“I didn’t start with any guidelines; music is in my blood.”
Harrison Brome always knew that he wanted to become a musician, but he didn’t take the easy route to success. Instead of taking piano lessons, the Vancouver artist – who suffered from severe dyslexia growing up – is entirely self-taught. “I would just play certain notes on the piano and if I thought they sounded good together, I’d keep playing them,” he says. “If you really listen to the formula of my songs, the structures are usually a basic four-chord or five-chord progression.”
But don’t let that simplistic description fool you: Brome’s music is filled with complex, layered production, and deeply personal songwriting, all led by Brome’s captivating vocals – which stretch from soulfully understated to a full-on R&B force on the more rhapsodic anthems.
While songwriting has helped him express his feelings in unique way (“Music has always been there to help me overcome the roadblocks that I’ve faced in my life”), he does enlist producers and engineers to help him bring his ideas to fruition. Of his process, Brome says, “I usually start the progression and vibe, and once a solid structure is there, I take it out of my hands and focus on the top line [lyric and lead melody].”
With one EP out – 2016’s Fill Your Brains – Brome hopes to kick it into high gear this year with his follow-up EP Body High, and another one that he says is ready for release. Brome says his past few years have been spent “in the dark, crafting my sound,” so he’s looking forward to finally stepping out and sharing more music with his fans. But that’s just the near future; Brome acknowledges that he’s in this for the long run, adding, “I want to be the type of artist that’s half dead, still touring at 60.”