Classic Rock Revisited recently caught up with Harry Hess, singer for Canadian rock veterans HAREM SCAREM. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

CRR: Why remake the classic Mood Swings album? Why not just make a new album?

Harry: "We talked about doing something to celebrate the anniversary of the release and it just made sense to us to have some sort of ownership and say what we did with the music. Warner owns the record, even though we wrote the songs. For us to re-release it…we can’t do that, they have to do it. If they are going to do it then what is the point of us being involved? It’s not like we are signed to the label anymore. The only way for us to have any control over the release, or to even be involved at all, is to re-record the record and to own the physical masters.

We were not out to make it better, even though I like this version better as it sounds more modern. I like the original versions, as the songs stand up, but it was really just a combination of wanting to own it, have some sort of control over it and then celebrate the release by re-releasing it. We added bonus tracks, and we added a DVD where people could interact with it. We tied it in with the whole tour at that point.

The tour is just as in important as the re-release. We are playing those songs for people that we never played for in Europe. We just came back from Japan and we were there on the weekend and played a couple of shows in Tokyo. We never toured Mood Swings in Japan. Mood Swings got overlooked from a touring perspective, so it was a big part of it to implement that portion of the plan. We want to go out and play and then have the CD available for the fans to purchase."

CRR: Is there another Harem Scarem record coming?

Harry: "We are playing until the end of this year and we are talking about writing some new stuff next year. It has not been 100% solidified yet. We are the kind of band that just will go ahead and make a record and then we will go look for a deal. We have not come up with any kind of a game plan to sign on the dotted line. We will just go ahead and make a record if we want to make one and that is kind of where it is at right now. I know that is not really a great answer, but it is the truth, at this point. Hopefully, you and I will be talking next year about the new record, as that is what I would like to do."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Harem Scarem released their second album – the original Mood Swings - in 1993. Now 20 years later the band celebrates the anniversary of such career-defining release re-recording from scratch the eleven songs that made up that album and also adding three new bonus tracks in the spirit of the original Mood Swings direction.

Harem Scarem disbanded after the release of their last album Hope in 2008. Five years later, rumours about a possible reunion for some shows started to circulate and were confirmed once Firefest announced the band as headliner of the first night of the event on Friday, October 18th. In this occasion the band will perform the entire Mood Swings record live, since they had never officially toured that release outside of Canada. This has led to the booking an extensive European and Asian tour, including the band’s second show ever in the US at the Melodic Rock Fest 3 in September in Chicago.

As the idea developed, the band decided to do a modern recording of Mood Swings, trying to keep true to the original intent as well as writing and recording three brand new tracks. Then it was decided to include a "making of " video and also to have four songs broken down into individual audio tracks, so that fans can re-mix or play along with the songs.

“This re-record was extremely time consuming, we really put everything into it and spent an incredible amount of time writing and recording the three new bonus tracks” says singer Harry Hess. “We hope everyone can hear the effort that went into it and enjoys the result as much as we do”.

Mood Swings II tracklisting includes:

'Saviors Never Cry'

'No Justice'

'Stranger Than Love'

'Change Comes Around'

'Jealousy'

'Sentimental Blvd.'

'Mandy'

'Empty Promises'

'If There Was A Time'

'Just Like I Planned'

'Had Enough'

'World Gone To Pieces'

'Anarchy'

'Brighter Day'

DVD:

Re-Making Of Mood Swings documentary

Audio Files: 'Change Comes Around', 'Saviours Never Cry', 'No Justice'

BraveWords' review of Mood Swings II can be found here.

You can sample new recordings and one new song below:

“Due to the huge time commitment everyone would need to make these live dates doable Creighton Doane and Barry Donaghy had to bow out as the tour dates keep growing. Darren Smith will be back behind the kit for our live dates with Stan Miczek on bass” concludes Hess. “Even if we have not made any plans beyond the tour at the moment but I'm pretty sure there will be more Harem Scarem in the future!”

Harem Scarem 2013:

Harry Hess: lead vocals

Pete Lesperance: guitars, bass

Creighton Doane: drums

Darren Smith: background vocals and lead vocals on Sentimental Blvd.

For more details visit Haremscarem.net.