“Existential homecoming”: Har Mar Superstar aka Sean Tillman on the evolution of his music career from sweaty solo act to full band bonanza, his brand new LP Roseville including two songs for Midlife Mixtape listeners, and his pandemic postal pivot.

Find Har Mar Superstar:

* Website: HarMarSuperstar.com

* Instagram: @harmarsuperstar

* Twitter: @harmarsuperstar

* Spotify: Har Mar on Spotify

* Bandcamp: Har Mar on Bandcamp

* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYrE-FBRjAccgk6gdrQv9jQ

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here! ***This is a rough transcription of Episode 92 of the Midlife Mixtape Podcast. It originally aired on March 16, 2021. Transcripts are created using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and there may be errors in this transcription, but we hope that it provides helpful insight into the conversation. If you have any questions or need clarification, please email [email protected] ***

Sean Tillman aka Har Mar Superstar

Making it by distance actually opened up a lot of creative space that I never would have been able to access. We definitely made an album that we would never have been able to make and I’m really proud of it and I think it’s one of the best records I’ve ever been a part of.

Nancy Davis Kho 00:18

Welcome to Midlife Mixtape, The Podcast. I’m Nancy Davis Kho and we’re here to talk about the years between being hip and breaking one.

[THEME MUSIC – “Be Free” by M. The Heir Apparent]

Nancy 00:42

Hi listeners, it’s me, Nancy Davis Kho, creator and host of the Midlife Mixtape Podcast and author of The Thank-You Project: Cultivating Happiness One Letter of Gratitude at a Time. If you ever spent an afternoon with a cassette tape and recorder hoping to hear a specific song come on the radio so you could hysterically press “Record” in the split second before it started, you’re in the right place.

This is a special episode and here’s why: I invited one of my all-time favorite live performers onto the show to talk about the years between being hip and breaking one, and he said yes. So I’m dispensing with the ads for today’s episode and we’re gonna get right to it. This, my friends, is how you handle a bucket list guest.

Today I’m talking with Har Mar Superstar, also known as Sean Tillman. Har Mar Superstar started as a solo, modern pop R&B side-project for Sean back in 1999. Hailing from the Twin Cities, Sean quickly gained notoriety worldwide for boisterous, sweaty live shows that often ended disrobed down to a pair of briefs. Him! Not the audience! I don’t know, maybe both.

He toured the world, priding himself on being an “artist’s artist,” championed by his peers like The Strokes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Faint, who were among the bands that selected him as a main-support opening act.

As time passed the shtick began to fade and gave way to more honesty in his albums & live performances, with the solo act morphing into a full band. Everything really came together with the release of Har Mar’s landmark, classic soul album Bye Bye 17 in 2013, followed by 2016’s album Best Summer Ever. By then, the band had grown into an unstoppable 7-piece behemoth,