Harlequiin
Production Powerhouse
PRODUCTION POWERHOUSE
After studying Jazz at Trinity College, Rory Simmons (AKA Harlequiin) got his big break touring with Jamie Cullum. “They needed someone who played trumpet and guitar, and I was the only one they could find,” Simmons says, with a smile. Eleven years later, he’s still got the gig, and has also toured with a series of other household names (Blur, Paolo Nutini, and Friendly Fires, to name a few), as well as working in the studio with the likes of Labrinth and Mount Kimbie. Furthermore, under his Harlequiin pseudonym, he has been co-writing and producing plenty of music, including a new EP, which he hopes will act as a pedestal for plenty more production collaborations. Words Paul Watson
I begin by asking Simmons to tell me a little more about Harlequiin, and what his work is all about. “As a producer, I have released quite a few jazz records as Harlequiin,” he says. Any reason for the odd spelling? “No reason, other than it stops you looking me up and thinking I’m a rugby club [smiles].” Being a Saracens [rugby] fan, I won’t personally be Googling Harlequins, but I do get his point. It’s also clear after no time at all that Simmons is as humble as he is talented; he’s an accomplished composer, multi-
Where Harlequiin makes the magic. Can you tell he plays guitar?
34 Headliner
instrumentalist, songwriter, co-writer, touring musician, and session musician. I could probably go on. So I decide to ask Simmons to take me through that journey. “Well, for the first 18 months after I left Trinity College, I did loads of weddings, and one off gigs, but then I got the Jamie [Cullum] gig, which was a massive turning point for me,” he explains. “The reason for that being they needed someone who could play trumpet and guitar, and I was the only one. So that’s 50/50 for me, that gig. At that point, I kind of went from being this ‘Nazi jazz person
who liked Björk and Tom Waits’, to someone who was suddenly open to a lot of other types of music. And then, over the last 10 years, my career has headed in that direction, and I got into co-writing, and then production.” According to Simmons, a lot of the skills he’s learnt as a session musician have been particularly useful when he is behind the desk, so to speak. “I remember distinctly when I was just a trumpet player sessioning in the studio, getting frustrated when producers said things in airy-fairy ways, but now I kind of do it,” he