I’m really curious as to the approach for this album. Why did you decide to do it this way? A kind of break from your norm?
Well…(laughs) I’m trying to put my head where it was two years ago when we made the record! Mostly it was just an experiment. Every record to me, is kinda like a science experiment, almost. It basically is kind of a “see how creative process works” for that record. It doesn’t always work the same way. Hell, it doesn’t work between songs sometimes, from one song to another, on the same record. A lot of times I’ll just go into studio and I’ll have a half cocked idea, maybe a little melody I’m humming in my head. Next thing you know, we write a song, lay it down and it’s on the record. We just wanted to see what kind of record we could make, if we just took basically a year off the road, and just really try to write the shit out of these things.
Well, seems like you kind of tapped into something. There’s a lot of diversity on this album. Growing up, you were lucky if you got one single before your favorite band put an album out. Nowadays, you hear half the damn album before the album even comes out!
Yeah! (laughs)
You put three tracks out there and each one with its own unique sound. I’m reading some of the comments and quite a few people have commented, in a positive way, about how these sound so different.
You know, it’s probably a little more… Well, you know I’m always touting the fact that we try to keep it diverse on the record, but we have probably even more of a stretch than we normally do. It’s not necessarily by design. It was literally like; what are you feeling today? It’s like, I don’t want to eat the same breakfast every day. So, I want to mix it up a little bit. “Bird Dog” was one of those early writes, you know and it was just a real cinematic, dark kind of mode, and we just loved how this really dark vibe coming across from it. Then, we knocked it out with “Voices.” I mean, it’s just whatever we were feeling some days. Sometimes we would feel industrial like we’re going on this Nine Inch Nails kick. That’s just what it was and and that’s what we came up with. Probably the number one why it’s so different from song to song is, we never sat out, ahead of time, and thought, we need to make a song like this. That just creates creativity blocks. We were just like, what are you feeling today?
Creativity blocks. One of the lines in one of the releases I read, said something about writers block. How do you approach having writers block. I mean everybody’s probably got different ways, and maybe there’s not a specific way you approach it?
You have to be able to approach it and be willing to fix it differently. There ain’t a “cure-all.” There’s not just one fix for it. Some days you just go outside and get active, or go to the gym, or do physically work. Then, all of a sudden that damn breaks loose. Some days you need to go, me anyway, you need to go down a little bit of a dark, dark, depressive path, and pain makes beautiful art and all that stuff. And sometimes you just seem to be in a great mood. Hell, sometimes it’s taking a shower and all of a sudden the melody hits in the shower. It’s a weird affliction for artists. But, I would say the number one thing I could say about fixing writers block, is there ain’t no one thing that fixes writers block.
You mentioned “Bird Dog.” Boy, that is definitely dark and cinematic and ripped from today’s headlines. That stomping intro, to the mouth harp, and the kind of bluesy “by the swamp” type feel. Is that one of those that just kind of came together?
Yeah, that was one of those that came together, like just kind of playing themes in our head, you know. That song was written like, that internal movie projector is going on inside some peoples heads.This sounds crazy but I sometimes have these little movie scenes; something that I’m making up in my head. That was one of those types of songs. It’s also written from looking around all these small towns in Missouri, like these river towns, or these railroad towns where all down the street, it’s kind of dried up because now we ain’t got no railroad no more. The barges don’t make so many stops on the rivers anymore for these towns to have commerce and stuff. They dried up and they kinda do whatever they gotta do to make ends meet and keep food on the table. That’s kind of how the lyric content goes. It’s a weird song, it’s one of my favorites on the record.
It’s going to be in a movie, so somebody else liked it too. Not just one, but you have two songs, one from the last album, and one from this one being placed in a movie ( the upcoming feature film The Last Victim starring Ron Perlman and Ali Larter), so that’s that’s pretty good! Is that the first time that’s happened?
It’s not the first time, well it’s the first time we’ve had two in one movie, for sure. We’re pretty, like crazy excited about it. We think it might be in the trailer, so that’s cool too ‘cause that movie will come up when you’re watching something.
Theres a couple other ones I wanted to touch on.”Lilith” is one that I really like. What can you tell me about “Lilith”?
That was one of the songs where I just had a melody in my head and it just wouldn’t go away. I knew I wanted like this very alt- country guitar slide, but that was accompanied by an industrial electronic percussive thing. I like the melody and all, but I’m always looking for different ways to carry the melody, to help push the melody. One thing we hadn’t done yet, was mix industrial Nine Inch Nails type percussion with an alt-country slide and big rock chords.
It’s definitely an interesting track, and it’s one that I keep going back to. I’m going to be real curious to hear feedback and what some people think. And, dude… “Mama”, what a track right there. That arrangement and then the harmony that you guys have on that!
First off, the way that song came about is I went to go get coffee, I made a food run or coffee run, or something like that. I came back and we weren’t working on anything in particular at the time. I came back to Josh (Hamler) on the microphone, singing this melody, and I’m like “Dang, what’s that?” He said, “It’s just something I started working on since you left. I’m just laying down a melody for you to follow.” I was like “I really think you should probably just sing this.” Being in a different character, it gives a little more vulnerability too, you know. I think it’s the first time he’s ever done lead vocals on a record. So that was kind of fun for us with all the soundscapes going on. We were lucky enough to work at the studio that brings in these players from the St. Louis Symphony; that’s where all the strings came from. I really dig it too. It’s definitely a vibe for sure.
I’m a sucker when you get the strings mixed in like that!
Right! I could listen to the strings all day. Sometimes I just sit at home and I’ve got all those sessions, and I’ll mute everything but the strings.
Very cool, that’s another favorite. You’re definitely right. On one of those little behind the scene things you guys put up on your YouTubepage , you mention the powerful hook in “Voices.” Man, you really nailed that one!
We just wanna make a bunch of earworms, really!
Keith Armstrong was your producer on the last album. I haven’t seen anything yet about this one. Did you guys produce internally or use somebody?
No, we don’t, I mean other than our contribution in production that we usually make; the producer for this record is Kile Odell. He’s a shithead from North Carolina. We like him. He co-wrote on some stuff too, which is what we want in a producer. We want him to care so much that he’s like; hey how about we change this part here, to make it you know make this song little better. Or like, here’s a big hard part, but instead of using like a standard guitar part, you know, let’s do some weird shit to it to make it sound different, but the parts still the same. You just want somebody excited and he got fully behind it. He got fully invested, and he spent a couple months down with us going through the demo phase and then just all the back and forth. Kile Odell. He’s actually got a number one single right now, that he produced for Nita Strauss and David Draimen. So yeah, he’s having a good year.
So you guys head out starting in March, hopefully, knock on wood. Depending on how this Covid shit keeps playing out. I’ve had concert tickets cancelled and I’ve held on to some tickets for over two years now. For that one, we’re on a reschedule, of the reschedule, of the reschedule of the original date. It’s now supposed to happen in May, fingers crossed!
Yeah, yeah fingers crossed!
That’s nothing compared to what you guys have been going through.
I mean look, we took a year off to make the record, before the pandemic was a thing. We just expected to be releasing this record in 2020, the spring of 2020 that’s when its record was supposed to drop, initially.
Wow!
Yeah. There’s no predicting this stuff anymore. I mean, I’ve been told we’re gonna start March, but that’s the third time it’s been scheduled. We hope it happens. We’re gonna do our part. Everything we can do to remain Covid free while we’re on tour, so that the shows can happen. All it takes is one person, one person stopped at the truck stop, and they pick it up, and then next thing you know the whole tour is over. We will do our best. We’re going to be taking extra protocols. It sucks because my daughter is going to come to a show in Chattanooga with my wife, and they’re not gonna be able to come in and see me. I won’t be able to see them, they’re not even going to be able to come on the bus. It’s just the sacrifices that we have to make to be able to do the thing that we’re supposed to do.
That’s tough right there.
It’s wild. I guarantee you, when those things get cancelled and fans get pissed, I promise you we’re just as pissed, if not more so.
I bet so! I believe ya, brother I believe ya. So, when you guys are hitting the road, you’re hitting North Carolina here March 11th, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing that show. We’re gonna wrap this up with Three for the Road. This is just three kind of fun things that we wrap up with. You’ve seen, like in movies and stuff, when a character has their inner voice kind of just talking as the movie goes along. If you could have anybody for your inner voice, whether it’s an actor, any famous figures throughout history or cartoon character, what’s the first person that pops in your head.
I think it’s the same person who’s in Pulp Fiction, but he also does the Arby’s commercial that dude I just think he just got a badass voice.
Arby’s…..big, deep voice…James Earl Jones?
No, but ok we’ll take Jame Earl Jones too, either way. You know the guy in Pulp Fiction, they have him all tied up…bald dude.
Oh yeah, oh yeah. Ving Rhames!
That guy is the guy. Every time I walk around, that’s the guy. Either that or Samuel L. Jackson, in Black Snake Moan.
There ya go! That’s funny! What was the very first album that you ever bought with money that you saved up on your own? And, what was the last album you just bought.
The last record I bought would have been was The Rival Sons. They just released a re-mastered. They have their own record label now, or they own the rights to the Great Western Valkyrie record and they released that. It’s re-mastered and it’s brilliant. And I think, I wanna say the first record I ever bought with my own money, and I didn’t even know who they were, it was a band called The Fixx and the record was called Reach the Beach. I didn’t know who they were, I just had my own money and I had a cassette player boombox and that was it.
As my mom used to say, “money that was burning a hole in your pocket.”
That’s right. I think I was like 8 or 9.
That’s a cool cover though. I think it’s kind of a painting or something?
Yeah, I think. My second one was the Michael Jackson Thriller.
Doesn’t everybody own at least one copy of that? it seems like it. I may not listen to it anymore though. I prefer Off the Wall.
Me too! It’s that one, it’s Thriller, and everybody owns Peter Frampton Comes Alive! (laughs).
Hell yeah! (laughs) Alright and what was the last thing that you binge watched?
Oh god, there are so many! I’m trying to think of the last one I watched… The Witcher, probably that’s it…yeah I feel like it was The Witcher, or Ozark, the new season.
Oh yeah I haven’t I haven’t even started on Ozark. Everybody keeps telling me ‘you gotta watch Ozark, you’ll get hooked’
It’s a good one. Plus, it has all these shots of my old stomping grounds in high school. So it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I know that place’, ‘I’ll never go back to that place’, Oh god, I can’t go back to that place’! (laughs)
Alright big guy, I’m out of here. You guys be safe out there.
You too Johnny, great talking to you man!
Much love and respect to you and all the guys. We’re looking forward, just like you guys, to seeing this tour go off starting in March. Be safe and safe travels!
Interview by I’m Music Magazine Owner/Editor, Johnny Price
Photo Credit: Adrienne Beacco
