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It’s been two days since Kiss brought Download 2015 to a close and similarly, We Are Harlot made their UK debut that same afternoon on that same hallowed ground. Now, We Are Harlot are making their Glasgow debut at The Cathouse as I re-assimilate myself into the real world. After catching up with our photographer, Carly and watching the queue feed into the venue, We Are Harlot’s tour manager, Chris leads me into the dressing room and I’m introduced to a man relaxing on a couch. It’s We Are Harlot’s guitarist, Jeff George. He grabs me in a massive bear hug before noticing my “sweet” Guns N’ Roses t-shirt. We then sit down and discuss the past, present and future of his new band.
Our thanks to Michelle at Cosa Nostra and tour manager, Chris Carter for giving us time to chat with Jeff.
Firstly, let me welcome you to Glasgow. How’s the tour been going so far?
It’s been awesome, man. When you’re out playing music with your best friends; the music that you love, it doesn’t get any better than that. It’s been tiring; we’ve been out for about four and a half months straight and never coming home. Our families and friends and everybody back home are missing us and we’re missing them. Rock and roll doesn’t take days off so we gotta go but the shows have been awesome, especially in Europe and the UK. The fans are rabid and just so awesome! We started in June in Milan and here we are, today, in beautiful Glasgow.
You played the Golden Gods in London last night. What was that like?
It was killer; we won! We won “Best New Band” so that was a nice vindication of all the hard work we had put in. It was four years getting that record out and a lot of fighting through the music business to make it happen. So it was great for us just to know, voted on by the fans, that we won. It was really, really amazing and just to see so many great people there. Gene Simmons was there and Brian May from Queen. When you get to rub shoulders with legends like that; you’re pretty lucky!
Download was your UK debut and there’s another show in London tomorrow night. Will there be a more extensive tour to follow?
Of course, absolutely! This was the first run. As I said we were in the US for about three months then we came over here for a month so we couldn’t really do much longer as we had to go right back to the US again. But we can’t wait to be back, we’ll definitely be doing a full UK and Europe tour coming up soon. There’s amazing fans here, amazing fans of rock and roll so of course we will.
What’s been the reaction to the album?
It’s been incredible! When it first came out the response, just from the critics alone, was unbelievable. When you see Kerrang magazine give us 5 K and Metal Hammer gave us 5 out of 5. ARTISTdirect gave us 10 out of 10, so when you get those sorts of things, it makes you feel great. But the reaction from the fans too, just being like “This is my favourite album ever!” is amazing. For us, our favourite albums of all-time are Kiss and Van Halen and Pantera. So to hear someone else say that about your music is really unbelievable, it’s overwhelming.
The album clocks in at just under forty minutes, can we expect some others songs like a cover or two?
We’re going to throw in a twist for you tonight. Those are the songs we have out, so far. Sometimes we have to throw in one or two fun ones to have some fun with everybody. The shows are a lot of fun, I think you’ll see tonight. We have just as much fun going up there and playing as people who come to our shows do. We’re one with the audience. We’re going to stretch it out a little bit and have some fun tonight for sure.
You played with Sebastian Bach for a time. That must have been something special.
Yeah, I traded in one wild singer for another! Sebastian’s awesome and to play those songs with the guy who wrote and sang them; it’s an honour, it’s great. Even though I had a great time doing that, I always, when I was out touring, missed Harlot. And I always wanted Harlot to be it because that was my band, our band together. It was our songs and my music so when it finally got to the point where Harlot was going to be able to come out and play, that was when I had to tell Sebastian I was going to move on. I had a great time doing it. He’s a wild guy and a true lover of rock and roll.
As a guitarist, who are your influences?
Absolutely Ace Frehley [points to a tattoo on his arm of Kiss’ original Spaceman], he’s the reason I started playing guitar. Angus and Malcolm Young. Randy Rhoads, Dimebag Darrell, Van Halen; guys like that. Then, of course, people like Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, too. Usually all the blues based rock guys were the guys I fell head over heels for.
You all seem to come from different backgrounds, how did the band get together?
Danny [Worsnop, vocalist] had known Bruno [Agra, drummer] in LA. They met and then in 2010/11 New Year’s, I went to a New Year’s Eve party and me and Danny both had the same lawyer and he introduced us. We started throwing back the pints and once you hit the 200 drink mark, you start crazy talk like “We should start a band! We should write some music!” and of course, 99% of the time you wake up and you’re like “I’m not gonna call that guy!” For some reason we did and two days later we all moved in together and started the band. Me, Bruno and Danny would write these songs and seven of them on this record are from that first couple of months together. We got Brian in from Philly and that was how it all came together; organically. We knew right away we had something special.
Now we’re at the mid-point of the year, what does the rest of 2015 hold in store for We Are Harlot?
There’s going to be a lot of doing what we’ve been doing up until this point which is bringing the Harlot sound, the rock and roll to the masses all around the world. Showing everywhere we can go to play our music that will have us! Even on this UK and Europe run, we’ve met so many new people and so many new fans! I just met you and now we’re like family, dude! So we’re going to keep touring and keep playing. We just released a new single, “Someday”, which came out yesterday, [Monday 15th June]. As long as the fans and people will have us, we’re going to keep going. We’re going to tour, tour, tour and hopefully keep the ride alive.
[…] Sadly, I missed the opening band, September Mourning but having watched one of their videos on YouTube, I know they wouldn’t have held my interest. A good fit for supporting We Are Harlot but not my thing. Instead, I was interviewing Jeff George. […]