Ben Harper taking a more collaborative approach

It took seven years for Ben Harper to reunite with the Innocent Criminals, and he says in making “Call It What It Is,” his current album with his longtime band, there was a fundamental change in the dynamic.

More than ever, billing “Call It What It Is” as a Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals album was a real reflection of the way the music was made.

“They’re all credited as songwriters on all of the songs, or on a good number of them anyway,” Harper said in a recent phone interview. “Even if it’s one I wrote, they have a piece of the songs because they played on it. You would think producing as a collective would be its own challenge with too many cooks, but it turned out to be just right because not only was I bringing that same communal sense of community, but they were also. They were ready to, if you want to change something, be open to it being changed. It was a great collective, certain guys would step up and take charge on certain songs, and we’d let them. Then at other times, other guys would step up on other songs where they had their strengths.”

That sort of open collaboration wasn’t always the case when Harper worked with his group during the first decade of his recording career.

“I think that was maybe part of the reason that we split in the first place. Maybe I was too hands on,” Harper said. “I think you could point to me being controlling in the process of not only producing the music, but how the shows came to life as well. There was a certain strength in the surrendering, or a certain growth, I should say, in the surrendering aspect of all of it. And I think it was part of the process in the separation, learning the power in letting other people take the lead, whether it’s in music or in life in general.”

Harper’s first run with the Innocent Criminals ended after touring to promote the 2007 album, “Lifeline.” From there, he went on to explore several distinctly different musical avenues, with a pair of projects that involved full-on collaborations.

First, he put together a new four-piece band, the Relentless7, which took Harper’s music in a leaner, more rocking direction on the albums “White Lies for Dark Times” (2009) and “Give Till It’s Gone” (2011). Both albums included several co-writes with guitarist Jason Mozersky.

Then Harper paired up with blues veteran Charlie Musselwhite to create the stripped back bluesy 2013 album “Get Up!” It won the pair a 2014 Grammy for Best Blues Album.

From there, Harper made good on another collaborative project that had been on his to-do list since he broke onto the national scene with his 1994 debut album, “Welcome to the Cruel World” – making the largely acoustic, folk-leaning 2014 album, “Childhood Home,” with his mother, singer-songwriter Ellen Harper.

With those projects finished, Harper and the Innocent Criminals – guitarist Michael Ward, keyboardist Jason Yates, bassist Juan Nelson, drummer Oliver Charles and percussionist Leon Mobley – reconvened, making the reunion public with four concerts at the Fillmore in San Francisco in June 2015.

By that time, though, the group was already at work on “Call It What It Is,” putting to work the more collaborative attitude and the musical growth the Harper and his bandmates had gained in the time apart. Harper said he wanted to start the album before playing live with the Innocent Criminals to create a forward-looking attitude around the project.

“It felt so incredibly regenerative, not that I was ungenerative (before),” Harper said. “It was truly a culmination of the growth of six individuals, and not the stagnation, and that is what has made all things Innocent Criminals possible and provided so much open road for this band.”

“Call It What It Is” is another musically rich, lyrically thoughtful and at times provocative effort from Harper. It covers a wide range of styles and intensities usually sitting somewhere between rock, blues and soul. There’s big rock in “Pink Balloon” and “When Sex Was Dirty.” There’s a ghostly near solo tune, “All That Has Grown,” and reggae with the song, “Finding Our Way.” “Deeper and Deeper” is an edgy, largely acoustic tune, while the organ-laced “Shine” is funky and earthy. The title track gets bluesy as it looks at the complex issue of police and people of color, while the percussive, Latin-tinged “How Dark Is Gone” is another emotionally charged track.

Harper said fans can expect to hear some new songs in his show, but the set could touch on pretty much any phase of his career.

“We’re going to lean heavily on the catalog, and we’re going to also bring to life the new record,” Harper said. “I think we’ll dip into some in between stuff as well. We’ll do some Charlie Musselwhite stuff, we’ll get into some of the Blind Boys material, maybe even some of the Relentless7 material, have a couple, a few songs ready at a moment’s notice.”