Harry Mockett: Isolation, Reflection and Floating Around

With our decadent pandemic lives rolling on, the seeds of long months spent writing and recording music are starting to bear fruit. I wrote previously about artist and producer George Rose and his track ‘Summer’, the video of which was released at the end of October. As well as featuring Lauren Dejey on vocals, singer/songwriter Harry Mockett was also a guest on this track, who, like many others, has been busy during lockdown life.

After releasing his debut single ‘Circles’, Harry Mockett, who hails from Northampton, put out his first EP entitled ‘H.I.M.’ in the summer of 2019, which gained support from BBC Radio. In fact, such was the response to Circles, the single made it onto BBC Introducing’s Hot List before the EP even came out. Later that year Harry Mockett would be invited to perform a session on BBC Radio Northampton. Circles was followed up by further singles from H.I.M. including ‘Into Night’ and ‘Windows’. Harry Mockett rounded out 2019 with a standalone single called ‘You Could Be Mine’ before returning in July 2020 with ‘Thinkin About You’.

I love that synth introduction like something from Super Mario Bros., which is in every way meant to be a compliment. ‘Thinkin About You’ falls into the realm of relatable relationship content, with lyrics from the heart: “I’m moving on, not in the same way as I wanted to when I wanted you, ‘cause things went wrong and the distance got long but I still missed you, did you feel it too?” The synths swell beneath the lyric, and guitar reminiscent of Nile Rodgers joins in the chorus. The pre-chorus reminds me of the production on Shura’s single ‘Touch’, which shares the distinction of being a track that sounds both classic and modern at the same time. This song is just as much a slow-dancer as it is a head-bobber. In a different arrangement, Thinkin About You could easily be a soul track from the 1970’s with Harry Mockett’s smooth voice.

‘Harry and I met while we were in the same band at ‘rock school’ when we were about 10 years old, we continued to go to the same college and uni. We’ve worked on a load of creative projects together throughout that time so working with Harry for the ‘Floating Around’ production came very naturally. Harry came to me with a demo that he’d made, we changed a few of the parts together and re-recorded all the guitars and vocals at his shed, I then spent some time editing these together and adding extra synths, drums etc. then it was sent to Jordan (Numen Studios) for mixing and mastering! It’s always a pleasure to work with Harry and there might be more songs coming soon…’ – George Rose

Kicking off 2021 in Lockdown v3.0 is Harry’s new single ‘Floating Around’. A fading in synth and a piano chord lead to a layer of Mockett’s vocals and melodic guitar. The beat and tempo here are slower than Thinkin About You, and the synths sound more like organ, less assertive but just as effective. Harry’s lead vocal sounds effortless, the words tumbling out in more smooth delivery. Towards the end of Floating Around, a lead guitar part is welcome, which definitely deserved to go on longer! I can imagine a live crowd getting right into this, so I won’t concede that it should only be two and a half minutes long at all. Though it looks like live performances are a long way off, it only means Harry Mockett has more time to write and record even more material. Watch this space!

1. Your new single 'Floating Around' was inspired by lockdown, what was the writing process of making this track?

Writing/recording this track came about during isolation. I guess my lockdown experience was quite a reflective one, as I’m sure many other peoples were, but I found the best thing about being isolated was that it made it easy to hone in on those feelings and turn them into something creative and positive - which in my case was this song. I had the bass line for the verse and then added the organ and guitars to create some atmosphere, it all just fell together really naturally. I think I wrote and made the initial demo of the song in a day, and I knew it was going be the next one I wanted to release.

2. You worked with George Rose on the production! What would be your ideal set-up if you were going to cut an album produced by George?

George is great at understanding exactly where I want to go with a track, and we’ve known each other from when we were ten years old playing in a band together to recording tracks in a bedroom at uni, so we’re definitely on the same page when it comes to making music now. I think the ideal set up would just be something like a laptop, a mic, and a guitar… and rum!

3. You also worked with George on his track 'Summer', what was it like to contribute to that track and appear in his music video?

’Summer’ was a really fun track to work on. It actually came about when we were at uni together and George had this idea he wanted me to sing on. Four years later in the summer of 2020 (due to life getting in the way) we decided we wanted to finish and release it, so we got the train to Brighton and shot the video. It was such a good day out, and the weather couldn’t have been better, really was like a mini holiday.

4. Is there any chance of a music video being released for Floating Around? 

Tough one to answer. I started work on a video in December but Covid stopped me in my tracks as I had to isolate, and straight after that came the new UK lockdown. I did really want to make a video for it though, so I won’t rule it out.

5. You also released your single 'Thinkin About You' last year during lockdown, tell us more about how that track came together!

I wrote that track at the start of 2020 and managed to record it at Numen Studios with Max Smith literally the day before the first national lockdown... I already had a demo so we knew where to go with it and what we wanted to do. We were adding in some really different subtle sounds which was cool. Never thought I’d be recording boomwhackers on a track (those musical coloured tube things… you know?) It was great to be able to have that last proper session before we got locked away, good times.

6. If you could work with three artists in any capacity, who would be on your bucket list?

Nile Rodgers - Living legend

Tom Misch - Production/groove maestro

Lianne La Havas - Voice of an angel

Also, they’re all incredible guitarists and collectively they definitely have a big influence on my music.

7. We all miss the live scene, what's the part of that you miss the most? 

I really miss the social aspect of being at a gig, they’re one of the few places you can become great friends with someone you don’t know just because of that shared love for the music. Or maybe that’s the booze. Perhaps a bit of both?

8. Of course 2021 is just beginning, can you tell us about any plans for the rest of the year?

More music. More video content. Hopefully less covid. 

I have another single coming out very soon so watch out for that.

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Follow Harry Mockett on Instagram @harrymockett, Facebook @harrymockettmusic and on Twitter @harry_mockett.