Name: Jason Harris aka Public Speaking
Nationality: American
Occupation: Sound artist, songwriter, vocalist
Current release: Public Speaking's “Swollen Feet” is out via Whited  Sepulchre. It is the first single off forthcoming full-length album An Apple Lodged in My Back, slated for release September 15th 2023.
Recommendations: The Sunbather by saxophonist Johnny Butler is a remarkable collection of some of his latest pieces for dance. You can hear his playing all over my albums, and I implore you to seek out his solo work.
The book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari is one of the most impactful books I have ever read. I recently read it a second time.

If you enjoyed this Public Speaking interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official tumblr. He is also on Instagram, and Facebook.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I react similarly. That is one of the reasons I am drawn to abstract art: I find non-representational art to be very musical.

At my most focused, I am listening with my eyes closed.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist?

I taught myself guitar and keyboard at the same time with the help of a couple chord books. This gave me the ability to write songs for several years until I came to a plateau and sought out help through private lessons for theory and ear training. I also took some powerful vocal lessons for the first time a couple years ago. Now I am learning notation.

One can certainly learn to be an artist, but one must have a kind of unquenchable thirst to motivate herself to keep going. I'm not sure where that comes from. It must be different for different people.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

I discovered electronic music in my early teens, and that is the music I eventually embraced for my career. The otherworldliness of electronic sounds certainly drew me in.

I was raised in a dead-end rural town in Florida, and all I wanted was to escape. Now I see electronic music differently, as a path to go inward and investigate and heal the self - a different sort of escape, but hopefully one that allows us to be more open and compassionate with others.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

Compositionally, I love repetition, syncopation, evocative texture, and surprise. But there must be a point of view, the voice and experience of a character to hold on to and identify with - even if they aren't exactly sympathetic.

The motivation to create is something that is still mysterious to me. I do it because there is nothing else that compares to the gratitude of making something outside oneself that is ethereal and however intentional, is itself a kind of mystery.

To quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

I do not believe there is some mystical source for ideas, but I do know that we are products of history, of tradition. We do not create in a vacuum. All that we do is an embrace of or a reaction to what has come before us.

Our role is to find new combinations of sounds that express our particular place in history. Even if they are looking forwards into the future, they originate here and now. Their vantage is inextricable.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

The goal is to achieve that overall sound, but when you are building the thing, when you are in the weeds of it, that can be extremely difficult to do.

I find that I can only hear my songs as whole several years later. I'm too tied to the details when I'm writing and recording it to gain a real perspective. But you have to try.

The sound I'm trying to get at is something singular, disarming, and emotive. I want the listener to feel that they have never heard a song that sounds like this before, and yet I want it to exist in a tradition of avant garde and art-rock singer-songwriters that have inspired me. I want to acknowledge that history.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

All sounds are potentially musical. It simply takes a listener to perceive them as such, or better: to record and organize them into something intentional.

I've used the sounds of grizzly bears eating, ice breaking on a frozen lakeshore, fireworks exploding, trees falling, whales singing, horses running, and more. They were all musical sounds, but they become more human when we recontextualize them in song.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

I tend to be drawn to low sounds. I like deep kick drums, bass guitar or bass synth, tenor saxophone, and low male voices.

To me, there is a warmth to these lower frequencies, the feeling of being enveloped, being held.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

My recent single "Right Angle Wrong Shape." This is one of the songs on my new album An Apple Lodged in My Back that is terribly vulnerable. I'm talking about body dysmorphia and my complicated relationship with my teenage stepfather when I was very young.



The beginning of the song felt so heavy and cumbersome that I had to find a way to introduce some lightness and almost joy in the second half. The song transforms completely from a slow and stark voice, synth pad, and bass pulse to an upbeat horn-laden, piano and multi-tracked guitar celebration. But the lighter my music gets, the more I can express darker lyrics, so the refrain is "the fat boy with the rat-tail who lives in a trailer."

I'm proud to have pulled off this balancing act. It felt cathartic to finally write this song.

Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

My processes are not scientific at all. I am simply looking for sounds that excite me, and then I try to reshape them in my DAW into something useful.

It is very subjective trial and error. Thank goodness for the "undo" function.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

My music is much more exciting, experimental, and challenging than my life is. However, it is also highly organized. My daily life is rigorously planned and routine. I find safety and stability in that. It helps battle against my self-destructive, depressive, anxious tendencies.

You could say that my music helps me take those deep feelings and place them into a space that is controlled and acceptable. There is rhythm, melody, harmony, and story to contain those barbed memories and dangerous impulses.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Basically, there is more nuance and agency, allowing the musician to express human emotions and experiences that are not tied to the medium. The power of food will always be tied to experiences with food, whereas music can take us anywhere, many of which are non-musical spaces.

But I could not begin to express what I am able to do in music through architecture, sports, dance, or even painting and sculpture. I feel that music is uniquely equipped to help us connect to one another in its intangible, complicated non-presence.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

The first thing that comes to mind is "Odi et Amo" by Jóhann Jóhannsson. The Latin words are sung by a computer program, and yet the accompanying strings and overall arrangement fills me with compassion and longing.



It is a triumphant exercise in simplicity, aided by technology.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

Music always takes its own path. New listeners and musicians will draw from the past in the ways that they see fit for their time. New combinations of styles and instruments will develop. New channels of distribution and platforms will come and go. But there will always be new music. I am comforted by the fact that making music is this inevitable human activity.

I could say that I wish music would take this or that path, or that listeners would not forget this or that music, but it is pointless. People will find the sounds and artists that they feel help them express what they otherwise could not.

That said, more accessible music education for young people is something to strive for.