Eliza Hardy Jones | Photo by Ryan Collerd | ryancollerd.com | courtesy of the artist
XPN Fest Preview: Veteran sidewoman Eliza Hardy Jones takes center stage
Eliza Hardy Jones is a seasoned side-woman. She plays keys and sings in the Grace Potter band, Strand Of Oaks and Nightlands, she’s one-half of the founding partnership in Buried Beds. She excels in maintaining a stage presence that adds to live experience, begs the audience to turn their glances to her.
“Part of your job as a side person is to be a part of the performance,” she says. “You can’t stand there like a sad lump, like you’re bored. You have to be engaged to the music because that helps other people be engaged with the music.”
Hardy Jones has performed twice at XPoNential Music Festival before – once with Grace Potter and the other with Strand Of Oaks. This year she’ll perform, on the River Stage at Wiggins Park at at noon on Sunday, July 24, for the first time as herself. As a frontwoman.
Since the release of Strand Of Oaks’ HEAL in 2014, Timothy Showalter and Co. had consistently been touring. During brief breaks in that schedule, Hardy Jones would head to the studio to flesh out demos she’d been writing and demoing while on the road. Teaming up with seasoned Philly musicians Brian McTear, Nick Krill and Dave Hartley at Miner Street Recordings – as well as Krill, Eric Slick and Hartley at Dr. Dog’s studio in Upper Darby – Hardy Jones created what would become her debut solo album Because Become. The album’s ten tracks unfold like a nursery rhyme, sweet but with a hint of mystery. Hardy Jones’ vocals ring pure over a bevy of sonic soundscapes: keyboard-dominated ballads, boppy pop rock, synthy pop. If Metric met Kathleen Edwards, they’d make Because Become.
Despite its cohesiveness, Hardy Jones struggled to get a stronghold on the record’s sonic direction. All those years – and many bands – got caught in her head.
“When I wrote for Buried Beds, it was writing for that idea, for that band,” she said. “I just want to do something that’s limitless, that has no boundaries. In the demo writing process, it was kind of tricky. I played in country bands, I played classical music, all of my side things were all very different. It was hard for me to decide what is it that I am outside of all that.”
It wasn’t until she wrote eventual album opener “Criminal,” a standout track that builds from a synth crescendo and a single vocal line declaring “I am tired, I am cold, I am angry / I close my eyes and pretend you’re never with me” before introducing a pulsating guitar line and steady drumming. In the process, she began a lyrical trend of self discovery through veiled first-person narratives. It’s a grander exploration, though. Not a play-by-play of instances, but a trial in understanding.
“I have a sure sense of who I am as a person, but I feel pretty confused about what that means in a grand, universal scale,” Hardy Jones said. “It’s a very human impulse to search for meaning and there’s so many ways that we do that: We search for meaning through religion, through science, through love, through relationships, through partnerships, through careers. It’s a very powerful impulse, that search for meaning.”
Eliza Hardy Jones performs at the XPNFest River Stage at Noon on Sunday, July 24th. Tickets and more information can be found here.