Indie soul musician Har Mar Superstar decided to start working as a mailman while the COVID-19 pandemic is preventing him from touring. He’s still working on music, but decided to apply for the full-time job as a spontaneous decision. He has been doing that for the past five weeks.
Upon finding out, a Twin Cities magazine called MPLS St. Paul followed him around on his shift and asked him some questions. The job title is technically “City Carrier Assistant” (CCA) and it reportedly pays $17 an hour plus overtime. Har Mar Superstar was hired almost immediately and it became his first regular job in 20 years. His last job was proofreading for the Minnesota Department of Education, right across from his namesake, the Har Mar Mall.
He’d considered “quitting music and getting a real job” many times before, but never went through with it. When he lived in Los Angeles his manager stopped him from picking up shifts at a 7-Eleven because of the stigma surrounding that kind of work.
Although he expressed excitement at having a pension and benefits, the job does require plenty of patience and effort. He mentioned that he walks about 25,000 steps a day while wearing his Thorogood mail carrier shoes. “The post office is like the military for slackers,” he comments. “You punch in at 0700 hours, and then you’re on tour. That is what they call it. I’m on tour right now!”
Still, he says he finds some satisfaction in it, talking about how he’s the only person some people see some days. “The best thing about this job is just watching your progress.” he decides. “Seeing it all go away.”
Har Mar Superstar says he has a new album coming out next month called Roseville, describing it as “a weird salvation album.” In an interview with Brooklyn Vegan that also revolved around the mail carrier gig, he had some more words to say about the album, “It’s called Roseville and should be released in Feb or early March 2021 on my own label Love OnLine. It’s rooted in my fascination with 70s piano ballad soft rock. It’s a fully distance recorded, big production, full band with horns album that is deeply inspired by Todd Rundgren, Elton John, Phil Collins, and even Meat Loaf. It’s my most personal album yet. Melancholy yet earnestly hopeful, and more fun than that probably sounds. Ha!”
It also taps into being a 43-year-old man with his own home and a fiancée, plus he’s close to celebrating a year of sobriety. His last album came out in February, a collaboration with A Giant Dog’s Sabrina Ellis released under the name Heart Bones.
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