Q&A with
Har Mar Superstar

In anticipation of his performance at the High Noon Saloon in Madison on Wednesday, Sean Tillmann (a.k.a. the wonderful Har Mar Superstar) was good enough to answer some of my questions about the music that we know and love. The phone call was lighthearted and humorous, and it was clear from the very beginning that in talking about his music Sean is in his element. An incredibly dynamic performer, we discussed his current album, Bye Bye 17, his brilliantly in-you-face performance style, and the creative process behind everything that is Har Mar Superstar.

First of all, thank you for talking to me today. I’m a really big fan… Bye Bye 17 is one of my favorite albums last year. I just wanted to start out by asking where does the name Har Mar Superstar come from?
“It’s actually the name of a mall in suburban Minneapolis. It’s not a very good mall but it’s where I went to see all the movies between ages 17 and 25 and I worked across the street from it for a while and took a lot of breaks there.”

So when did you start writing music? Did you always know it was something you wanted to do?
“I’ve always kind of written little songs here and there. I started playing music when I was five and then writing little secret dumb songs probably a few years later. I started my first band when I was 12.”

What were your musical influences then and now?
“Well, then I listened to the Pixies and The Beatles. I kind of listened to a lot of weird stuff early on like the Velvet Underground and Patti Smith. I’ve always been really into soul, and Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and all those dudes. When I first started bands I wanted to be more ‘indie’ and now I don’t want to do that really at all.” (laughs)

The soul is definitely coming out in your current album. It’s a little different from your past albums which to me had a more modern pop feel. Can you talk a little about this record, what inspired the sound and how you decided to go with it?
“Well, I think I just started writing this album probably a couple of years ago when I was doing a residency in New York. I’d been living in L.A. for eight years and feeling kind of stalled out. I was missing the seasons… I went back to New York and was here for like a month and all the songs sort of came out once there was winter, you know? And I just got really into that. I’m from Minnesota originally so I love winter and I love seasons and I love how the year will change, so you know where you’re at time wise, you know? Otherwise you can just kind of lose time without that. But I think everything just came from there and I made a conscious decision to write everything on guitar and to figure out the chords that best suit my voice. So I did it more organically I guess.” 

Also in terms of this tour… you’re known for some pretty out there stage performances. Can we expect more of that or has it calmed down a little?
“Yeah, it’s still fun. But people, I don’t know, started to equate me with being in my underwear so I don’t do that anymore. It’s boring if they have expectations. But it’s still fun, and the songs are getting better and better.”

Have you had a favorite show so far this tour?
“It’s hard to say, since I’ve been on tour for most of the last year. So a lot of them. We played Trans Musicale Festival in Reinnes, France and that was really good. It was a really good show and actually my first Har Mar show in France ever. There were just thousands of people there freaking out and now the record’s doing really well over there, so that was awesome. And I played at SXSW which was really fun.”

Who did you play with at SXSW?
“I was alternating stages back and forth so I was right between Blondie and Cee Lo, which was great. They were pretty cool. And I did a show with a bunch of Minneapolis friends like Lizzo and Marijuana Death Squad, which was really fun. Whenever Lizzo and I play together she plays in my band, too, which is always awesome. There was so much cool stuff that happened, I was kind of all over the place.”

That sounds awesome. Now, one of my favorite things about your music is your music videos, which are always really cool and out there. I was watching a bunch of them yesterday. “DUI” is a particularly great one, especially since it’s so detailed. So I was wondering if you could talk a little about the creative process there — where the ideas come from, etc.?
“Yeah! I like to be really involved when coming up with video concepts. Sometimes I come up with them, or we hire a director that I love and then I normally trust them to come up with the concepts too. But yeah, ‘DUI’ was really we fun. I did that with Patrick Daughters, who does a lot of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ videos and The Shins and Feist. He’s just really creative and he’s into things like dance routines and ridiculousness. So that was awesome to have a choreographer and everything. It all just depends… everything comes together whether it’s my idea or someone else’s. We’re always all about the collaboration.”

You always pull really cool people into your music, either for videos or to collaborate with them. Do you have a favorite in there or any experiences that have really stuck out?
“Well, I always love working with Nick and Karen from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; I’ve worked with them separately a bunch of times. The way they write is just really cool and thoughtful and experimental and fun. And there are some producers I like to work with a ton, like John Fields who I’ve written a bunch of songs with. I did the album The Handler with him. He’s just really fun to write songs with. He’s a Minneapolis guy too. He does all kinds of stuff; he’s written for people like the Jonas Brothers and other big Disney stuff but he also did Andrew W. K’s first album and a Pink album so all this weird random stuff. But he’s really fun to write with because we can just go in and knock out songs left and right.”

I can imagine someone with that much range would be really fun to write with.
“Yeah, he’s just so good at every instrument. So I love writing with him. This album I went in with Jim Eno from Spoon which was great. I had the songs kind of written, but as a producer he’s amazing and can create some really awesome sound in his studio. Everything was pretty effortless with that, so I want to go back there some time and do more. There’s a ton of different situations I like to be in.”

Do you have a bucket list of people you haven’t worked with but would like to?
“Not really. I used to kind of, but not anymore. It just feels more natural to not put any huge emphasis on who or when. It’ll happen eventually.”

Cool. And you just started talking about it a little bit, but when you say you went in with the songs written… do you start with the music, do you start with the lyrics, do you start with a mix of the two? Can you talk about your songwriting process a little bit?
“It depends. Like, I’ll come up with a lyric idea and write it down. Or sometimes it starts with a couple of chords I’m playing and it all just kind of snaps into place. But sort of I just have little bits and pieces written down and recorded on my phone and then they all just sort of come together at once. I won’t normally even have a whole song written, but then once I get one down, five more will come right away. So it’s all just kind of a process of sort of waiting for the right time. It’s a matter of feeling my way into it. I’m sure I could be more proactive about the process, but I just feel like it’s better when I do it this way.”

Do you have a favorite song to perform?
“I normally play ‘Lady You Shot Me’ and ‘Prisoner’ back to back, which is always fun. That’s been feeling really good, people always kind of freak out about those. I like to do ‘Late Night Morning Light’ a lot since it’s one of my favorites on the album. It kind of changes all the time. ‘Restless Leg’ has had a lot of energy lately… it’s about to be a single… we just shot a video for it. That song’s been kind of a sleeper hit of the album, which I’m excited about.”

What are you listening to right now?
“A lot of podcasts on tour. The new Hold Steady record came out and they’re my buddies, so I just got that. I always listen to a lot of Smash Mouth, ironically. I always listen to a lot of Sam Cooke. There’s so much it’s hard to think about what it is right now, there’s always so much.”