Thankfully, Graphic Nature − completed by guitarist Matas Michailovskis, bassist Charlie Smith and drummer Jack Bowdery − gives Harvey an opportunity to wrestle, creatively, with his thoughts and fears. In his previous bands, he’d been the drummer. Writing lyrics came later and quickly provided an outlet for exploring the many avenues of his specialist subject.
“I know so much about video games and movies, but I know more about mental health,” says Harvey. “It’s a hyperfixation that I can put into words, without even having to think, because I’ve been dealing with it for 30 years now.”
On the band’s early single, grit, Harvey explored the control of addiction. On a mind waiting to die, the explosive White Noise deals with neurodivergence, written in the aftermath of Harvey abandoning a social situation that left him on the verge of a panic attack. Killing Floor, meanwhile, is something of an exception in the Graphic Nature oeuvre. It tells the story of a man who’s consumed too many violent films, pondering the harm he could do to others.
“It still relates to me in a weird way,” Harvey reveals, slightly alarmingly. “I’m not saying I’m going to go and fucking kill people, but he’s very introverted in the same ways that I am.”
Harvey used to think there was an indistinguishable line between his heroes and the music they made. He can pinpoint the two moments he found out how painfully wrong he was. The first was on May 24, 2010, when Paul Gray, bassist of Slipknot – the band Harvey had idolised ever since a classmate introduced him to their debut album – was found dead in a Des Moines hotel room. The second date was the following day, when Paul’s eight bandmates sat alongside his brother and widow at a press conference. Some delivered statements, shakily and sobbing; others, unable to find the words so soon, remained silent.
Harvey was taken aback by what he saw. His heroes were not just unmasked but undone. Somehow, thanks to the terrifying theatricality of their image and the attack-is-the-greatest-form-of-defence intensity of their music, the teenager had lost sight of there being men, who loved and lost, behind the monstrousness.
“It was suddenly apparent to me that Slipknot was a persona and these were real humans going through some really fucking horrible stuff,” recalls Harvey now, still surprised by his naïvety. “That’s when I realised it can be separated and not everyone is as tough as they seem behind the masks they wear.”