HARPER, Felix N.

[felix harper]

FELIX HARPER felix noah harper (born 05/30/1983) is an american singer-songwriter, musician and actor. best known as the front man and lead singer of the band 'lucky strike' and judge and coach on nbc talent show 'the voice'. he made guest appearances on 'the new girl' and 'how i met your mother' and appeared in the sleeper hit 'hush hush.' in october 2012, harper and long time girlfriend, annie aldridge announced they were expecting their first child.

- "pregnant and picture perfect - annie aldridge and felix harper on the grammys red carpet." (perez hilton)"

- @anniealdridge "too bad so sad" #havesomerespect' RT @roxycrane "why can't i have felix harper's children? #devo #robbed"

- "felix harper 'lucky strike' grammys performance"

your signature: tattoos.
your coffee order: black, no sugar.
your go-to magazine: rolling stone.
your favorite brand: levi's.
your ultimate goal: keep annie aldridge EGOT lol.

I absolutely don't understand: annie fucking aldridge.
I've always looked up to: mick jagger.
I'm most likely to feud with: john mayer, because he's a dick.
I'm starting to pay attention to: musicals.
I've always wanted to hook up with: mila kunis no one.
I wonder what it's like to be: left handed...

"don't give up. that's probably the best advice i can give anyone. if you love what you do, then work your ass off, prove it people you deserve it. don't let them you that you can't do it, but don't ignore constructive criticism either, because no matter what you do in life, you'll never stop learning. there's always something new and different to learn or adapt to. and don't be an asshole to the little people - they're the ones that buy your records."

what, if anything, keeps you grounded?

my family, always. i can go out and play a sold out show, perform at the grammy's in front of a couple billion people, travel half way across the world to shoot a music video and then head to the lot to start shootng 'the voice' but when i come home, my mom will still be hassling me to shave and telling me to eat all my vegetables. my little sister will still blow me off to hang out with her friends and my brother will borrow some cash on his way out the bar and not invite me. god love them. to them i'm still just plain old felix, that hassles anna about her homework and takes my mom to doctors appointments and i think that's important. 

would you rather relive your best moment or redo your worst mistake?

i think it all depends on your mood and your mindset. i mean, i know i'd rather relive my best moments in life on a repeat loop and when you're happy and counting all your blessings in life, that's exactly what i'll do, but in your darker moments when you're doubting yourself or things aren't looking great of course i'm going to look back on your worst mistakes and try and redo them for a better outcome and try and see where you went wrong. that being said though, i've had ups and downs in my life but i wouldn't change any of them. they made me the person i am today, and dwelling on the past instead of looking to the future is going to make you unhappy at the end of the day, whether you're relive your best or redo your worst.

where's your escape from the city?

calabasas, at my mom's place, is a great place to go to get out of the city. spending the day with my family getting away from the paparazzi and crowds. i've also taken up hiking and meditation, so i'll head out to the hollywood hills and take a hike or stay in meditate and chill out when things get too much. but probably my best escape is the chateau marmont. it sounds like the complete oposite of an escape from the city, but annie and i have been going there before we were even together. it's just what we do. it's an amazing place and the staff know us, perhaps even a little too well. i've written countless songs there, i've sealed deals there, there's a good chance my baby to be was even conceived while we were staying there. it's annie's favourite place and she's made it mine too. 

what are you like when you're out of the spotlight?

probably really boring? haha. i like to think i'm the same guy on stage as i am behind it. but i also like to think i've matured a bit since my beginnings, we all have really. there aren't many late nights at clubs or alcohol fuelled stupidity. the rest of the band and i all have wives and girlfriends and children back home that we'd preferred to spend time with. i'm definitely becoming more of a family man, with my own family and with annie and the baby.  

how do you think your team would describe working with you?

their opinion doesn't matter, i'm the lead singer! kidding. the guys and i have known each other since we were all about 18, but after doing this for so many years we're more brother's then friends anymore. because we don't always get along and we do argue and fight and disagree, and yes i tend to be in the middle and at the center of a lot of those arguments, but there's a love and responsibility there that means we'll never just walk away. they'd probably say i'm a dick, but they'd be laughing. they'd probably tell you i'm the slacker and bitch that i'm always fucking around at the studio or turning up late for sound checks, because i am.

were there any deciding moments in your career?

winning that first grammy in 2005 for best new artist, was definitely the big deciding moment. we were a bunch of kids when we got signed and we thought that it a record deal equalled a #1 hit and we learnt the hard way that it didn't. the first album went no where and we released the second album on a hope and prayer knowing that it was our last chance. the fact that it sold any copies at all was amazing, but winning a grammy was the icing on the cake. we knew we weren't just a bunch of kids that nobody cared about banging around on instruments.

any inside details on your latest project?

we've just started our north american tour dates, and the voice season 4 is premiering next month so i'm gonna be a busy guy. the next album is still a while off, but i've been writing. i think my biggest project is still about 3 months off, fitting a new baby into my schedule, but i've never been more excited.

father: sean harper (deceased)
mother: mae harper
siblings: james harper, annaliese harper.
other: annie aldrdge, baby mama


i was born in detroit, michigan. the eldest of three kids to a drunk and a housewife. my dad was always a drinker and a gambler. money burnt a hole in his pocket and you can bet by the time payday rolled around, he'd piss it away at the bar until the early hours of the morning, despite the debts he owed. needless to say, we got evicted a lot. my mom scrounged together what she could, but with each new baby it got harder and harder for her. we struggled a lot in those early days and as soon as i was old enough to understand and help, i did. i got a paper round when i was 8, and then took up a second paper round at 10. when things got really bad, i would steal food and clothes for james and anna. i had a few petty thief charges on me by the time i got to middle school, but every few months we were evicted again it was another school in another district so it didn't matter. at fifteen, i dropped out of school to get a full time job. i supported mom, james and anna and for a while it worked. dad and i stopped fighting, the other two kids were actually going to school 5 days a week, they were well fed and well looked after and they even had clothes that weren't from a thrift store. and then things went downhill again. money started going missing, bills stopped getting paid and we all knew that dad was getting worse. 

what you have to know, first and foremost is that despite his flaws, my mother loved my father. endlessly and blindly so and it was, and still is, frustrating as hell. she wasn't a strong woman, she wasn't an educated woman, she fell in love young and got pregnant and devoted her life to being a good mother and wife. and to her, a good wife stays by her husband through everything, she gives him endless second chances and she'll ignore his blatant selfishness. 

but when she found out that my dad was drinking and gambling away not only his paycheck but mine it was her breaking point. for once in her life, she stood up to my father, and it went down like a tonne of bricks. i look back and i can see now that he started hitting her when she started questioning him or scolding him, but at the time i tried to ignore her bruises and his temper. he started drinking more then ever and would come home and smack her around just for the hell of it. and when i stepped in, he started smacking me around too. from then i made it my job was to look after the other two kids and hide that part of our family from them, and there was no fucking way i was letting  things go back to the way they were when i was younger and i wasn't going to let him lay a hand on them, i was going to keep my family fed, clothed and safe and my brother and sister were going to stay in school. i picked up extra jobs on the side to keep up with all the money that kept going 'missing', but it was getting harder and harder to keep up with dad's spiraling alcoholism and gambling debts. i got fired from a couple jobs for turning up with black eyes or skipping to take mom to the hospital. so when guys came knocking at the door asking for their money, a friend helped me out by spotting me a huge chunks of money. but when i kept getting more and more in debt to him i started making deliveries and selling pills for him in clubs. but after a while the money was getting all too tempting and i started dealing myself. it was a short lived job, and apparently i wasn't very good at it because at 16, i went to juvie for posession with intention to sell. 

while i was away, i'd hoped james had stepped up to take care of mom and anna in my absence, but when i got out i realised the only thing he'd done was taken over being dad's punching bag. dad was worse then ever, neither kids where in school and they were getting evicted from the house i'd managed to keep them in for the past 2 years. but the breaking point was coming home to my baby sister bearing a broken nose and a black eye. without a hesitation and despite all mom's protests i packed them up and we left that very night for LA. we moved in with my mom's sister for a few months until i got back on my feet and i picked up where i left off months before hand. i got mom proper medical attention, i enrolled the kids back in school and i worked 3 jobs to keep us going. every few months we heard from dad, either asking for money or apologising and asking us to come back, but i was never letting mom go back to him. 

for a few years, the guitar had been a hobby for me that i hadn't had a lot of time for. i had played and played well back in school, but i'd never been able to afford my own or the time to play it. but after a year of settling in los angeles i dipped into my small savings and splurged on a guitar for myself. i started playing again and one day took a chance and answered an ad asking for a guitarist. i figured that if i could find the time it would a great way to chill out and maybe even earn some extra cash on the side playing some gigs. the rest of the guys were great, we got along right away and starting playing gigs in bars on the weekends. the other's had high hopes, always chasing label scouts and recording demo's but i was just happy to be along for the ride. our lead singer left us after about a year for a better gig and i reluctantly stepped up to the microphone. i thought it was going to be a disaster, but it surprisingly wasn't. 

skip forward a few years of gigs and 2 other jobs, and the impossible became reality. the rest, i guess you can read on our wikipedia. our first album sold less then no albums if that's even possible and we thought we were done for. the second looked like it was on a simliar path, until grey's anatomy picked a song off the album and we became and overnight success. it wasn't even supposed to be a single, but we released it a week later, and it exploded up the charts. the album went triple platinum and we won a grammy and we basically thought we were gods. we did the typical rockstar shit, we partied and messed around and the hollywood girls came and went. i got a reputation in hollywood as a bit of a womaniser, models mostly, but who wouldn't if they slipping your their phone numbers at shows or inviting themselves along to award shows? that was when i met annie. she was still just a model back then, and probably the most beautiful girl i'd ever met. and she wasn't just beautiful but she was sassy and feisty and i was crazy about her. and not the crazy i was proud of. after a lot of fights, a lot of break up and make ups, a few calls to the cops, we called it quits, but i wasn't that easy.

i'd be lying if i said i didn't let the celebrity  go to my head. it was a whirlwind and not just the fame and attention, but the money. for the first time in my life i had the means to give my family everything they had ever wanted. i bought my mom a house at calabasas, if you could even call it a house, it was really a mansion. i turned christmas every year into an excuse to spoil them, i bought them everything they could ever need and more. perhaps a little too much though, because as the years passed and we released another two albums and became more famous my brother started to follow a familiar path. he started drinking and gambling, and for a while i let him do his own thing but when he lost his job things started deteriorating more and more. it was like dad all over again. he started stealing money from my mom and i to pay off debts, people started coming around looking for money, he lost his car in a poker match. i finally put my foot down after a few months and cut him off. i wasn't going to fund his lifestyle and bail him out and keep buying him cars to gamble away anymore. he had to get a job on his own and make his own way in life. needless to say, it didn't go down well. we fought, i kicked him out of mom's house, even though she was more then willing to forgive and forget - like she did with dad. but i wasn't. it didn't help him though. he just borrowed more to keep himself going, dug himself a deeper hole and then went to my girlfriend behind my back to bail him out. 

he caused more problems then i thought possible between annie and i and got annie involved with all the wrong kinds of bad people, which i could have killed him for, but another guy beat me to it. in the middle of a world tour i came home to find my brother beaten and shot and in intensive care. it was a wake up call to us both, and probably one of the hardest times of my life.

from then on what seemed like my disastrous out of control personal life seemed to settle. annie and i finally decided to stop fucking around and make things work, james went to rehab, annaliese graduated top of her class. i'd worked hard at my career, but having my family succeed, especially annaliese, made me finally feel like i'd accomplished something great. everything from then on out has been smooth sailing. i was offered job being a judge and coach on 'the voice' and jumped at it with annie's encouragement. annaliese got into princeton and is junior this year, james relapses every now and then, but i've never let him get into too much trouble. my dad passed away last year, from liver failure, anna and mom attended the funeral but james was in rehab again and i refused to go. annie is still fighting me for an engagement ring and we're expecting a baby boy or girl in may, which has made me the happiest and proudest man on the planet. nothing in my career, or even with my own family to date will ever compare to having a child of my own and i'm getting almost impatient for our due date to arrive. 

alias: tiana
age: 24
play-by: adam levine
spotlight group: red carpet
city: LA
listening to: one more night - maroon 5

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