BEN HARPER TAKES BOTH SIDES OF GUN

(VIDEO) Find out here why Ben Harper straddles Both Sides Of A Gun for his new effort!

Ben Harper is set to release a double album of all-new original material titled both sides of a gun. The album, which is due to hit the streets March 21 demonstrates Harper’s range as a songwriter. One side is a politically charged electric album and the other side is a more intimate acoustic album.

With each side being thirty minutes, Ben talked about his decision to separate them rather than make one album.

“You know, I just felt that the harder/faster songs were seeming to take away from the more intimate songs and the other way around and for me I tried to sequence one album and I just kept coming back on me. It just wasn’t going anywhere that I was confident and comfortable with. So when I broke it up into two records, obviously that’s how the songs wanted to go. That’s how the record would play the best. Each side is about thirty plus minutes, so I could fit it all on one disc, but for me that’s not the point. It’s not going together at this point and the only way I found that it could go together is to do two thirty plus minute records instead of one, sixty plus.”

With politically soaked lyrics off the song “Black Rain” like “you don’t fight for us but expect us to die for you” Harper admitted the song was influenced by the injustices happening in New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast region following hurricane Katrina.

“Well, we’re sitting here while we’re making this record watching that go down, and it’s like ‘f–k that,’ f–k that!’ This is music justice, this is my justice. I got to make a statement. I got to make it now, put it out now. I felt like the strings added a classical element, but it’s…there’s like an old school funk string connection which I love. I wanted to get a piece of that and I just wrote it sitting in front of the TV.”

With acoustic songs like “Morning Yearning” and “Picture In A Frame” which show Harper’s ability to write love songs songs, and electric songs like “Better Way” and “Black Rain,” fans will be treated to a wide range of songs and styles they’ve come to expect from Ben.

Ben Harper and the Innocent Crminals will next hit the road on a world tour in support of Both Sides Of A Gun.