Interview: Faith and Harry Rowen: “Just Be There” by Eileen Shapiro
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- October 25, 2018
Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford
One of the most refreshing, and talented duos to suddenly appear on the international pop scene and conquer the music industry are British/American brother and sister Faith and Harry Rowan. At the tender ages of only 11 and 13 they are already accomplished multi-instrumentalists, composers/songwriters /vocalists producing mature, sophisticated and professionally sonic tracks.
Faith & Harry just launched their fourth track of this year entitled “Just Be There”, an emotionally charged and heartfelt story about love, (of a friend) that is lost and missed. The song has a spirited flavor and a unique authenticity. Faith sings that song with an audaciously vibrant flair and a believable innocence.
The two started playing music at age 3 with the violin, and then learned piano and guitar as well. In Harry’s case the drums became his newest instrumental addition. Both were trained on classical music until Faith started writing pop music and fell in love with it. I spoke with the two multi-talented artists regarding their career, their newest released project and their wishes and dreams. I found them to be extremely polished and candid, and surprisingly funny. Faith and Harry have the entire package going on, talent, creativity, sensibility and they are both beautiful. They are a success story about to happen!
So do you ever fight being so close in age?
Faith: We argue and that’s because we’re brother and sister and are close in age.
Your new song is kind of deep and emotional. What is the song about?
Harry: It’s about when someone is leaving to get a new job…
Faith: Or going on to college…. The song ‘Just Be There’ is about how hard it is when friends or family leave to get on with their lives, perhaps for university, to get married, or a better job. It hurts like crazy you can’t really understand why they have to go. You can’t stop them, but you know you have to tough it out because there’s nothing else you can do. Being the last two of seven we’ve seen siblings grow up and leave. I wrote the lyrics nine months ago. When I was younger I couldn’t understand why people move away, I wanted things to always stay the same. They don’t and the loss of siblings & friends hurts so much. Now I’m older I understand, but I wanted to write about these feelings as we all have loss in our life and we all feel helpless to stop people moving on.
So it’s about people you loved and miss?
Faith: it’s about how people come in and out of your life all the time. People go off to college, and it’s just about how people leave.
That’s a very relevant and identifiable topic. So if you could have your ultimate stage fantasy, what would you want to happen?
Faith: We’d love to have a band. A big band on stage with us, like The Amy Winehouse band.
Harry: And maybe we can have fire shooting out the side.
If you could open for anybody in the world or play on stage a long side someone, who would you choose?
Faith: I’d love to perform with Adèle.
Harry: I’d really love to perform with Sam Smith.
Faith And Harry – Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford
What’s it like for you two being very young rock stars?
Faith: It’s crazy busy at the moment. We have music to fit in, school to fit in, recording to fit in, it’s very chaotic.
But you’re having fun with it?
Faith: Oh, it’s really fun! It’s our dream. It’s what we want to do.
I know that you started learning music really young. When did you decide that you wanted to become pop stars?
Harry: we started music when we were three. Faith said that she wanted to play the violin. At the time she couldn’t spell or pronounce it very well. Until one day our mother found out that she meant violin. So then she started calling all of these music stores, but there was only one that said that she would teach her violin because they said if she can’t read she probably can’t play the violin.
Faith: Probably about five years ago we took a little break, and I started writing songs. I realized these weren’t classical songs like we had previously played. I was writing pop songs. We started realizing that if I was ever going to start writing like this I’d have to start practicing. So we took a little break, and we both decided we liked this new genre. We went from pop to folk and now we’re doing folk, jazz and pop together.
Harry you just took up the drums too?
Harry: Yeah, I started learning the drums, it’s really fun.
You guys spent half your time in the U.K. and half here in the U.S., do you have a preference of where you like to stay more?
Faith: We try to go to England as much as we can. We like both.
Harry, What Is Your Ultimate Stage Fantasy?
Harry: My ultimate stage fantasy …. my band to shoot from the top of stage on a bungie rope, Faith & I would parachute from a helicopter onto the stage, then gold confetti would cover everyone!
If you could say anything to your fans and followers, what would that be?
Faith: We like being goof role models to our fans, and be good influences for them. We tell them that if you have a dream don’t stop and wonder if you should do it or not. You should try and follow your dream.
If you could have one wish, what would that be?
Harry: My one wish is to be able to share my music with all the world. Maybe traveling would be a nice wish too.
Well said Harry. Can you think of a question that you’d like me to ask you?
Harry: What pets do you have?
Ok Harry, what pets do you have?
Harry: So we have two dogs, Cookie and Cowboy. Cowboy is a dachshund. We have Cookie and she looks like a chocolate cookie. She is also a dachshund. Cowboy is a black & white patchy dachshund, his patches look like cowboy chaps.
Alright Faith and Harry, please tell your mom I’m sorry I kept her up until 3:30 am last night.
Harry: She’s always doing things to help us and we’re very thankful for that…
Faith And Harry – Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford
Social media links:
https://m.facebook.com/faithandharryrowan/
https://twitter.com/faithandharry
https://www.instagram.com/faithandharryrowan
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7yxnoxyU8jV3VnRi4O7daS?si=5LDDACKxSfOvBbsqKSpfwA
