Deep down and dirty

Loud, brash and as catchy as the common cold, Dirty Harry are a London based noisepop outfit fronted by the confrontational yet very sweet Harry. Poised to release her debut CD recording, Nothing Really Matters, Harry has relentlessly been knocking on rock n' roll's door since an early age.

"We've been together as lots of different concoctions of the band," Harry begins. "An album of material was finished working with Youth, who did Killing Joke and The Verve's Urban Hymns and stuff, so I founded a band around that.

“I remember when I first got into rock music during the whole riot girl thing with Babes in Toyland and L7 and all those great bands, I used to read all those punk women books about feminism and all that shit. But I still thought there can't really be that many problems! I didn't really know what they were fighting against. Then once I started getting involved it was a case of ‘OK, now I understand!’ In the industry, men are actually very supportive. A lot of the problems we get are from females, especially older females, who don't really want to support the band. I thought girls would really like to come together on such a project which was female fronted and female controlled, but they don't like it. They like the guys to be there and I think they feel kind of threatened.

“But at the end of the day the music is good, its honest and its got integrity. I'm not fucking manufactured and we write our own shit. We've been touring and the kids love it so I'm really happy. It can be hard sometimes but we're winning."

Harry's no-nonsense musical vision is just as inspired by proper wholesome pop music as it is by leather clad mayhem.

"I was a huge Madonna fan and I got really into rock music," she explains. "I became really drawn to mixing great pop melodies and sensibilities with great song structure. When I started off shoving my stuff around when I was 16, people in the industry just wanted the next Britney Spears or Christine Aguilera. I was totally ‘No. I don't want to do that. I don't care how much money you offer me. I want to do rock!’ As soon as all the nu-metal stuff took off, everyone started jumping for it. Timing is everything and luckily we're in a good time, but I don't think we are like any of those bands. We supported Disturbed in Glasgow and Manchester and there were nine year old kids wearing Slipknot T-shirts. I think that is really exciting because they've been force fed pop music for so long and now they want something different. That's the generation that I belong to. I remember when I first listened to Nirvana and it changed my head completely."

While she reveres Nirvana as much as anyone, Harry is wary of many contemporary Nirvana worshippers.

"People who get really precious like JJ72 are just really tripe. I'm not into it. I don't think they're about rock n' roll. Its too much like the Manic Street Preachers and I don't find that very speed rock. I'm very much from the American school of being hard and heavy and having a message. Those bands may namecheck Nirvana, but I don't see that raw energy when you go to a gig and feel threatened and scared by something. Any art or music or experimentation in any sense should change the way you look at things, how you stand on things and how you feel about yourself."

Proof that Harry is doing something right came along in the godlike punk rock form of Sex Pistol Glen Matlock.

"He wants to write some songs with me," Harry enhuses. “I feel that it shows me that I'm doing the right thing. Out of all the bands about today, he wants to take some time out and write some songs with me because he feels a similar passion for music. Maybe nothing may come of it, but its still really exciting to just meet up and exchange ideas. If you come to one of our shows you might be shocked to see a female who is very confrontational, but take comfort in the fact that someone else is saying what you think. It is OK to be different and its OK to be really 'fuck you!' You can be a really nice person and fucking go crazy at the same time!”

Nothing Really Matters is out now on Dirty World Records.