(The) Harvey Danger Database

AMH: I think a good song is something that does come from your personal experience. But it’s a fine line, because when it crosses over into a therapy-like session—or the experience is used simply as a marketing tool—it changes from being an artistic expression to a [manipulative] device. That’s what “Radio Silence” is all about.

— The Los Angeles Times, April 1998

SCN: I came home from my first trip abroad to find the instrumental track to “Radio Silence” all ready and waiting for words and a melody; I saw on the back page of Rolling Stone that Fiona Apple had been reduced to talking about being a rape victim in a 50-word blurb that accompanied news of how well her first record was selling and was duly inspired; the time glitch before the bass solo is my fault, as I thought it would be funny to do some human beatboxing during my scratch vocals; it would’ve been funnier if it hadn’t been a beat-and-a-half behind and thrown of the real drummer; still and all, my vote for the best all around song on the record, and my favorite HD song ever to play live; “Wrecking Ball” was supposed to close the album, but the label insisted on this one; painful though it is to admit: they were right.^10A

AMH: This was the first of many times we’ve all stood around a mic doing group backing vocals, which is always a good time.^10A

JJL: This is the one that got away—and then came back. We’d written a song (to our credit, I think) that was simply a bit beyond what we were capable of delivering in the studio when we went to record it. Years ago I studied with a violin teacher that would, after you learned a piece inside and out, have you put it aside for a year or so, and then re-visit it later: You’d come back and it’d seem to be entirely different, not a reflection of the music but a way to mark your own evolution as a musician. In the last couple years this has come to be one of our stronger pieces—different from the original recording, but a better manifestation of the song. I’d like to think that somewhere Ms. Pressley is smiling.^10A

SCN: The song that evokes my most cherished memories of being in Harvey Danger is “Radio Silence,” which I received as a fully-formed instrumental demo from the lads the day I returned home from my first trip to Paris. The fact that they had labored over it in my absence, the fact that it was clearly a big step forward, and the implicit challenge it contained to step up my own game resulted in the song that, even more than “Wrecking Ball” (which, on reflection, is pretty effectively sad), demonstrated that we had more going on than our early, funny ones might have suggested. (And, at the risk of one’s-own-horn-tooting, I might suggest that the complaint in the lyrics seems just as apt today as it did then.) Regrets? I have a few. But then again, it’s not bad for a 22-year-old kid.^MMV