Ed Harcourt

On the road again

‘”On the road, there’s always hightail porn and as much drugs as you can ingest,” began Ed Harcourt. “I’m only kidding – about the drugs.”

Everyone has a vice. Besides the porn, Harcourt’s true addiction is his music. Throughout his relatively short career, he has stacked up an impressive catalogue of songs which, at last count, registered at over 300.

“You live such a regular life as a musician that, in the daytime, you don’t really know what you do,” said Harcourt. “So, you write songs. It’s my favorite thing to do. It’s my drive.”

He claims that the process of songwriting is more than a job. It’s just how he lives his life. All things considered, that’s not a bad way to spend your free time.

He writes songs, releases them, garners fame, and tours to support his efforts. That’s the way it’s supposed to work in theory and the way it works in practice for Harcourt. It’s a combination of talent and public appeal that gets the job done. That doesn’t mean his two years of virtually non-stop performances is something to which he’s accustomed.

“Touring is always going to be weird and it’s something I don’t ever want to get used to,” said Harcourt. “I don’t want to be a traveling man.”

He admits that he’ll probably die touring. That ominous prospect is not something most people want but it does have its perks. This Sunday, Harcourt will open up for the seminal rock band R.E.M. on their second consecutive date at Red Rock.

“I am pretty much shitting myself about meeting R.E.M. I’m a massive fan of ‘Automatic for the People’ and all of their earlier stuff,” he said. “It’s going to be great to play with them.”

The future wasn’t always so star-studded for Harcourt. Before his music career took off, he worked as a cook in a French restaurant back in his hometown of East Sussex. He worked some shifts that lasted from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. in the grueling kitchen heat. In addition to cooking and preparing both appetizers and desserts, he did the grunt work. This is a fate he’s glad to no longer be a part of, although it is in his blood.

“My great aunt was Elizabeth David,” he said. So, I name-dropped at a few restaurants and ended up with a cooking job. Just don’t ask if cooking a meal is the same as writing a song. I’ll go insane.”

Who would ask such a question?

Harcourt’s great aunt, Elizabeth David, was a famed Sussex author. She wrote two well-received cookbooks, “Summer Cooking” and “A Book of Mediterranean Food.”

His music career began with Snug, a short-lived pop-punk outfit.

“That was ages ago. Snug was a band I did when I was in school. We self-released two albums. Some of it sounded like soft Buzzcocks stuff, some like Weezer, some like the Cars. It was all over the place.”

From there, he took is prolific songwriting in new directions as he set out on his own. Harcourt soon began work on his full-length debut “Here Be Monsters.” This intoxicating freshman effort won him international notoriety, and MTV and VH1 even picked up on the buzz.

Earlier this year, “From Every Sphere” was released to similar acclaim. Harcourt admits that this record was “too much of a grower,” though that second records are hit-or-miss if they depart from what fans are accustomed to. As he stated, “It’s just a second album.”

“With the next album, we’ll probably take it back to the basics. I want to make it more intense in direct to slap people in the faces. They’ll never get tired of being slapped in the face. It’ll be a sadomasochistic album, where I’m the sadist.”