Speaker 1: Aro dot net, aar r oe dot net. Not just
one podcast, it is twenty different podcasts that embrace everything
that we are and beyond today. Wooh, that sounded official,
didn't it. You know, like something our parents would say.
All of those things, it just seems so odd and strange.
And you said that, dad, where did it come from? Well,
we dig up the history something our parents would say.
Only on ero dot net, r r oe dot net.
Enjoy the exploration. Hello, hi, Harper, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm even more lovely than I was before talking
to you, So now I'm talking to you and I'm
even lovelier.
Speaker 1: Well, listen to that heart of yours, and I can
tell that it's grown up here in the South, because,
oh my god, you might as well just say bless
your heart because I'll know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 3: Oh lordy, I say that sometimes, Harper.
Speaker 1: I got to tell you something. There are so many
different things that say to me that you are definitely
on your way, and one of them is your name.
Because as radio, what you don't get to see us
do is how many times we practice saying your name
because we want to make sure that it comes out
so smooth. And so like part of a conversation. So
I've said your name eighty thousand times, I bet because
Harper Grace is such a flow. Did you know that
when you first started out there is a flow of
positive energy in that name.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm just grateful. Mama did good. I guess.
Speaker 2: I have two middle names and my last name. Love
my dad so much. I actually got it tattooed on
my arm because I love my last name. But when
I was younger and I started singing a little bit
at coffee shops and stuff, I said, Dad, I love you,
but I don't think that's going to roll off the
tongue nicely. My last name is actually Gruisins, and so
when people would introduce me Harper.
Speaker 3: Cruisins, I was like, well, that doesn't you know? That's
not gonna do it. So I took one of my
middle names. My full name is.
Speaker 2: Harper Kaylee Grace Cruises, and so we couldn't buy Harper Grace.
Speaker 1: Bo that's a good podcast or a radio name. Holy cow,
there's a vibe about that.
Speaker 2: I actually don't tell people. I don't tell many people that.
So now you got a little insight there.
Speaker 1: Wow, Well it kind of reminds me of the days
with my mother when I changed my real name to
a radio name, and you know, she didn't ever, ever,
ever accept that because she felt I should be called
Clarence on the radio and I'm just not going on
here as Clarence.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's kind of a really cool name. I've
never heard that.
Speaker 1: So when you do a song called if Daddy Says No,
do you know how many men and women of every
generation are going to be taken back to an area
where their father said no and he meant it. He
meant it. And that's what I love about this song
is that you have that empowerment to get us into
going into whatever direction we are in that present moment.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much. Yeah, this song is very personal.
Speaker 2: But the reason why I felt like I was able
to kind of bring it out to the limelight and
also get down to the nitty gritty of why I
wrote it and how I wrote it was because I
started playing it live and the stories I would hear
from people's personal lives of how it affected them and
how everybody's story was so different. But the positive aspect
of people actually connecting with the song, they actually fans
in general made me more confident in being able to
take this song and actually release it and turn it
into what it is today. So I'm super grateful, and
like you said, I'm just glad that it resonates and
connects with people, because that's all you want as a
songwriter and as an artist, is that it doesn't just
belong to you. When you put this song out, you
share it with the world. You share it with everybody else,
and it's just as much as the listeners as it
is my song.
Speaker 1: Hey, Please you Not Move. There's more with Harper Gray
right around the corner. The name of the new song
from Harper Gray is if Daddy said, no, ooh, let's
find out more. Would you be offended if I told
you I turned to my wife after listening to this
song about ten times and I said, I think I've
just listened to the new Landslide from Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 3: I would not be offended one single bit. I think
I really like that.
Speaker 1: Well because there's so much relatability in it. And I
think it's because it's coming from your writing instrument right
into your soul and then out your vocal chords. And
I mean, I can feel so much emotion in this
and to me, it's the difference between having a presence
and being visible. So when we listen to the song,
that's the presence of you moving that energy through us.
Speaker 3: Wow, you need to write some songs. You've got some
nice little articulation there.
Speaker 1: The way you talk, it's just a poet in a forest,
and you know how that is. We'll talk about frogs
all day, but nobody's buying songs about frogs. But I
do have to ask you in your video? Are you
using a hummingbird guitar?
Speaker 3: I am music.
Speaker 1: Oh, I knew it. I felt it because the Hummingbird
guitar owns a major chunk of my soul. But I
mean I could feel because I couldn't zoom into it.
It was just a feeling that I had.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you knew. You got some good ears
and some good articulation, I tell you what. But yeah,
that is a Hummember guitar that was given to me
a couple of years back for a Christmas present and
it has been my just attached at the hip to
me ever since then.
Speaker 3: I love that thing.
Speaker 2: I've always always wanted one that was actually on a
dream board of mine that I had written when I
was fourteen years old was to get a Gimpson Hummingbird
and uh a couple of years ago, which was wonderful.
Check that right off the dream board.
Speaker 1: List, Harper. Those are not easy to find guitars. You
can go into any guitar center, and at one point
in time I was sam ash and they were not
so readily available.
Speaker 3: That's crazy, that's wild.
Speaker 2: I think mine's like a sixties seventies, like early seventies.
Oh but if I'm not wrong, I believe it's a
sixty eight which we put an input on the inside.
Speaker 3: I pick up and uh, yeah, it's been. It's been
my best little baby.
Speaker 1: Do you do anything as a tradition or as as
a way of bringing out that that guitar's personality? Because
I'm a writer, so therefore I do strange things with
my writing instruments. Put them in the ground, or I'll
put them in a tree for months, and things like.
Do you do anything with your guitars that give them
that extra universal energy?
Speaker 3: Hm?
Speaker 2: I can't say I have anything in specific, but every
time before I play a show, I usually say a
prayer and strum a couple of chords. And singing something
up to the heavens and the Lord, and that's kind
of where I go from there. But I guess that's
my day to day and then sometimes i'll I'll just
look at it and hopefully that gives it something.
Speaker 1: That is so interesting that you say that, because you know,
with the hummingbird, I always tell my wife, I always go,
this is God and that she goes, why would you
say that? Because God only whispers and this is a
humming bird. This is God's guitar.
Speaker 2: Wait.
Speaker 3: I love that. I'm going to take that. I love that, but.
Speaker 1: It's the truth because there's just something about a humming bird,
and especially when you hear it. Did you use it?
Speaker 4: And Daddy says, no, we actually used a Martin in
that one, and I believe whoever was on the track
with me, we played with a lot of different guitars
before sticking to what's on the record, But the demo
we actually used.
Speaker 3: A Martin and you may or may not be later on.
Speaker 2: Here in a little secret version of Day of Cut
that might be in the list of releases as well, right.
Speaker 3: After the master version comes out.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but it's always fun playing around with different instruments.
Different guitars made from different woods, but I will agree
with you a Gibson and a humming bird really has
that warmth, just catches your soul and you love it.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you kind of a personal question because
that journey and a lot of listeners don't understand what
you and I go through in the way of taking
it from the studio to the mastering. There are many
times the mastering I wasn't happy with it? What about you?
Because it feels like the person doing the mastering wasn't
in the studio with this when we were sweating and
we were sitting there trying to struggle through the lyrics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that luckily, on the route
of how I've gone about producing these tracks and having
some pretty solid teams and people that I've worked with.
Speaker 3: If Daddy says no.
Speaker 2: In particular, was done with a really good friend of
mine named Cooper Bascomb, and.
Speaker 3: He's like my big brother.
Speaker 2: I trust him with really all of my internal stories
and thought processes and just the hardships of what I've
walked through. And luckily I haven't had a time where
the mastering hasn't gone well.
Speaker 3: So I praise the Lord for that really, because you know, communicating.
Speaker 2: With Cooper and him having somebody that is his right
hand that he trusts and knows will deliver the same
magic that we hoped that we produced within studio straight
to somebody speakers.
Speaker 3: Is such a gift.
Speaker 2: But I will say I have heard horror stories and
I do know that, like you know, it hasn't gone
as people have planned.
Speaker 3: But you know, praying that doesn't happen, and if it does,
and we live and we learn.
Speaker 1: You got to come back to this show anytime in
the future, Harper, especially if you come cruising through Charlotte.
We got to get to have a face to face.
Speaker 3: Please, yes, I would love nothing more.
Speaker 1: Would you be brilliant today? Okay?
Speaker 3: Oh you as well. You were such a joy. Thank
you for brightening up my day.