Harlequin’s Ralph James on working with producer Jack Douglas and bucking economic trends with One False Move

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON OCT. 8, 1982

By Steve Newton

Harlequin–whose members include bassist Ralph James, singer George Belanger, drummer David Budzak, guitarist Glen Willows, and keyboardist Gary Golden–were actually “discovered” in the Hollywood sense of the word by associates of veteran producer Jack “Racoon” Douglas, the man responsible for bringing Aerosmith and Cheap Trick to prominence.

Two representatives of Douglas’s company came upon the quintet in February of 1978 while attempting to check out fellow Canuck rockers Goddo in a small Toronto nightclub. After being turned away because the Goddo gig was sold out, the talent scouts journeyed upstairs to take in the club’s other attraction that night–who just happened to be the band in question.

Taking Harlequin under his wing, Douglas produced their first album, 1979’s Victim of a Song, which contained the hit singles “Survive” and “You Are the Light”. The album went gold in Canada, but things didn’t really start to come together for the band until “Innocence” was released from the followup LP, also a Douglas production.

With the commercial success of One False Move, their latest, Harlequin have once and for all graduated from the prairie bar scene. Their travel itineraries now feature Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Australia, rather than just Lethbridge, Red Deer, and Portage la Prairie.

I talked to co-founder/bassist Ralph James recently about the band’s current international popularity, their new album, and their feelings on being a Canadian group.

I read somewhere where your guitarist, Glen Willows, stated that he thought it had now become an advantage to be a Canadian band. Do you agree with him on that?

I wouldn’t say that it’s an advantage. Your success here is not necessarily taken seriously in the United States, and that’s also the case with a lot of groups from Australia or Europe. A guy like Shakin’ Stevens might sell 10 million records in Europe and not be able to give them away in the States. Or groups like Roxy Music, who put out great album after great album, just don’t get that much action in the U.S.

But I think what Glen is referring to is that–certainly in the southern States, anyway–people are more willing to listen to you if you say you’re Canadian. We had a chance to play down there with Triumph last year, and in places like California, Texas, and Arizona there seemed to be quite a lot of interest in Canadian groups.

I understand that during the summer your group played in Puerto Rico and Venezuela, and went over well down there. How do you account for your popularity in places like that?

Actually, it was the song “Innocence” that got radio airplay down there. We weren’t even aware of it because the record, Love Crimes, hadn’t even been released in South America. We had no idea what happened! We were invited to tour there simply on the basis of that song’s popularity.

We opened for Saga in Puerto Rico and some promoters from South America were there and saw us and said, “Hey, we’ve heard this song…that song you do is getting played all the time on the radio down there. Do you want to come down and play?” So about a month later, there we were in Caracas.

The people down there don’t have any preconceived notions of what rock and roll is all about. They don’t speak English, so what they go for–and what I think Harlequin is all about–is a strong beat with a strong melody over top if it. Songs like “Innocence” and “I Did It For Love” are popular down there because, whether they can speak English or not, they can sing along with it.

How important has the work of ace producer Jack Douglas been to the success of Harlequin?

Well, he took us to New York a few years back to do a demo tape because the A&R departments of all the record companies in Canada weren’t interested in the band. A few other bands have had that problem; I’m sure the Loverboy story has been much publicized. Everybody turned them down as well. And they not only wouldn’t give us the time of day, they wouldn’t even listen to our band! So Douglas took us to New York and we recorded the demo tape that led to our deal with Epic.

He’s a very experienced engineer, and is fairly easy to get along with as far as production is concerned. He has very high standards of excellence as far as what he requires and what the album sounds like, but he’s not a dictator, as such, in the studio. He has a lot of good ideas, but doesn’t shove them down your throat.

You take on a producer. You’re saying, “We want somebody to help us with our sound.” What’s the point of hiring somebody unless you think he can help you? With Douglas you just have that confidence in the back of your mind when recording, knowing that things are under control.

Your first album, Victim of a Song, featured a lot more guitar solos and sounded much rockier than your latest. How has Harlequin changed or progressed musically over the past few years?

I think the progression has been a gradual one, certainly not a deliberate one where we’d say, “Well today we’re going to be techno-pop” or “Next week we’re going to be something else.” Our songwriting approach has become a little more sophisticated, as have our production techniques. We don’t really feel the need to play longer guitar solos every tune. If the song warrants a solo it’s there, and if it doesn’t it’s not.

I think what’s happened since the time of our first album is that the material is a lot more thought out. Whereas before a lot of the songs were written around a riff or a guitar line, now they’re being written more around lyrics and melody. Perhaps the instrumentalists are more confident in their abilities and don’t feel the need to be flashy.

Harlequin is obviously doing well now, but there must have been times, on long prairie road trips, when financial success seemed a long way off.

We’ve starved for years, there’s no question about that. There’s been hard times behind, and I’m sure there’s more hard times ahead yet. I mean it’s a very tough economic climate in this country. The government has got us into a real mess as far as the economy is concerned, and the music business is certainly being affected. However, we seem to be bucking the trend. Our records are selling better than they ever have!