“I have some self-destructive potential”

Tim Look: Mrs Hart, with ‘Better Than Home’ you have now released another solo album: the fact that you have been on the road for so long and successfully with guitar great Joe Bonamassa does not seem to have had any effect on your current production.

Beth Hart: Oh, the album was a lot of work, it was a special challenge, partly because of the two producers I met at the Kennedy Center Honors and who I had never worked with before: their names are Michael Stevens – him is the director of the Kennedy Center – and Ron Mathes, the musical director of the Kennedy Center. So two more industry giants. They both said that of course they like the blues and rock ‘n’ roll stuff that I did. But they like it even more when I actually tell stories, with my voice and the piano in the foreground – outside of this typical band context. At first I didn’t want to get involved in it, I already knew what it would mean: that I would reveal quite a lot of myself, that I would have to leave out things that would otherwise give me security in order to be able to write in such a personal way. But the producers were very convinced of the idea – and me? I was simply afraid! But when I’m scared, it’s often best to just march forward and do it. In the end, a whole lot of music came out, a lot of songs that we went into the studio with, recorded for seven days and then had to find out which pieces fit together best as brothers and sisters.

Look: It sounds like you had a hard time writing the songs, was that so?

Hard: Songwriting is actually always the most difficult work. But also the most rewarding, because it is when I write that I feel the most spirituality and God’s protection – and I love that feeling, I love it more than anything else. But that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be hard and painful, that’s part of being creative – oh: actually it’s part of life, no matter what you do.

Look: So this time you told stories, very personal stories – although recently you were labeled as a blues singer. Not that they don’t tell stories, but just different, embedded in different song structures.

Hard: Well, I’m just a singer and songwriter – regardless of any genre. Sometimes I do blues, rock or jazz, this time I’m just a storyteller.

Look: What are the stories on ‘Better Than Home?’

Hard: They’re about facing your fears and consciously dragging them into the light. Because once you deal with it, you realize how liberating it can be – at least that’s how it felt for me. Even though it takes a lot of courage, it’s worth it, or at least that’s how I would describe the experience of writing the songs for this album. But it is without question a very, very personal album. So personally that my sister was very angry with me, really freaked out because she thought I had judged my family too harshly, and would now take revenge on my family in the song lyrics and say: Everything is better than home. But I didn’t want that at all – of course they are very intimate songs about my mother and in the song “Tell her you belong to me” about my father, who left our family when we were little – which still hurts today – but as Once the piece was finished, I realized that I no longer felt angry or wanted to pass judgment on him. On the contrary: I was able to draw a lot of strength from it! Oh, you can already see how personal the lyrics are. And of course I had to express my love for my mother too.

“I was involved with drugs and alcohol for a long time”

Look: Now such strong emotions in texts are one thing, but being able to implement them in front of the microphone is another thing – how can you learn something like that?

Hard: I was lucky with my second teacher: my first singing teacher came from the opera and told me straight away: “Listen, child, I know that you really like this music, this way of singing, but you will never be able to make it there .” So I had to painfully realize that while I could be a fan of opera and classical music, I couldn’t sing them. My next teacher, on the other hand, was only concerned with the health and strength of my voice, but never with making me sound a certain way. He was a singer on Broadway himself, doing eight shows a week – so he had to learn to sing in a healthy way himself. As you may know, I have some self-destructive potential in my personality, not just when it comes to my voice. When I get emotional, it comes back and I forget all the safety measures, but I’ve just trained myself to maintain some control so that my voice will continue to function for a long time. When you listen to the young Amy Winehouse in her early 20s, how she puts so much emotion into her voice and the way she phrases, then I think: genius! She must have listened to a lot of jazz to be able to sing like that at such a young age. And: as we all now unfortunately know, she too had this self-destructive streak. Janis Joplin could sing like that from a very early age, as could Billie Holiday or Etta James. But these are true geniuses, the rest have to work hard for it all!

Look: I’ve read about her, as you call it, self-destructive potential, would you like to talk about that?

Hard Oh, I was involved with drugs and alcohol for a long time, started when I was 11 or 12, stopped, started again, didn’t get away from it for many, many years until I was in my late 20s. But then it became really critical and I knew that I had to stop because otherwise I would have died. But I wanted to live, that’s mainly because of my husband Scott – but also because I was briefly in prison. Only one night, but long enough to scare me to no end. That made me fight, fight for my life, but of course it was a long, hard fight because I was on drugs most of my life, so I had to slowly learn how to live without drugs. My husband, my doctor, the therapies and the “Twelve Step Program” helped me. But this fight still goes on. Almost daily. Sometimes I find myself drinking again, which is of course dangerous. That’s where my bipolar disorder comes into play, which controls the manic, destructive things in me. But I have good medication that suppresses the manic. Only: I don’t want to keep taking all these medications because they make me fat. So, like every woman, I still have the problem of vanity, and I avoid this vanity in church and when I pray. And this connection with God makes me take the medicine, it makes me forget about vanity and appreciate being healthy. Then I’ll get back to it quickly. However, I usually write my songs when the mania is back, when I feel like having a drink, or when I’m very depressed. I just have to deal with it somehow, even if it’s a double-edged sword. But the most important thing I’ve learned over the years is not to judge myself. Not my relationship with God or whatever. People with psychological and mental illnesses are very judgmental, they judge themselves and everything else anyway. And then that drags it down even further. I’m not completely out of it yet, never will be, but I’m aware of the issues and can continue to work on them. And that’s why it’s nice when people judge me based on my work and not my personality. In such moments I am free and at peace.

Look: Wow, thank you so much for these clear words!

Hard: Well, I don’t think you find more mentally ill people or addicts in the music business than in other areas, anything is possible there too, but lawyers and doctors are just not in the spotlight or they aren’t interviewed. You just don’t get it that way.