Press Articles & Interviews
BenMillsOnline's Exclusive Interview With Ben Mills
[August 2010]
Three and a half years ago, through the magic of email and with the help of his manager, I interviewed Ben Mills about his debut album, his song-writing and his gigs. At the time, with the media focusing mostly on what he did on the X Factor, it helped to give his fans an insight into what made him tick and what direction he felt he was going in. It seems like such a long time ago now, though, and so much has changed since then, particularly for Ben, so I arranged to meet up with him for a catch-up.
Sat, relaxed, on his sofa Ben talked to me openly about how events over the past three years have influenced some of his major career decisions, and how those decisions are now shaping his future.
I began by asking how much he thought he'd changed as a musician since those early days.
"straight after the show it was, 'there's your backing tracks' and I was like, what? that's not what I'm about."
"Well, as a musician I've kind of gone backwards and then forwards a little bit, in a way. Before the X Factor, doing a gig to a backing track would have been like… well I would never have even considered it for a second, but straight after the show it was, 'there's your backing tracks' and I was like, 'what? that's not what I'm about.' So I definitely went backwards as a musician there because I wasn't actually being a musician I was being a singer, so that was kind of weird." Ben went on to explain that he did eventually manage to dig his heels in and, despite having to take serious pay cuts in order to cover all the costs, he was able to start doing more gigs with his band.
As far as moving forwards as a musician goes, Ben feels it's as a songwriter that things have really changed. "I'm a much more competent songwriter than I was before. I've got a lot more to write about I suppose so, as life experience goes, I've got a hell of a lot that I want to say."
Ben's personal progression aside, his opinions on certain things differ now too. Having been caught up inside it, he now sees the music industry in a totally different light and, unless you're already well established, feels that the major record deals which up and coming artists all seem to strive for aren't necessarily the way to go. "The dream is to get that deal," he says, "but then when you've got it you realise that all of your powers are taken away." Lack of power isn't just limited to the music side of things either, as Ben goes on to explain how much his whole life was controlled by somebody else. "It was like being a five year old again, you know, as I was basically having everything done for me and it affected me as a person in that I became really lazy. I was finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning because, unless I had a schedule and someone telling me what to do, I didn't do anything because I'd lost the ability to be able to do things for myself."
The controlling nature of the music industry in general, coupled with the major record labels' dominance of the charts and radio airplay, has caused Ben to lose his faith in the whole thing, to the point where he now feels it's best to go it alone. This is something he says he needed to do himself in order to record the songs he wanted for his second album, "Freedom", which was released on his and wife Melissa's own label, Benjamel Records, the setting up of which Ben describes as "a nightmare!" He continued, "I had to set up a record label to release Freedom and I thought that wouldn't be so difficult but it took me about two weeks of filling out forms, talking to people on the phone, getting codes for songs and doing this, that and the other, and I still didn't do it right!" One email unfortunately left unsent meant that the album wouldn't be recognised as an official chart release. Ben did eventually send that email, just before the album was released, but found that it was going to take months for that bit of paperwork to be processed, so to date, none of the albums sold have counted towards the charts. This isn't something that worries Ben, though. "It was never meant to be a chart album because it was me doing what I wanted to do, and unless your music fits into certain categories then you may as well just forget about it. But that's not what I'm about anymore. What I'm about is doing what I want to do and not what certain people wanted me to do."
"The dream is to get that deal, but then when you've got it you realise that all of your powers are taken away."
With the record label set up, Ben shared their plans to expand the company. "There are lots of independent record labels out there these days, which is great because they're the ones who are looking after their bands as far as I can see. We are looking for acts and there is somebody we're looking at, at the moment, and very excited about. I think Benjamel Records will be about making sure the act comes first and not the label. As you know, I sold 130,000 albums. I didn't get £130,000, so I didn't even get £1 for every record that was released and that, to me, is almost criminal, I think, considering I wrote five of the songs that were on it. I think it's disgusting that the act isn't getting looked after. Basically, every single person who was in that chain for me was somebody else who was taking money away. It's just not fair and there are a lot of acts out there who are in the same boat. There was the management who didn't manage me, the agent who just answered the phone because they weren't pushing me and the record label who were just sitting there counting their money, and I was running round all over the country, doing radio interviews, TV shows and just working to the point of almost exhaustion, and then at the end of it all I wasn't even getting £1 for every album I sold. With Benjamel Records, obviously we need to make money, but if the acts aren't happy then we're not happy."
In addition to signing other artists, Ben will use the Benjamel Records label for his own future releases and work has already begun on his third album, a project Ben is very excited about. "It's going to be very different to the last one, once again. There are no boundaries, really. There's nothing stopping me from doing what I want to do. It's not a big rock album or a pop album. We're going to be stripping it right back so it's going to be double bass, grand piano, acoustic guitars, maybe get a cello on there, and just focus mainly on the songs themselves. I want people to hear what I've got to say now and listen to the words and… I’m really looking forward to doing it. It's going to be great."
Included with some brand new material will be a re-recorded version of "The Strength To Love Me", the last track on the previous album. Ben said he loves the acoustic version recorded for "Freedom" but that it wasn't finished, "That song has a harmony all the way through it and that's obviously not on there. The song's changed a lot. It was written for the piano, I did it on the guitar. So that's going on there, but as a finished song. How it was supposed to be done."
At his happiest when sat at his piano writing his own songs, Ben admits to hearing other people's songs and wishing that he'd written them, specifically those by American singer/songwriter Tom Waits. "I think why I like Tom Waits so much is because he says things that I've been trying to say for ages, and trying to work out a way to say. There's a song called 'Shiver Me Timbers' which sounds a bit crazy but it's about a guy who's away from home, and he's out on a boat, and it's just about missing home and he's put it in such an amazing way and I just sit there and think to myself, how the hell did he do that? He has an amazing way with words that I don't think anyone could even come close to. The man is a genius. You could just give him a subject, I'm sure, and say 'could you write a song about that' and it would be the best song you'd ever heard in your life, the best song I'd ever heard in my life certainly. I think I've got a long way to go before I'm anywhere near as good as him, and that, to me, is why I love him so much. I hear a lot of stuff on the radio and I go, 'well yeah, I could have written that in my sleep', but I hear something by someone like Tom Waits, or a band like Steely Dan, and I just go, how did they do that?"
It seems to be the song-writing side of things that Ben's focused on nowadays, and he sees that more as his future, but his own gigs won't stop completely. However, there could be a change to the format that his fans have come to expect.
"I think why I like Tom Waits so much is because he says things that I've been trying to say for ages, and trying to work out a way to say."
Gigs at the moment are made up predominantly of covers, but Ben can see the time coming where he needs to put those gigs firmly behind him. The "Freedom" launch concert back in March consisted almost entirely of Ben's own songs, with just three covers included in the set list, and Ben talks of this gig fondly, "I thoroughly enjoyed that gig. It was a real high point for me I think. It was something that I needed to do at the time, in a big way. I'm not going to lie, I have been getting sick of playing the same stuff that I have been playing, but I know that it works. Maybe I just need to take a deep breath and say goodbye to that and hello to where I want to go, but that's another big step. I've taken so many big steps in my life that I think I'm starting to get scared of doing it now. I know, every single time I do a gig, there's going to be somebody there who will get a message to me somehow, saying they want me to play some of my own songs, but I also know that there are a couple of hundred people in there that haven't made that request, and when everyone's paying for tickets I find it difficult - I've always given the public what I think the public want. Maybe it is time to go, 'right, that’s it' and maybe that's what I'm about to do. At the end of October I'll have finished a pretty serious run of gigs and I think that, at the end of this lot of gigs, I'm going to probably make that step, and start to go out there and do what I want to do. It's going to mean that I'm going to lose fans. It's definitely time because it's almost like music is my job and I'm beginning to not like my job, and that isn't a good thing for anyone really. And I think that's starting to come across to the audience aswell now in a way, so I think it's time, basically."
Along with the "out with the old and in with the new", then, does that mean we could hear some brand new material at the next batch of gigs? "Yeah, definitely, because I want to experiment with some of my new songs and see how well they go down and, you know, try them at gigs and see how much they need to be changed. Things like that." Ben's plan is to put on some shows himself, through the Benjamel Records label, because by doing so he'll be free to experiment with his set list and play the sort of gigs that he wants. "I'm a people pleaser at the end of the day, it's one of my downfalls, and if I've got an agent or promoter watching me then I feel like I've got to do what they're expecting. So yeah, I will put on some shows myself and do it through the record label, which is another reason why we set up Benjamel Records, at the end of the day."
Go for it Ben, because maybe, just maybe, doing the gigs the way you want will please people a lot more than you're expecting!
Author: Saara Ord – Webmaster / Administrator
Pictures from the photoshoot can be found in our Gallery
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Ben's current album, "Freedom", is available on CD from Benjamel Records or digitally via a number of online stores. See the Benjamel Records website for details.