Australian singer-songwriter Harts has enjoyed a great deal of success over the course of his career.
From being invited to spend time with Prince, to working with members of Jimi Hendrix's family, now he's on his way to Caloundra Music Festival and Byron Bay Guitar Festival to give crowds a taste of his Hendrix tribute show.
Harts has been compared to icons Prince and Jimi Hendrix since the beginning of his career and while initially he shied away from these comparisons, he has come to accept and appreciate them.
“You've gotta be proud of it and embrace it. I never really put the comparisons on myself, but when journalists or interviewers or fans, stuff like, that put those comparisons, I don't necessarily shy away from that anymore.
"I kind of take it for what it is and appreciate that people look at me in the same way that they look at iconic music legends like them. You have to be proud and happy about that.
“Because my guitar style is so similar to Hendrix, there'd always be punters in the audience yelling out 'play Hendrix!' or something like that. So I'd always end up getting that kind of thing, which is funny, which is fine. So I used to finish up a set a lot of the time with a Hendrix cover, either 'Voodoo Child' or 'Purple Haze'.”
Then, by pure chance, Harts ended up befriending Hendrix's nephew, which led to a one-off tribute show in Melbourne. “I was playing a show in New York and Jimi Hendrix's nephew was at the show. He'd heard about me, someone invited him along to come see the show.
"I spoke to him afterwards, we kind of kicked it off. We were just friends for a year, just talking about music and stuff and then one day I kind of asked him 'what would you think about me doing a Hendrix tribute show, not like an imitation, just like a tribute to him'.”
After being given the go-ahead, Harts set about putting a show together, keeping it as low-key as possible, as he wasn't sure how the show would be received. “I didn't know how the market was going to accept this type of show, so we didn't use a lot of stuff like footage, we didn't license a lot of things like that.
“We did the Melbourne show and people loved it, people really enjoyed it. We booked another one at Caloundra [Music Festival]. . . they think it'd be great for their festival, so we're doing that.”
Harts is keen to see how the performance translates to a festival crowd. “Caloundra will probably be like a straight-up rock gig, because I think that would go down really great with that kind of festival crowd, so I'm really looking forward to that.”
As if seeing the Hendrix tribute wasn't enough of a motivating factor, the musician has also hinted at the possibility of collaborating with Prince's former band, New Power Generation at the Caloundra festival.
“They're on the same stage as me, the same day, and they're right after me, last time I checked that's what it was, so it's like the perfect opportunity to do something. To be honest, I haven't been in touch with them yet but it's in a couple of months so I'll reach out and see what they're up to.”
