Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Full-Time Superstar - 09/15/2004


Full-time superstar: Har Mar Superstar wants to be taken seriously as a singer
Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune

September 15, 2004

To the rest of the world, he's Har Mar Superstar: the portly dude who stripped to his underwear on the Strokes tour; the funny guy who danced opposite Ben Stiller in "Starsky & Hutch"; the unlikely stud who has made out with Kate Moss at least a couple of times. To the rest of the world, he's Har Mar Superstar: the portly dude who stripped to his underwear on the Strokes tour; the funny guy who danced opposite Ben Stiller in "Starsky & Hutch"; the unlikely stud who has made out with Kate Moss at least a couple of times.

In the Twin Cities, he's still Sean Tillmann, the indie rocker who borrowed the name of a Roseville shopping mall and reinvented himself as a sexually provocative R&B singer.

He was still called Sean, anyway, by the steady stream of old friends who greeted him before his Summer Music & Movies gig in July, when he was back in Minneapolis for all of a day and a half.

On that day, Tillmann, 26, looked relaxed, happy, even normal -- especially when he introduced his mom and dad. The only flash of Superstar-isms he showed before taking the stage was when a couple of pretty young things complained about the humidity.

No Har Mar Superstar show is complete without a flash of underwear.

"Oh, yeah," he said coyly, "the ladies are already sweating."

Last week, Tillmann talked for an hour by phone from a hammock outside his record label's office in Los Angeles, where he now lives. The interview was part of the set-up for his new album, "The Handler," which hit stores this week with the sole goal of earning Har Mar a reputation more as a singer and less as a performer/satirist/clown.

By phone, he sounded tired and business-like. Except for a few laughing moments of humility -- such as when the hammock gave out from under him and he thudded to the ground -- he seemed every bit the Superstar. Har Mar Superstar's CD hit stores Tuesday. Jeff Wheeler Star Tribune In fact, he even admitted of his once-dual lives: "I am Har Mar Superstar now. Nothing's separate anymore." This, from the guy who used to go so far to distinguish himself from the Superstar persona -- sort of a dorky white guy living a black, '70s sugar-daddy's life -- that he claimed Har Mar was actually his brother.

U.K. to L.A. to 'D.U.I.'

Har Mar's claims to superstardom certainly are merited. He literally has enjoyed a jet-setting life over the past two years.

He spent last summer bouncing between London and the isle of Ibiza, near Spain, where he DJ-ed in a club frequented by celebrities. This summer, he bounced between L.A., New York and again to London.

Har Mar's star shines brightest in England, where he plays the biggest rock festivals, records with the hippest rock band (the Libertines), and regularly gets written up in the most-read tabloids (hence the Kate Moss hubbub).

"They like a lot more personality in their music in the U.K.," he explained. "Somebody like Usher won't last there because he has no personality."

"London sort of solidified me being Har Mar full-time. There, I actually have the reputation I alwa ys joked about: Beautiful women like me."

His reputation in New York is closer to what he dreamed of in his past life, that of an indie-rocker in local acts such as Sean Na Na and Calvin Krime. (The latter band was formed in Minneapolis in his late teens, after Tillmann left his native Owatonna.)

In New York, he also has become chummy with the city's hippest bands, the Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. He said he might relocate there from Los Angeles soon.

His move to L.A. last year, though, was a defining factor in "The Handler," for which he admitted, "I threw whatever indie-rock ethic I had left out the window."

That full leap into the album's unabashed mainstream/pop appeal started when he met another Minnesota-to-L.A. transplant, John Fields, the former Greazy Meal member who produced "The Handler" after producing albums by Mandy Moore and Andrew W.K.

Like Har Mar, Fields moved to L.A. to be closer to "the business" but wound up working with another Prince lover from back home. That Har Mar was no normal guy from back home was obvious to Fields when he went to see him DJ at a hip club in L.A. and "saw this kid from Owatonna in charge of the scene," he said.

"In addition to his talent and charisma, the guy is a social genius," said Fields, who invited Har Mar to his home studio on a whim.

That whim turned into the recording sessions. On their first day together, Fields and Har Mar laid the rhythm tracks to five of "The Handler's" 12 songs. The first completed track was actually "D.U.I.," the album's lead-off single, which is about dialing under the influence (i.e., drunkenly slurring over the phone). The rest came over about a month of steady work.

"Maybe it's the Minnesota thing, but we both like to work efficiently and not screw around," Fields said.

Serious stuff

L.A. had a greater influence on "The Handler" when Har Mar left Fields' house every afternoon. He said he took each day's tracks to his car stereo and drove around L.A. thinking up lyrics into the night.

"It was really the first time I had to kind of soak up the sun and reflect on all the crazy [stuff] that's happened to me ," he said.

"I don't think I could write these super-, mega-pop songs driving around Minneapolis. There would be this skewered angle to them. It's too easy to fall into the ironic trap there and be too tongue-in-cheek."

Songs like the partying opener "Transit" and especially "Save the Strip" -- in which he boasts of reigniting the Hollywood music scene -- are indeed very L.A.

Moreover, the music sounds like Hollywood: glossy production, sleazy rhythms, plastic attitude and unabashed pop ambition. Har Mar's singing, in particular, shows that ambition. It harks to '80s albums by Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Prince, when R&B was at its most mainstream and any sexual innuendos in the music somehow seemed more innocent (before Jacko turned Wacko and R. Kelly turned on the videocam).

"I wanted to make the kind of album I listened to when I was a kid dancing around, singing in my underwear," Har Mar said.

Former Prince drummer Michael Bland, for one, says Har Mar's talents as an R&B singer are genuine. Bland was among the wide array of Fields/Har Mar associates recruited to perform on "The Handler," including members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Northern State and Greazy Meal.

"You see people with a lot less talent making platinum records out of this kind of stuff," Bland said at the Loring Park gig, where he and Fields played Har Mar's backing band. On his fall tour coming to the Triple Rock in Minneapolis in late October, he'll be backed by a duo he uses in England.

"He might be a funny guy, but I think he can seriously sing," Bland said.

Har Mar's sense of humor is still prevalent on "The Handler." Even in the CD-opening "Transit," a chorus of girls sing about wanting to have Har Mar's babies. In "As (Seasons)," he fantasizes about a girl in moon boots. Even in the way-tender ballad "O," he slips in, "This one goes out to the people that love me."

Still, the thought that he's anything but a serious musician makes Har Mar cringe harder than the people who've seen his stripteases on stage.

"I don't want to be Al Yankovic," he said firmly. "To be written off as some kind of a joke is really insulting, especially when you work as hard as I have.

"That's about all that's left of my [indie-rock] past. I work my ass off and live this 365 days a year. Everything I've gotten up until now I've basically gotten on my own. That's serious."

It's the ultimate conundrum for the Superstar. His irony-drenched indie-rock past makes it hard for him to be seen as genuine. On the other hand, it's what also makes him eons more respectable than other R&B-copping white singers with far less talent, such as, say, Britney Spears.

Now, if he could get Britney to make out with him.

I used to go shopping at Har Mar when I was a kid.

minneapolisgenius said:

And I was just there last week.
I admit, I'm so turned off by his presence that I cannot dig his music at all.

I used to go shopping at Har Mar when I was a kid.

minneapolisgenius said:

i passed by har mar on my way out to rosedale a couple weeks ago.

as for that superstar-guy...i keep hearin about 'im but have never heard anything by him. he's in shitty pages (city pages) like every other week or somethin, ain't he?

Love Har Mar, Seen him live this year, hes very funny, its all tongue in cheek but he is very funky!

Well, getting the CD this morning has totally made this day fanfuckingtastic. Just sitting here at work listening to this shit, NICE.

I actually really dig his looks. It's like -- to look like that and still exude such confidence, like "I'm sexy and you know it" - I dunno, it makes me feel good about being human.

Yeah, I know I'm fuckin' weird. Try to find a song online or something, seriously. This stuff is fun. Heh, I swear on one track he samples, that [i]ssssshhhhBANG!]/i] sound from "High," you know the one I'm talking about - except here, it's all slowed down. Hell, it almost definitely ISN'T a sample, but I'm diggin' it nonetheless.

I'm gonna go home and expose my hairy buttcrack and shake it like I just don't care.

Well, you know I have no problem with artists being less than "perfect" in the looks department. That is my biggest problem with music these days: that most people have recording contracts because they fit a certain "look". So my earlier comment about him being "not very easy on the eyes" was sort of joking.

Although, looking again at that pic of him in the Speedo.....I don't know.

The thing I like about Har Mar Superstar is that if the Har Mar Mall got shot by a ray that made it into a human, it probably really would look a lot like him.

minneapolisgenius said:

Oh I hear ya. He's aggressively grody! It's fantastic. But then, I'm a HUUUUUGE fan of Strangers With Candy, especially the second season where they were making Jeri Blank almost physically painful to look at she was so ugly.....there's something about in-your-face confidence in being sexy despite the overwhelmingly obvious evidence to the contrary that gets my river flowin'.

Agreed, the Speedo is a bit much. You should click on here for a shot o' the real hot nasty. Seriously, go ahead, it's his look:

http://www.harmarsupersta...armar.html

Har Mar is so sexy....he gets all the ladies...
I want him to touch me....Cause I wanna have his babies
Na-na na-na-nah!