Rough around the edges and infectiously catchy, Seven’s songs tell tales of infatuation, death and other earthly delights.

Growing up in North Carolina, Seven Harkey swished with country music, gargled with pop, and spit southern rock. Greyhounding to San Francisco on the cusp of the early-Nineties Alt-Country surge, he founded Farmgirl, a bar band's bar band that combined Americana with Garage Pop. After developing a loyal and heavily-drinking fanbase, the band stumbled their separate ways. Seven dealt with the loss by forming the Lomaxes--a powerfolk quartet driven by tribal beats and acoustic folkbox. But critical acclaim didn't soothe Seven's hunger for a change of atmosphere, so he headed east for Chicago, to find the thunderstorm of his dreams. There, he took a break from music to work on a collection of Zoetrope-acclaimed short stories, but soon music started creeping back in. In Chicago, he continued his series of musical incarnations, revisiting his Carolina roots with The Dogwoods. A poppy/twangy group of porch rockers, they take seven’s unique brand of guitar playing and word-singing to new levels of strum and bash. All along, the love of songwriting and his prolificacy is intrinsically who Seven is.

“I chase altered states while my normal life awaits.”

Seven was hand-picked by legendary writer Ben Fong-Torres to perform on his Fog City Radio NPR show. In the studio, Seven has lent his talents to recordings by John Wesley Harding and E (of Eels). Live, he has played with such diverse artists as Peter Himmelman, Meat Puppets, Southern Culture on the Skids, Chris Isaak, and Jeff Buckley.