People ask me a lot of questions about what i do. such as...
do you have an album?
Where are u from?
Where do you live?
where are you heading next?
why are you busking on the street when you could be in a venue?
why aren't you signed?
when did you start doing this? and so on.........
well basically, i was born in Melbourne Australia, my dads Australian an my mums Italian...
i went to school in Australia till i was 9 an then i moved to Italy with my mum for 3 years... after that i decided that Australia was where my heart was, so i returned to live wit my dad back in oz and began high school in Melbourne... I've lived there ever since.... well.... not any more
i started singing when i was 14, but i didn't actually learn how to sing till i was 17. that's when I met cade and formed a rock reggae type band originally called twitch but then changed to Never Or Now. we recorded two demos and a demo album, i owe the world to those guys for helping me develop an grow as a musician...
i first bought my fx pedals when i was 18... i used them on my guitar coz i thought it would make me sound better.... and it did, but i still sucked. :-(
so one day i decided to plug my mic in... apart from all the feed back an yellin an screamin from my band members tellin me to turn the fuckin thing off... i kept at it knowing their wer few singers out there toying with "live" fx units...
its taken me till now to understand the fundamental principles of EQ, Compression, Reverb, and Delay... which without i would be somewhat lost, and still i learn somthin new everyday... apart from that i also use Chorus, harmonist, octave, pitch shift, chopper phaser..... and now also a loop station...
i really began to understand the purpose of all these fx in 2005 when i spent most of the year in my home studio recording my first solo album...
i also watched a Bobby McFerrin Live DVD which changed my life for ever...
around that time my mum kept askin me to come over an see her in Italy, "come an live here, you could make lots of money with your music" she said... i was like.... hmmmm, good idea... i could travel through Europe buskin on the street to make money instead of getin a lousy job in a smoky bar somewhere....
"BUSKING?" WHY YOU WANT TO GO BUSKING FOR? LIKE A GYPSY IN DE STREET.... NO NO NO, YOU GOT TO PLAY IN THE VENUES LIKE A REAL MUSICIAN....
"no no, it would be fun" i said... like any normal trip through Europe but playing on the street for money as well....
NO! YOU CANT DO THAT, YOU WILL MAKE NO MONEY!
"nah mum", i said "i wont just be on the side of the street wit a baseball cap on the ground playin an acoustic guitar singing wonder wall... ill do something crazy you watch"
i hadn't conceived Dub_FX or even using a loop station yet, but because of Mr McFerrin, i wrote my first acapella song "concord". i was stuck on how to do all the different beatbox parts an bass line while singing it live, until someone told me about "Mal Webb"... they said he was an incredible singer who used a loop sampler... a what? i said....
i went to check him out, and he wasn't just incredible.... he's a fuckin freak!
i still haven't seen anyone do the amazing stuff that guy can do wit his voice... Mal?... you rock!
so off i went an bought a Loop station... an AKAI Head rush pedal to be precise...
anyways....
i left for italy in march 2006, and began busking on the streets of Lucca (a small touristy town in Tuscany) with my electric guitar, fx pedal, loop station and an ipod playin backing trax off my album....
i sold heaps of cds to tourists on the street an made more money then i ever had at any job in my life....
i had lots of offers from people in the area who were connected with major labels... and eventually i went to Milan to meet some of the big shots.... they liked everything but wanted me to record everything in Italian, an chop out any of the harder influences in my music..... basically makin it soft an nice...
i was like... hmmm ok, but first i wanna go an see a friend in the uk an try my luck with the labels over there.... maybe i wouldn't have to restrict my self to Italy...
so in July o6, i left italy to explore northern England with my little red guitar an Italianised business mentality....
the first major city i found my self in was Manchester... I owe everything to Manchester! i love that city.... safe blood!
i found a place to stay with this freaky guy who ended up nearly hacking me to death with a machete..... but thats another story in its self...
my first day busking in manchester was in Piccadilly gardens.. i had chosen that spot cos it seemed to be were everyone hung out... i had also looked around the area and noticed that it was very, very different to Australia and Italy... their was way more people, way more different races of people, but most of all it seemed really raw.... no body takes the piss (like the brits put it).. unlike the Americanised culture in Oz and Italy...
no body was certainly as vain, an the type of music i herd comin out of cars and shops wasn't the usual american cheese you get everywhere else in the world... but these phat styles i had never gotten into through lack of exposure, such as Drum an bass, grime, jungle an dub step. it seemed to be what most people my age were into, and all of a sudden i felt at home... the appreciation for these new styles of music is so far an few between in Australia that i had never bothered getting into it.... but now i live it...
my first day busking in Manchester was in late july 06, i decided to not bring the little red guitar but to make new fresh beats through the loop station by layering different rhythms an to just freestyle over the top...
i did my thang an realised that their were a lot of people with my musical taste, all these gangster type kids kept coming up and busting out PHAT English rhythms over the top of this new music I was making on the spot….
At one point this kid comes up an asks the rapper who was on the mic at that moment what his name was…. "Banton Killah" he said with a half rasta half Manchunian accent, the other rappers also had crazy names like, "subside" an "forced"..
He then asked me what my name was, an when I responded with "Benjamin" they all laughed… it became apparent that I needed a name as well…
Ahhh Dub fx, I said…. They all looked at me an all the fx pedals on the ground which was busting out "beatboxed dancehall dub" an gave me the nod of approval….
In that moment a wave of adrenalin washed through me. The name helped me create my sound… I remembered about the pitch shifting function on my fx pedal which led to me creating MC monsoon (the deep voice), and Little man, (the higher voice). Over the next month or so I delved into the world of dub_fx and all the possibilities…. I realised that in an environment such as the streets of Manchester (or the UK for that matter) I would be able to express my self how ever I wanted to harmonically rhythmically and lyrically as long as it was raw and real…. Not only this but busking on the street proved to make me more money in one hour then a full day working at McDonalds… not to mention the exposure…
So in answer to that question on why im on the street an not in venues?
The street is where I create my music and refine it.. I do play in venues and often with famous DJ's or rappers, but I always come back to the street for my inspiration…
Not long ago I was driving through western Europe with my mate Bishop, living in a van, but the van has now died and bish went back to oz, so right at this moment of writing this longer then I thought blog im in Italy helping my mum record an albums worth of music she wrote…
In this last year away from Australia ive toured most of the UK an a considerable amount of western Europe. my priorities and ideals have now changed…. I want to make music that I like.. Not conform to some wankers opinion.
I've sold over 2000 cds along this trip which has led me to the idea of releasing my material independently from now on…. why the fuck not hey?
Next im goin back to Australia for a bit, then ill be comin back to Manchester, and then finally ill be goin through Europe all over again in summer
Ill see you in the street!