Interview with the Rocket - May '96
By William Crane


The first mention of Harvester I ever saw was in a Puncture magazine
article last year. According to the article, the Northern California band,
who had just signed to DGC Records, were cocky "rock stars in training". 
Months later, I'm sitting in the living room of Harvester's
singer/songwriter/guitarist Sean Harrasser. He has lived in Portland since
late last summer and seems comfortably settled. I sit on his futon couch,
next to the three-story cage for his rat, Sylvie. His rambunctious dogs,
Fern and Opie, chase after each and sniff at my tape recorder. Harrasser
routinely peppers his conversation with words like "prevarication" and
"avidity." His wife, Amydelle, who is expecting a baby this summer says,
"The scary things is that he talks like this normally. His whole family
does." She looks at her belly. "This kid is going to be scary, I'm
afraid."
I have never met a musician who seemed less like a rock star in
training.
Less than a week later, Harrasser is on the main stage of La Luna. 
"Hello!" he screams. "We are Harvester, America's premier party band!" 
With guitarist Jed Brewer, bassist Todd Steinberg, and Drummer Kelly
Bauman, he launches into a ridiculously big finish for a song that never
started, jumping and karate kicking in time with the final power chord. He
plays guitar on his back, sticking his tongue out like Gene Simmons. His
voice goes hoarse. He drips sweat. At the end of the last song, everyone
but Bauman falls on top of each other in a dog pile of scraped guitars and
knees.
The astonishingly young audience, here to see headliners The Flaming
Lips, lets out scattered applause. Pressed against the stage, even though
the dance floor is deserted, the kids have looks on their faces like they
want to laugh but aren't sure if they should.
"I suppose the shows could be a bit flippant or sarcastic", Harrasser
says in his living room. "Me Climb Mountain", Harvester's new album for
DGC, is something else all together. Although it was recorded mostly live,
it doesn't sound a lot like the party band on La Luna's stage. With
lightly strummed guitars, earnest vocals, and an occasional violin, the
album is downright folky. Growing up in the Northern California town of
Redding, Harrasser listened to a lot of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and Pete
Seeger. "Even after the clique heel of alternative rock came down upon me,
I found my leanings were still toward folk," he says.
While at Chico State University, Harrasser and the other members of
what would become Harvester spent time in a variety of Sonic
Youth-inspired combos before eventually coming together for a more rural
sound. Harvester kept a low-key approach, releasing two seven inches and
an EP on Brewer's own Lather Records while playing occasional shows. 
Harrasser says they had no expectations of ever going further. He planned
to move to Portland when he finished school and the rest of the band was
probably not going with him.
That all changed when Roberta Petersen heard Harvester's tape. 
Petersen, the A&R rep who had signed the Flaming Lips and Harrasser's
friends, Chance the Gardener, to Warner Brothers, liked Harvester and asked
them to audition.
For reasons known only to Petersen, she asked them to play in a gold
mine. "We drive up there in a snowstorm," Harrasser says, "on this
circuitous dirt path, and we arrive at the entrance. It's a working mine,
so we're loading into a mine cart. It's two miles down this track. It was
insane - water dripping, weird shapes, precipitous drop-offs. Finally we
arrive at a room with a generator and light. Roberta showed up with a
video camera and a DAT recorder. I'm not sure it this was her litmus test
to see if were insane or whether we'd show up, but we performed in a mine. 
We hauled all our stuff back out and we're standing there in the middle of
the night, in the snow, the Sierra Nevada all around, Roberta says, 'Get a
lawyer and we'll sign a contract.'" 
A record deal, Harrasser says, "was a goal that I wanted with avidity
and eagerness for a long period of time. I finally just surrendered to the
idea that it was a lightning strike. I abandoned it. Then out of the
blue, just as we were on the razor's edge to go our separate ways, to have
this happen just out of happenstance; it dizzies me."