Kids of famous folks

Two talented offspring will bring heartfelt folk melodies to Bloomington this week.
Elvis Perkins will perform at 8 p.m. Thursday at The Video Saloon, and Harper Simon will perform at 9 p.m. Friday at The Bishop.

Perkins is the son of Anthony Perkins, whose claim to fame came when he starred as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.”

Spirit of ’68 Promotions director Dan Coleman said it was just a coincidence that he booked the artists for the same week.

“I have been trying to get Elvis Perkins to play for two years since ‘Ash Wednesday’ was released, and it just sort of fell in my lap,” he said.

Coleman said because Perkins has been around for a while touring with Cold War Kids and other bands, he has more of a fan base than Simon.

“Harper is still trying to find his voice, so his fans are on the rise and they have that curiosity factor,” he said.

‘It’s just in the DNA’

The similarity between Simon and Garfunkel’s Paul Simon and his son Harper Simon is noticeable, but Harper Simon said it is not intentional.

“I am not trying to imitate him; I just sing how I sing,” he said. “It’s just in the DNA.”  
He added that having a famous name is a disadvantage.

“People assume it’s a vanity project, a somewhat naturally regarded suspicion, and have contempt prior to investigation of music,” Simon said.

Simon said he is influenced by Neil Young, Bob Dylan and The Byrds. His self-titled debut album was inspired by psychedelic country music from the late ’60s and early ’70s.

Simon co-produced four songs on the album with legendary producer Bob Johnston, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen.

“It was an unusual cast. We mixed up older legendary players with new contemporary people,” Simon said of his collaborations.

Another famous offspring, Sean Lennon, played drums on the track “The Audit,” and Paul Simon co-wrote a few of the songs.

Harper Simon said he was resistant about being the person to carry an entire project by himself.

“Some people are born with the thirst for attention and spotlight,” he said. “I just wasn’t that kind of person.”

He said when he hits the stage he tries to give the crowd a show he would want to see.

“On stage I try to be as honest as I can and give the crowd a good rock ‘n’ roll show,” Simon said.

‘Ash Wednesday’

When Perkins was recording his new EP, “The Doomsday,” with his band, Perkins in Dearland, he was faced with a new reality of needing to write songs in order to complete a record.

For his previous album, “Ash Wednesday,” Perkins said in an e-mail interview that he had too many songs to choose from, many of which had been laying in a wait of sorts for several years.

“On that record there were little to no external/industrial forces bearing on the process of the writing or recording, and I didn’t have much of a conception that those songs were going to be heard by anyone,” Perkins said in the e-mail.

Having a solid and unambiguous band on the EP seemed to make for a different experience and sound from his first record.

“There were more ideas floating around and more capacity to realize them easily,” Perkins said in the e-mail.

For Perkins, it is not so easy to gauge his influences, which range from Yes to John Lennon.

“There are so many things musical and non musical that influence all of us every second,” he said in the e-mail.