Melbourne musician Darren Hart performed at Bluesfest over the weekend where he announced to the eager crowd that this year could be the last we see of him. Understandably, fans have been a bit worried and confused, especially following Harts’ recent assurance that two albums of new material were on the way.
Following the onstage announcement, which also saw Harts smashing his beloved guitar, the muso took to Twitter to try and clear things up for fans.
“For those that were there, l’m sure you could see my emotions/built up frustration got the better of me last night,” Harts began. “Never intended to smash my most beloved instrument, and it definitely wasn’t fun doing it. But this moment captures a rare glimpse into my reality. I guess you could only understand it if you knew the full context of what was going on in my world.”
“All the bottled up rejection, failures, and unachieved goals over the last 10 years in music really piles up. It’s real, and I can no longer hide it all behind a smile,” he continued. “I pour my heart and soul into everything I do, and last night a bit of frustration came out too. Life goes on and I will soldier on.”
“To all the people who understood this, thank you. For those who didn’t, thank you too. But to me, it was definitely a fitting climax/anti-climax to what just MAY be my last major music festival.”
— Harts (@harts_) April 1, 2018
Now, speaking to triple j’s Hack, Harts outlined the frustrations he was feeling at the time of the guitar smashing incident, noting that there was “a lot of built-up emotion that was coming out of that moment.”
“We had technical issues on stage and y’know that was really getting to me, and lately i’ve been really reflective about my music,” Harts explained. “At that point I was singing one of my songs, ‘Power’, and we were finishing the set, and that song’s about love and particularly, justice, and it kind of just put me in another zone, and I think it all just came out.”
“It was completely spontaneous, and to be honest, I wish I didn’t do it because I love that guitar”
https://twitter.com/harts_/status/980267040819654657
“Sometimes out of chaos comes a bit of clarity, and out of that moment, all this stuff that’s come out about it has really made me rethink what exactly I want to do here, and what exactly I want to pursue in music,” he continued.
“I think a lot of it stems from who I am as an artist and the underlying frustration of not fitting in. I feel I’m rejected a lot on the basis of the style of music I want to create and the style of music I love to create, rather than the artistic merit of the work itself. I feel though my music is somewhat discriminated upon because it doesn’t fit a popular mould, or it doesn’t fit the mould of today.”
Harts also explained how his association with Prince has resulted in being somewhat of a double-edged sword noting that, “it was a blessing, definitely, but it was also a bit of a curse.”
“It gave me that overnight platform and the name instantly, but the consequences of that was something that I didn’t expect, and that was the constant comparisons to him that I was yet to shake,” Harts said. “People rarely let my music as Harts stand alone without referencing Prince and I feel as though that was not the reason he wanted to meet me.”
However, the good news is that this doesn’t spell the end of Harts entirely, but rather the end of this current project, noting that he’d like to expand his current musical horizons by making “music without guitars,” amongst other things.
While we’ll have to wait and see what the future does hold for Harts, we can rest easy knowing that Darren Hart doesn’t wish to wave goodbye to the world of music entirely just yet.
Check out Harts’ ‘Power’:
