im just remaking this thread from the last forum, it makes the board tidier. ill start off with my question: Ben, i hear your music in tons of commercials, youre probably in more commercials than any other artist. how do these deals come about, and how do you get to be in so many of them? its such a nice surprise to hear it in the background when my family's watching tv. my ears perk up, and i can tell right away, thats ben! anyhow, thanks for answering our questions and making our lives brighter and all that
They show up in different ways. A number of people just write me out of the blue. I rarely mind if people use the songs unless it's in relation to something offensive to me. But the recent stuff is mostly because I'm working with a publisher who likes my music, so he shows a lot of people in the film and TV world. Which is how I'm able to fund this next record myself, so I've been really fortunate that he's so supportive.
For a long time I did a lot of web design and general graphic work. And some general odd jobs in between. But it's currently just music. I have no idea how that long that will last, though. The music world is pretty fickle, so I'm not holding my breath about it. But I'll go with it as long as I can.
Well it's about time you get much due exposure for your music, or at least enough so you can just write music for a living. And visit New Zealand for a backyard concert at my house. Hint. ...Hint. Hahaha.
Did I imagine this or maybe I misread what was happening on a previous post on the old forum, but Ben, do I recall you asking people to send you a story about one point of their lives so you could pick one to use in a song? Please correct me if I'm wrong because I don't quite remember exactly how this went about. I'm going to guess it was for your later works on Clone. I'm curious which one you picked, and how the progress when about. It was just a random thought that popped in my head this morning and I was only curious whatever happen with that project.
Yes, that's for the next Patients project. I still have all the stories and I still plan to do it. I just didn't foresee changing everything as much as I did, with the legal stuff that came up and then building my own label. So it's on the backburner until I can get all this under some sort of control. And I would love to come to New Zealand. It's one of the places I'd love to visit. In part because I really wanna ride this swing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja-kzxyhSjA
So upon reading your explanation of the Bastards EP on the lyrics thread, I have gained an incredible appreciation for that album. I already loved it just for the music, but knowing what you were going for story wise just makes the whole thing so emotionally impacting and meaningful. But that got me wondering and thinking more about the Ghost album. I mean, I already know that the whole thing was about how houses can have memories, but I've never really heard any other explanations of the songs or the overall story of the album. So I was just wondering if you could do kind of what you did on for the Bastards EP, but with the songs on Ghost. I'm really interested as to from whose point of view the songs are written, and more about the overall story for the album. Thanks a ton
Thank you. That's good to know. I've been debating about whether to tell the stories in these new records, but I've been thinking I should. I started writing some of them as little 3 page short stories a couple days ago, actually. And much of Ghost was stories as well. Ghost is actually tied into these new records, in terms of characters and subject matter. But for a couple explanations ... Winter Is Coming: This one's definitely on a fantasy bent. The song revolves around a husband, wife and their newborn. The husband, at some point before anything in the song takes place, discovers that the seasons have physical forms. He can tell a severe winter season is coming, and he and his family are not prepared. So he kidnaps Summer and chains him in the basement, which keeps their home and a radius around it in good weather. The song starts with the wife watching out the window and seeing Winter marching up to the house -- obviously angry about the family kidnapping her little brother -- and then continues with them trying to run from her, the husband begging forgiveness for what he's done. Glory: This song's about a kid who's drafted into war. The specific war isn't important. The instrumental parts of the song are actually the most pivotal events, but I thought it would be interesting to tell them with music instead of words. So the marching and whistling from the beginning is his time in the army. Then during the first fight he's in, he deserts (Deserter's Song from the Touch the Sky EP is the prequel to Glory, and talks about when and why he deserts). The lyrics starts with him back home, and he's hiding out with the sweetheart he'd left behind. When he first returns, things are well. But after a fight, mostly from the tension of their situation, she rashly rats him out. This whole bit is taking place during the middle instrumental section. The back end of the words are from the boy's point of view. In trying to get away from the villagers, who'd come to collect and hang him for deserting, he was watching a bird who's leg was caught. The end of the song, the long instrumental area, is when the villagers start throwing rocks. One eventually hits him in the head, and he falls from the roof and breaks his neck. So yeah, some of them I have a lot of notes for. Others are simpler. Along the Road is just about a dream I had. The words are just kind of laying out the imagery. Anyway, I don't know how interesting all that is. But I might start explaining it more. I guess it doesn't really hurt either way. Unless you like thinking the songs are about nicer things than they probably are. Hahaha.
Do the entire record! This was incredibly interesting, and more so than I thought it was going to be.
It's interesting hearing about the story behind the song. I visited the States 2 years ago and spent most of my time in PA. Two days were at Gettysburg. Ever time I hear Glory it reminds me of that. I think even though you have a story behind every song, I tend to have my own story. Somehow ever piece of music relates to some time in our lives and seems to fit. Or is this just the ramblings of an Old Fart ?
Your music is awesome. The way its all put together inspires me to make music too. Would it be too much to ask how you put your songs together? Like, which comes first.. chord progressions, melodies, lyrics? I wanna make music real similiar to yours but my methods for creating songs usually turn out badly. Haha.
it's incredibly intresting! I love and admire the way you work these stories into your songs and there are so many things I can't quite figure out in your music and lyrics. Well, I have my own ideas about these things but it would be really intresting to know all the stories you intend to tell with your songs. Like the fact that deserter's song is a sequel to glory - genius! makes so much sense now! I don't remeber the exact adress but there's some sort of lyrics-website where people wildly discuss your lyrics and they tend to have the craziest of ideas what a certain song might mean, so yeah, anyway, it would be great if you'd share more of these backround stories.
Yes, its really interesting, you should definatly do the whole album or even release the short stories about them! Its really good because I'm starting to consider the songs as stories (like Glory and Deserters song ) rather than just as an album. I think they're better when they are thought of in that way. I have a few questions too: 1. For All is Well you mentioned that the main character is Jonathan Northcoat, is it just a name or have you got a whole personality and story for him and other characters. 2. In Glory, who is the 'you' in these lines? "You split my skull and reached inside my head" and "And you stitched me up then" Is it his 'sweetheart'?
Yeah, I'll post some more. I don't mind sharing if folks are interested. No, I think that's the great part about it. I know why I write things, but it's all up for interpretation. That's why I'm sometimes reluctant to say what it was specifically about. I think it's fine either way. To be honest, it changes all the time. Sometimes it starts with words. Sometimes with a handful of chords. Sometimes it's just a rhythm. Sometimes a subject matter. I usually go out of my way to change it as much as I can, to keep song writing from ever feeling like auto-pilot. I usually just try to come up with some specific point to the song, some goal or feeling I want it to have, and then do whatever I can to get it there. I don't know if that's any help. 1. Yeah, I went into a bit of detail. It's a habit from when I used to write all the time. I always like to have a lot more detail than I will ever show, so I have a lot of notes, and things that happen before and after the song itself. I also use characters to sometimes tell personal stories. I rarely write about myself directly. I'm a lot more sympathetic to people I make up. 2. Yep.
Very interesting stuff Ben....you're an amazing songwriter, no doubt - very refreshing when it seems to be a rare thing these days. I was wondering if you could tell us who has influenced you as a musician and as a songwriter? I know sometimes that's a gray area, but I'm sure there are some that have had an impact in one way or another.
Clone: We finished! After two and a half years, we finally finished all the tracking for the album. It's funny looking back now. We figured it would take us 6 – 8 months to record. Pretty crappy estimation. But I am in the mixing phase with the record now, as well as getting the website together for it. We won't be releasing this like a traditional record, and exactly how we're gonna put it out I will elaborate on in my next post, probably in the next few days. But I just wanted to mention that we are done, and we celebrated by drinking coctails on Rick's back porch. *When is this happening?
