You've seen guitarists break strings, Nate Harasim breaks keyboards. This is not a guy who lightly tickles the ivories, he brings power, energy, and fun to every performance and he will get the crowd moving even if he has to go over the top to do it, as he did at one of the inaugural balls in D.C. (see below). Harasim is one of the new faces of contemporary instrumental music. He caught everyone's attention as the co-producer of Steve Oliver's chart-topping "Fun In The Sun" and through his work with equally influential sax player Darren Rahn. They have become one of the go-to production teams for a whole new batch of musicians who are bringing the excitement back into this music. At age 30 he has already released three albums, done a stint in the Navy, earned his business degree, and started his own company - Harasim Sound Design - which offers production, new artist consultation, and web design. His new release, Rush, is one of the most acclaimed albums so far this year and will end up on a lot of "Best of 2011" lists. With all of that under his belt already I was almost afraid to ask what's next, but one thing is obvious: this is a musician who knows how to navigate the crazy world he has chosen to play in and even more success is on its way.


SmoothViews (SV): You've had quite an interesting journey to get to this point and I wanted to talk about that a little bit before we get into the CD.
Nate Harasim (NH): I have, haven't I? (laughs)

SV: You started out training to be a classical pianist.
NH: I dd, at the Flint Institute of Music. I was there for about 10 years.

SV: How did you get into jazz, and then into contemporary jazz?
NH: They had a jazz band there and that's where all the cool kids were. I saw that and decided I wanted to try that. I went over there and made it through the audition. Contemporary jazz is a different story. I wasn't very aware of it until '96 or so. I opened up for Wayman (Tisdale), Norman Brown and some others when I was about 16 or 17 and that was actually  my first exposure to it. They were coming through for a festival and my band got asked to open for them.

SV: I take it your band was a straightahead band?
NH: It was.

SV: When you saw them was it a case of the light going on?
NH:  Yeah, straightahead jazz is excellent music but it just isn't marketable and it's not commercial. I wanted to pursue doing something that could reach a broader audience and this was it.

SV: You also spent some time in the Navy after you got out of school. Did you get a hunger for adventure (laughs)?
NH: Actually I think I did. It was that and some girl problems (laughs). I went into the Navy and I jumped out of helicopters and saved people. I was stationed in San Diego and did my training in Pensacola, Florida. I did that for the first four or so years of my five year enlistment. Then at the end of my enlistment I transferred over to the Naval School of Music.

SV: How come?
NH: Because I missed playing the piano so much. I had the opportunity to re-up with the Navy but I wanted to play music and I wanted my own record deal. Playing music in uniform is not that fun, so I left and went to do my own thing.

SV: It takes a lot of guts and commitment to decide to step out and become a professional working musician.
NH: It does, doesn't it. It takes a support team too. I met my wife when I left the Navy and she has been with me the whole time and given me so much support.

SV: You did so much, so young, that I'm trying to set up a mental time line here between when you left the Navy and when you got your first record deal.
NH: I left in 2003, then I was signed with NuGroove in 2007.

SV: What was your journey between in between that time?
NH: My journey between was about finding out for myself what I can do and what my talents other than playing the piano were. I found out the hard way that I can produce music. I would hire people to do things and they would do a bad job and I would lose money so I started learning how to do things myself, from production to web design to graphic design. I had to become master of the whole little music industry thing here at my house. I've got the studio and the production thing going, I have backdrops for photo shoots, I've got Photoshop and the complete Adobe Suite. I do graphics and web design. I've taken it all on myself. It's been good, I've learned a lot and it has helped me get to where I am now.

SV: I think anyone who is looking to be in the music business today has got to wear multiple hats. 
NH: It seems like there are some younger people coming up who expect everything is going to be handed to them. They want the record deal, they want to be booked into the big festivals,  they pick up a publicist or manager who is not in it seriously and they think they've made it. You need a whole package. I think I finally have the whole package with my Rush album. I have finally learned what you need to do. Not only does the music have to be good, the packaging has to look good, your website has to be good, and it helps to have a really good label behind you.

SV: You have a business degree. When did you decide to do that and how has it helped you?
NH: I did that because I could do so many things with it. I did it through University of Phoenix and used my GI Bill from the Navy. University of Phoenix is great but they are definitely not the cheapest college out there.  It has helped me immensely when it comes to negotiating my own deals and running my business here. If somebody is trying to jab me in the gut for less money than the job is worth it's nice to know how to deal with stuff like that.

SV: You've gotten a lot of attention working with Darren (Rahn) and producing other artists, and now Rush is bringing you a lot of attention but I didn't know this is your third album.
NH: I had Next In Line which was actually a demo I did to send to labels. Then NuGroove picked it up and put it out and I had 90 days to put another record out so I put together Love's Taken Over.  I did it in 90 days. Mixed, mastered, done!  Compare that to Rush, which I spent 24 months on.

SV: Was that your cram course in how to do everything and do it really fast?
NH: Pretty much. And that deal ended up not working out, but I was lucky enough to connect with Les Cutmore and Jeff Lunt at Trippin' and they are by far the best label in contemporary jazz right now.

SV: You don't actually live in a hotbed of industry activity.
NH: I don't. I live about an hour north of Detroit. I lived in San Diego for quite a while. After the Navy I came back, met my wife then went back out there to pursue the music. That's when I was doing Next In Line. Then we had a death in the family so I moved back home and that was when I signed. While I was in California I hooked up with some strong people but the issue is that if you are an up and coming artist-producer there are so many others doing the same thing. When I moved back here it was easier because I was one of the only guys.  Then I met Tim Bowman, Randy Scott, I met all these other people. Half the Trippin' roster is in Detroit and some people who are going to get signed are here too. There's a decent scene for this here and there is a lot of support. I've entertained the thought of moving back to California but

SV: I heard you played at one of the balls during the Obama inaugration?
NH: We got the call for it. It was cool because Obama actually had the CD. Darren and I did it. It was a track show so it was just us on stage. There were all these dignitaries there and they were all sitting still. They wouldn't move. I actually stopped playing and told them if they didn't get up and start dancing we were going to pack up and go home. They started laughing and next thing you know the crowd was moving and getting crazy with us.  After the show the promoter came up and said you've got some guts telling all these important people to get up and move their butts and I said that's what its about. If I wanted people to sit still and look at me I would be playing lounge music in a hotel bar somewhere.

SV: There was a lot of advance buzz around the new CD and it lived up to the expectations. So let's get to it. Tell me about Rush and what makes it such a special project.
NH: I started working on it about 2 ½ years ago. One of my goals was to not have any filler traks. I wanted the whole album to be strong, I wasn't going to put a lot of effort into the one or two tracks that would go to radio then just record a bunch of stuff to fill out the album.  I was very hard on all the musicians that played on this one and Darren was very hard on me. Once I let Darren know that this was what I wanted to do he wouldn't let me back out of it. We went through every track piece by piece and note by note, instrument by instrument, until we got it to what we considered perfect. To put a record out that doesn't have one filler track is something I am very proud of. When it was released we had six tracks at radio at one time. I thought that was a good sign, most people have one. Having people playing so many tracks may have hurt us when it comes to chart action in Billboard but I am very pleased that so many songs are getting played.

SV: That's why we need a new way to track these things. If an album has a bunch of strong songs on it programmers are going to pick the ones that fit their sound, and we don't all sound alike right now. Thank God! I thought it was really forward thinking of your label to be open to that.
NH: We did just officially release "West Bound" as a single, which was one that was getting a lot of play, and that is in part to impact the Billboard chart. But the more songs people play from the album, the better it is for me because when people hear more songs they know that there aren't throwaway tracks and they will hopefully buy the whole CD.

SV: You have some incredible players on this that most fans are not going to be familiar with because they aren't the L.A. heavy hitters we usually see on everyone's liner notes.
NH: They are great musicians, second to none. Mel Brown is on bass, I can send him anything and he knows exactly what to play to take it to the next level. Matt Godina is on guitar. He used to play with Brian Culbertson. He's now my right hand man on acoustic guitar and a writing partner. Frank Selman is the other guitarist. He's been a part of 26 #1 hits with Darren. Obviously it's Darren Rahn on sax, I can't get any better than that. His tone is impeccable and when I get a track back from him it's always perfect. There are some special guests. Steve Oliver is on it kind of paying me back for producing "Fun In The Sun," his song that went #1. I've got Maxine Hardcastle, Paul Hardcastle's daughter and an amazing vocalist on "Different Kind of Love." Cindy Bradley is on a track. Beyond that I didn't want to go too far with having guests because at the end of the day the record is mine and I wanted to shine a little bit too.

SV: The fact is you don't need to. You surrounded yourself with some very strong musicians and let them show their stuff some too. We're at a point where we need new blood and your are bringing these people into the spotlight. Being a guitar geek I was totally knocked out by Frank and Matt's work.
NH: Frank got a big opportunity on a track called "Oso's Groove." He has played on all these hit songs but he never has been featured on one. He and I have done a lot of work for Darren and for other production clients of mine. I was going to get Tim Bowman to do it but I felt like it was time to let someone new get featured. He's got some rippin' solos on "Rush" and "Open Mic" too.

SV: I write notes when I listen to CD's from people I'm going to interview and I actually wrote "Killer guitar solo from Frank on 'Open Mic'."
NH: That's what I wanted. Initially he sent me a normal smooth jazz guitar solo, it was good but I wanted more. I told him I needed something harder, that I was going to put some crazy distortion on it and have fun with it so he went for it and gave me a solo that went to the edge. It was what I wanted and it sounded excellent. So musicianship was very important. I wanted it to be more than me soloing on every track.

SV: You do showcase all the guys and give them some space to really solo on this.
NH:  It is my album but I didn't want it to be all keyboard because I want people to listen to the whole album, not just one or two tracks. When I listen to a record that has too much of one instrument I get tired of it. I want the record to take them somewhere just like albums did in the old days. I don't want them to just play the singles. I want them to like every track for a specific reason, so the tracks need to sound different and so does the instrumentation.

SV: That's what albums used to be about but it's pretty rare now, kind of for the reason you mentioned before where artists put most of their effort in the two or three radio tracks.
NH: I wanted this to be deeper than that. I guess I'd call it color. The album has a lot of color. I have my favorite tracks. "Open Mic" is one of them, "Different Kind Of Love" because of the vocals and production. Then, I like the way it ends with West Bound. The label questioned that because most albums end with a slow song. I wanted it to be different and end with a fast track.

SV: Besides if you end it with a fast track it may not feel like an ending, it may feel like it's time to hit play and do the whole thing again. My favorites are "Up" and "Both Sides of the Coin."
NH: "Up" was going to be a vocal track. We took the vocals off it because we learned that there were some politics with having a certain amount of vocals on your album. We didn't want to play that game so we kept Maxine's song as the only vocal and Darren and I went to town on "Up" and turned it into an instrumental. "Both Sides of the Coin" was a project that me and Steve Oliver did. I started the track, asked him for ideas and we went from there. That one came out well. I like them all. I'm my toughest critic and there are things that I have done that I don't like that much but I am completely proud of this one from start to finish and the next one is going to be, I hope, even better.

SV: You have reason to be proud of this one. It's a strong piece of work, all the way though, and you are one of the guys who are doing everything right as far as getting this genre out of a rut and into the future. Thanks for the conversation and the music.

Here is Nate literally rockin' the keyboard with Darren Rahn in Reno: