Through Drug Addiction & Death, Music Has Always Been Beth Hart's Constant

It’s midnight in Paris, and Beth Hart has just played a private gig, with her longtime collaborator Joe Bonamassa, for a “really rich guy” and 1,800 of his friends, at a birthday party. It wasn’t the only birthday being celebrated, though: it’s also Hart’s 47th birthday. With another year in the books, the blues-rock singer-songwriter — famous for her voice, a wildly-expressive howl — is in a contemplative mood. All the difficulties of her youth and the success of her career feel, at this point, part of a greater continuum.

“As I’m learning more, I’m actually being more challenged than I ever was before,” Hart says. “I guess it’s about getting older. I know that I’m going to lose people that I love, I’m going to die myself, so everything seems to be getting somehow sweet, and more important, and more special, and more humbling, and more challenging, and more terrifying, all at the same time.”

Hart grew up in Los Angeles, a place she always felt “disconnected from, and grossed-out by”. She lived through various traumatic experiences: when she was little, she was held up in a home invasion robbery. Her elder sister, Sharon, died young, of complications from AIDS. “I used to feel so frickin’ sorry for myself,” Hart offers. “[But] I don’t feel like I’m being punished, anymore. I feel like I’ve been really blessed. Because it’s helped me see how fortunate I am to be alive.”

Throughout it all — Hart also long struggled with drug addiction — music has been her one constant. “I’ve been in therapy since I was five, but music goes way, way, way, way, way beyond therapy,” she offers. “To me, it’s a total connection to God, to angels, to people that’ve passed away, to a higher consciousness. It’s really a way to connect to something that can give me answers to questions that I’m begging to have answered.”

"Music goes way, way, way, way, way beyond therapy."

When music comes to Hart in different genres, it suggests what she needs to express: “If it’s something jazzy, it’s usually something that’s going to be a little evil or a little sexy. If it’s more rock’n’roll, then it’s usually going to be more angry... Things that are more blues or gospel [evoke] things you’ve been able to triumph over, or that you’re begging to triumph over.”

Hart used to struggle with lyrics. The great rock’n’roll songwriter Jerry Leiber once told her: “‘You touch around where the depth is, but you don’t jump in. You’re hiding.’” Hart said it pissed her off, but, years later, it eventually came home to roost. “I realised, as I got older, [I found lyrics hard] because I was a liar. I’d hide, behind all my denials, so I wouldn’t have to feel what’s really going on.

“Now, when I’m struggling with the lyrics,” Hart continues, “I don’t say, 'Oh, I’m not feeling inspired; oh, it’s writer’s block.’ Bullcrap! It’s got nothing to do with writer’s block. It has everything to do with being terrified to face the truth. So, that’s when I know I’ve gotta start digging, and pray to God I don’t have a nervous frickin’ breakdown as I dig.”

Hart deals with bipolar disorder, and has since she was young. “My doctors say that it was that trauma that made my bipolar come out really early,” she offers. She used to believe that her struggles were entwined with her songwriting. It took her years to learn that being on medication didn’t mean the death of creativity: “The brain has a way of rewiring itself, and it might take two, three years,” she offers. “And, if you can wait it out, man, the creativity becomes so much deeper than when you were nuts.”

Talking about bipolar has become “a great passion” of Hart’s, especially after so many doctors told her there was no way she could handle a career in music. “I just refused to believe that,” she says. “If you work hard at something, you’re going to find a way that you can live in this life, no matter what your handicaps are. So, I talk about this all the time... It’s really important to me. More important than who I am as an artist, that’s for sure.”