BOTH SIDES OF THE GUN SHOWS BEN HARPERS MULTI FACETED MUSICAL TALENTS

Los Angeles’s own Ben Harper has had quite a successful career. The Grammy Award winning artist and multi faceted musician has released his latest album titled, ‘Both Sides of the Gun.’ The album, hit the streets March 21st, was divided into two separate albums, one being an electric album and the other a more intimate acoustic album. In fact, many of the songs on ‘Both Sides of the Gun’ feature Ben playing most of the instruments. In fact, on his latest single ‘Better Way’ Ben plays the Weissenborn guitar, bass, drums, keys, percussion and sings. Although you can find the Innocent Criminals on his new album, Harper admitted playing most of the instruments was a concept he wanted to do for a long time.

Ben Harper went on to say that making the double album just felt right, even though some people in his circle and at his record label, initially gave him flack.

“You know it’s something that i’ve wanted to do for a long time. I did it on one song on my last album, ‘Diamonds on the Inside’ I played the last song ‘She’s Only Happy in the Sun’ I played most of the instruments on that except the Keyboards, Greg Kirsten played those. But I said, you know what. I’d like to make a record that feels like this, regardless of style of the song. I’d like to make a record that feels like this, a rough loose feel. So I just dug in track at a time and it grew from there to the record. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do the whole thing myself or most of it myself. I figured I try it track for track and it just took off.”

Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminal’s 2006 summer dates have started to trickle out. Already with a stop at Jack Johnson’s Kokua Festival in April, and a brief tour of Japan for June, Harper has recently announced plans of touring Australia in May. Look for Ben Harper to continue with his world tour throughout 2006 in support of ‘Both Sides of the Gun.’

“Oh I have, and realistically I’ve gotten flack from even people in my own circle about putting out a double record just because it’s just not done that often and when it’s done it’s probably not done well or over done and i don’t think that’s the case. I think, no I know in my heart it’s the best way to go. Like Steve said earlier, I go in a lot of extremely different directions musically.”