Q&A: PJ Harding On New Music, The Art Of Songwriting, Noah Cyrus, Leonard Cohen And More

I first became familiar with Australian singer/songwriter PJ Harding when I became a fan and then became friendly with Noah Cyrus. The two stunning talents are frequent collaborators, a sort of George Jones and Tammy Wynette for the twenty-first century.

Just as they both also explored their solo material, Harding is doing the same. He released a superb single, “It’s Not Enough” today (May 5). And he’ll be releasing an EP, To Fall Asleep, June 16.

It is a powerful collection, one that shows again why Harding is one of the most gifted wordsmiths working in music today. We talked with the affable and funny Harding about fatherhood and how that impacts his songwriting, what he looks for in collaborators, the genius of Leonard Cohen and more.

Steve Baltin: As the kids have gotten older, has it changed your dynamic to songwriting? Because writing by nature is a solitary experience, but now you have this whole world that waits for you when you come out.

PJ Harding: Yeah, it changes almost every aspect of how you use your time. [chuckle] They’re always there, they’re in everything. But I think it definitely had a big impact. Things like we were literally in lockdown, literally could not get space from each other even if we wanted to [laughter]. And that does pose difficulties, but it also creates a different sort of environment. Maybe a slightly less pressured environment or something, or less precious. Which can be good because sometimes if the space you’re trying to create from is too hallowed and precious you sometimes feel like you can’t come up with anything worthy. Whereas if it’s just you’re squeezing in time in between feeding your kids and bathing them or whatever it is you have to do there’s a lot lower pressure. It’s just another thing you do.

Baltin: Do you feel you’re just enjoying music more now because you have this very full life outside of it? So it’s like you said, it’s not as precious.

Harding: Yeah, something like that. It’s definitely a complicated feeling because of course, when you have kids then you have this thing of having to take care of them and provide for them and make sure that financially you’re in a position where you’re all gonna have food on the table. And that can add its own pressure. But I think, yeah, if you’re sort of through that part of the journey and not worried so much about those things, it just adds a different element to it. It definitely changes the stakes of everything. And whenever I sit down to write songs, I go right for the highest stakes things most of the time. There it’s always about death or our acceptance of death or something. And I think having kids, only kind of make you more attuned. Well, for me, with that stuff. They’re little extensions of yourself. My mom always used to say, having kids was like pulling out a piece of your own heart and having it just walk away and go and do things. And that can be incredibly stressful. And I’m lucky I get to work mostly from home and I get to be around. It would really suck having to leave your kids to go to work every day. And I’m very grateful that I get to be around them and their insane energy.

Baltin: What to you is the best song about death and why?

Harding: I’ve never tried to answer that question. The best song about death? Maybe my definition of a song about death is broader than most, because I think a lot of things end up being about death, that maybe are not necessarily, explicitly about it. But, I would say something like, “Hallelujah,” one of the greatest songs of all time is probably, something that gets me close to a song about the acceptance of death. Why? [laughter] I don’t know. For some, it can be very hard to pull apart a perfect song like that. But that’s where it takes me. It’s like there’s hope in it and there’s sort of pain and misery and exultation, all of these different things that, where my head goes when I try and think about life and what’s still down the road for us. But yeah, that would be my answer. That’s my answer for most.” What’s your favorite song about X?” [laughter] It’s just, Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah.” It’s withstood so many, different interpretations and I think that’s also the mark of a timeless classic. And yeah, that song, it’s magic. I feel like it’s something he would not have grasped at the time he was writing that song just how crazy a thing it was to write. But it really is a perfect piece of art. And we have so few of those in the world. I’m really glad we have that one.

Sage Bava: I love that you brought up that song. The line, “I’ll stand right here before the Lord of Song” was testament to me why Steve and I should write this book on music and spirituality, because so many songwriters have this connection to something from beyond, whatever that might be. And I love that line, the Lord of Song. It just says everything.

Harding: Yeah. when you’re a songwriter when it works, you have very little to do with it. So, yeah, we’re standing before something for sure. It’s not coming from me when it comes at its best.

Bava: When’s the last time that you had that feeling of being a channel and what was the song that you had come out of that?

Harding: I had a great experience earlier in the year. I went to L.A. just to work with Noah for like 10 days. And one of the days we wrote this really incredible song. I was going back to my Airbnb and I was just so grateful for music at that point. I’d just gotten so much out of having written that song that I was exhilarated and it had just given so much back to me. And so the following day we went in and I was like,” I’d really love to write a song about that feeling, about how grateful I am for music and for the ability to write songs.” We wrote a song that day that is just one of my favorite songs ever. It’s called, “There Was a Song,” and it’s about music and songwriting, and the way that it’s this beautiful thing that can save you and make it all worth living. And so, between those two days I really like, yeah, something totally magical had happened. And it’s funny you don’t really get that many of those days. There’s certainly a couple like the single that I’m just about to release, “It Wasn’t Enough,” is one of those songs, where it happened quite quickly and at the end I just felt something had happened [laughter]. That I had just sort of witnessed. That’s what you feel much more a witness to something when it works like that.

Baltin: So I have to ask an obvious question. When are we going to hear this song, “There Was a Song?”

Harding: That’s definitely one we’ll do together. So, it could be our next project together. Hopefully soon. I’m gonna try. I really I’m keen to have that song out in the world, so, we’ll see how we’re going.

Baltin: What is it about you and Noah that allows you guys to just work so well together and did you know it right away?

Harding: I think the last time we spoke, I talked about us sharing instincts and I definitely think that is a part of it. It’s like there’s some things that you can’t really put into words clearly. It’s just like you have a gut feeling about something when you’re writing a song about what direction it should go. And some of that is based on, just like aesthetics and things that appeal to you. But I do think there’s something else, like something a little bit more unknown. And yeah, I think finding that, it’s like a wavelength thing. And I don’t know that I knew it straight away. We wrote “July,” the first song we wrote it was such a good writing experience and we followed it up with a bunch more. And I think it was probably like two or three songs in, I was like, “Well this is really working. This is easy.” They were all positive experiences that led to great songs. And that’s kind of unusual. Sometimes you have a really positive experience, writing with someone and the song is eh, you know? And sometimes you struggle through something, but you get a pretty good song at the end of it. But this just felt easy in all the right ways. Yeah, I don’t know what it is. We’re both sad girls [laughter].

Baltin: Noah calls me her soul sister. She’s the only person in the world who’s allowed to call me her soul sister. But when Noah called me her soul sister at the last interview, I took it as a great compliment.

Harding: Yeah. She has a very particular way with words, that’s very endearing. [laughter]

Baltin: What do you look for now in collaboration? You’ve worked with so many people, but obviously Noah raises the bar so high.

Harding: Honestly, I’m just chasing more of that thing that Noah and I have. And I know that’s you’re unlikely to get that, but I’m always looking for people who are willing to go to dark scary places and are doing it with creative energy and honesty. The thing that I can’t sort of stomach is going into sessions where we’re talking about, “What type of song do we want to write? Or I really need this sort of a song for the project.” This kind of writing to pitch. I don’t hate it. There is like creative energy in there to writing something to a brief, there is like, it’s not all bad, but I know that if we’re doing that, then we’re not leaving room for the Lord of Song or whatever it is to enter the chat, you know? And you’ve got to leave that space. My favorite thing is when I say, “So what do you wanna write today?” And someone’s like, “I don’t know let’s just see what, let’s see what happens”. Yeah.

Baltin: What made this the right time for the EP?

Harding: This is much later than I thought this EP was going to come out. The EP has actually been finished for 18 months or something. So there were some hold-ups and we sort of wanted to get everything in the right place. And my attitude with my solo stuff is basically, “I don’t feel like I need to be doing it” [laughter]. I know this can sound bad, but I suppose signing the record deal, which I did when we were living in L.A., I was kind of unsure about the whole thing. Because I knew that there was so much about being an artist, being the person at the center of a project that I really did not like at all. And I was hesitant to get into that. But we talked with them and I was very upfront about all of those fears and all of those thoughts. And my feeling was, if it can just be music led, if it can just be about the songs, then I love it, then I’m into this whole project. Unless everything was right and it was just how I wanted it, then my feeling was “I’m not gonna put it out, I’m not gonna do it because I don’t want it enough. I don’t particularly want to be trying to grind out this artist thing. I want to be making music that I love and am passionate about. ” So, I think that was a part of why it took so long. The time that I wrote the EP was such a creatively rich time. It was the same time that Noah and I wrote our EP together. So all of those songs were written in the same two or three month period as all the songs off this EP. And I knew it would get released at some point. I just didn’t think it would be in the middle of 2023. But, I’m glad we’re here and I’m glad that it feels all very me and everything around it feels it honors the material. I don’t feel like I’m having to sell something or put a different spin on something to sell it. I feel like we’re just offering something up.

Bava: I’m curious with it being your project, did it take you quite a while to hone in on the sound that you wanted since you were living in these other artists’ worlds?

Harding: It’s a good question. In this particular case, it was not that difficult because really the EP are just the demos. They’re just the earliest incarnations of the songs, which is something I do a lot. Even when I’m writing for other people, I’ll often be the person that demos the material at first and puts down a scratch guitar and some little quick harmonies or whatever it is. And I think, because none of the recording was done in studios, it was all done in bedrooms and living rooms and wherever I happened to be, there was an energy there that I really liked. So I would say it came more from wanting to preserve that. I’ve got a big thing at the moment where I just want to capture things as near to the point of their creation as possible and have that be the record. Have that be what people hear is someone singing something as close to the point of having written it as possible. Because I do think there is magic in that. So I would say in terms of the sonically, in terms of the sound of the whole project, it was much more driven by just wanting to put out the demos basically, put out the very initial recordings of the songs.

Bava: Do you have kind of ritualistic practices when you collaborate with people? Or is it always a different situation depending?

Harding: I think it’s always pretty different. Especially if I’m working with an artist. Like when you work with other writers, and you’re writing for someone else or you’re just getting together to write a song it can be a different energy. And songwriters, you would know, they’re good to talk to, they’re intelligent often, well-traveled, interesting people, a lot of fun to be around. You can have fun and write a song at the same time. Often with artists there can be insecurities and anxieties and there’s stress about what this song means and what the song’s gonna say about them. There’s another reason it’s so easy with Noah. I try and encourage artists to get in touch with what they want to say, who they are, and try and be like, “This doesn’t have to be all of you. This is just one little thing. You don’t need to find something that’s going to be your definitive that says everything the world needs to know about you.” And so, that’s very different because that’s sort of based on the artist’s energy and what they bring into the room.

Baltin: What do you want people to take from the EP?

Harding: Hopefully you really like the record because I love words and playing with them. But there is something when you can just like very nonchalantly hit at something true and that can just sort of stop people. Those are the best lyrics. And sometimes they’re not super flowery or ornate. It’s just like you just say a thing. But yeah, that’s what I hope this EP is. That’s what it is for me. Some of my favorite things I’ve ever written are on it.