Har Mar Superstar with Sweet Spirit at Vega 11/1

9PM | 18+ | $12 ADV $15 DOS
Get TICKETS: http://ticketf.ly/2aiDgJ0

Sean Tillmann has been making records under the name “Har Mar Superstar” since 1999. Under the Har Mar moniker, Sean has gone through a plethora of phases, ranging from fun-loving, beats-based music pioneer (he and Peaches shared stages early on) to angry arena crowd opener (a 2002 public lewdness allegation proves it) to soul music crooner. His last album Bye Bye 17 opened a lot of people’s minds to his songwriting prowess, which has existed since day one of his career.

For years, Tillmann was an artist’s artist when The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Gossip, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and many other legends decided to collaborate and/or take him on tour. Different phases of his career brought him fame through the fickle worlds of indie, British pop, LA DJ-dom, and New York night crawling.

Bye Bye 17 was an eye-opener to the music world, not that Tillmann wasn’t used to accolades through his former work with Sean Na Na, Gayngs, Neon Neon, and Calvin Krime. Sean had “arrived as a songwriter.” After living in LA and NYC for 12 years, Sean moved back to Minneapolis, MN, where he is most creative. With the help of Chris Bierden (Poliça, Bye Bye 17), Ryan McMahon (Har Mar, Lizzo), Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Adele, Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash, Cat Stevens), and Ryan Olson (Poliça, Marijuana Deathsquads), Har Mar Superstar’s album Best Summer Ever was born.

Best Summer Ever, since its inception, has been imagined as a “Greatest Hits of Har Mar Superstar from 1950-1985.” Tillmann was born in 1978. Wrap your head around that, please.

Best Summer Ever is a slow burner with many ballads, dance-able tracks, and co-writes. Long-time friend Julian Casablancas (Cult Records founder, The Strokes), Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes, Erykah Badu, Voidz, Weezer), and Tillmann worked very closely to make the concept happen. Karen O, Matt Sweeney, and James Levy (Reputante, Lolawolf) all helped write songs on the record. Bobby Charles wrote “I Hope.” “Youth Without Love” was a demo written by Julian that was sitting around that Har Mar fell in love with, so they made it for the record.

Look out for Har Mar Superstar, now fronting a six-piece band — complete with horns — touring worldwide this year. The live show has always been a fun, sweat-soaked celebration of joy. The man was born to rock a stage. Join the party.

SWEET SPIRIT
Ironically, the nine-piece band Sweet Spirit started as a solo project. Austin singer Sabrina Ellis was going through some distressing times: the band that she fronted for several years, Bobby Jealousy, with her then husband was disintegrating along with their relationship. Everything Ellis was working toward was suddenly in free-fall.
She started Sweet Spirit to hone her ability to write and perform on her own. “It was supposed to be focused on me writing solo, and performing with the guitar,” she says. But it didn’t stay that way for long.
When Ellis started Sweet Spirit, she was still writing and performing with her longstanding garage punk band A Giant Dog. AGD Co-founder Andrew Cashen was intrigued by Ellis’ new emphasis on soul and country and pop music as touchstones for Sweet Spirit and quickly climbed on board the project. “I’m very comfortable doing loud and fast,” Cashen says, “so this is uncharted territory for me.”
Together Ellis and Cashen began turning out songs at a breakneck pace. They assembled a core band of four more members, rehearsed religiously, and started playing gigs around town. Immediately they began turning heads and packing clubs.
Within six months they had gotten noticed by one of Austin’s most famous musical residents, Britt Daniel of Spoon. In October of 2014, Daniel asked the band to perform at Spoon’s “secret” tour kick off show at the cramped rock club Hotel Vegas for their latest record They Want My Soul, and Sweet Spirit was quickly thrown into the local buzzmill.
Ex-Spoon producer and friend Mike McCarthy was also an early devotee. He met with the band and invited them to record demos at his studio to shop around. Those early demos were so strong, that with minimal mixing, they became the band’s eponymous 10″ EP.
As Austin accolades continued to pile up into 2015, the band was asked to perform a cover set of Marvin Gaye songs for a special event. They added two horn players and a backup singer to recreate Gaye’s music – Ellis and Cashen were immediately enchanted. They asked the auxiliary players to stay, making what was once a solo project a full-fledged nine piece band!
Twp months later, Sweet Spirit was added as an official SXSW showcase act without a full-length record or ever having applied. National attention fromEsquire, the L.A. Times and other outlets solidified their status as Austin’s “next great rock band” and earned them a spot as the opener on 12 Midwest and West Coast Spoon tour dates.
Meanwhile, the band and McCarthy finished work on the band’s full-length debut Cokomo, as well as a two song collaboration between them and Daniel, which became a limited edition 7″ release that received praise from Stereogum, Consequence Of Sound, SPIN, and other outlets.
Cokomo is the perfect snapshot of where the band is right now: a confident blend of garage rock, glammy pop, bouncy soul, and Ellis out front, owning every song. Through the evolution of Sweet Spirit she’s learned how to find her own voice while shining in the context of a supremely talented group – or, as Pop Press International put it, “the power of balancing autonomy with cooperation.”
Cokomo comes out in Nine Mile Records on October 16. The band will be on tour in the U.S. through the end of the year.