The Weeks Between • HS

Week 1 • Harry

>>>>>>>>>> THE MONTHS LEADING UP TO WEEK 1:

I released Fine Line, my second solo album, this past December. As I always do when an album comes out, I had an entire year of promoting and touring planned. My calendar was probably over booked, if I'm honest. Then, March 2020 hit, and Covid happened, and much like the rest of the world did, I found myself crashing into a forced pause. Into a time of solitude like I had never known.

Since the ripe old age of sixteen, I could count the number of times on one hand that I had been alone for more than a week. Alone with my thoughts, my mind pointing out all of the ways that I was failing those I loved most in order to repeatedly prove that I could make it in the music industry. That was the irony though, wasn't it? That now, with a new album released, millions of followers on social media, a sold out world tour on the horizon with millions of people literally waiting to cheer me on, I sat with a single digit list of people in my 'pod' that I could connect with in-person for the foreseeable future. The world, as we once knew it, had completely halted.

I was able to do some promotion prior to March. I sat down with Zane Lowe for an interview, did the Rolling Stone and Howard Stern interviews and played a few shows right after the album came out, but the tour wasn't set to begin until spring. 

I remember the day management got the news of the first few cancelled shows. Each day, more tour locations pulled the plug. Eventually, nobody was touring. Venues across the world were closed with lockdowns in many countries that made it nearly impossible to sell enough tickets to break even. To top it all off, my personal doctor also warned that my asthma put me at higher risk for problems with the virus that already took so much from me.

Depression set in, as it did with many people. I finally had time to think, and my mind was not a kind one in the early days of our stay-at-home orders. Stuck in L.A., because England was nearly impossible to get back to when the shit really hit the fan, we had already postponed/cancelled our European tour dates. Now, I was faced with the entire North American tour likely meeting the same fate.

The Watermelon Sugar video, which was filmed before people had to disconnect, was ready. Timing it to release in a world lacking connection seemed both genius and torturous. Some strange form of poetic justice for a world void of touching. It came out on a Monday, May 18th, so I had quite a few phone/video interviews to do related to that on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. After that, I was finally able to fly out; landing quietly in London in the early morning hours of May 22nd.

••••••

----- Phone call from Jeff -----

"Jeff, I don't want to have to post another fucking delay," I say into the phone, my voice raised in frustration. Yes, I'm upset about not being able to tour, but bigger is the effect it is going to have on all of the people that I employ on tour. If I don't perform, they don't get a paycheck, and that is a heavy load to carry as an artist under the current circumstances.

"Have we figured out what it would cost to pay the band and main crew at least half of their expected salaries?" I ask Jeff, and he tells me that accounting is working on it. I had already paid my main European tour crew, and the band, knowing that if I don't work, they don't work. The difference is that I was still making money because my album was out and people had nothing to do but stay home and listen to it.

"Well, I don't really care what it cost me. I can afford it and many of those people can't afford to lose their livelihoods right now. Please just expedite the process with accounting and tell them that they will also be paid when the tour can actually move forward. I don't want them to think that this is in place of payment for future dates. Understood?"