Ben Levin Interview from Lords of Metal Magazine

Here is a cool Ben Levin interview by Bart from Lords of Metal magazine:

Welcome and thanks for sending your record to us! Coming from the USA, have you ever been to Europe or are these your first steps in getting ready for a tour around here?
We haven’t made it out to Europe yet, but we certainly plan on getting a European tour going in the coming years. Right now we are just trying to get the word out to people.

Could you tell our readers some more about the genesis of the Ben Levin Group, and by extent also your own genealogy as a guitar player?
Since I was a kid I have always loved thinking up crazy stories. I tried making my own comic books, and really enjoyed movies and video games with great characters. Although I had been making weird noises on piano and saxophone for several years, it wasn’t until I started playing guitar at age fourteen that I reallized that music was the best way for me to tell stories. I became obsessed with guitar and wrote tons of music about all kinds of subjects. With a handheld four track recorder I wrote an album influenced by Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, and Steve Vai about Cain and Able from the old testament. I also wrote another guitar heavy album about a space ship that was supposed to save a portion of mankind before the sun exploded. I started bands and performed my music throughout high school, and when I started my first semester at Berklee College of Music, I formed Ben Levin Group. At first we played the music from our album ‘Departure’, which is a collection of short instrumental pieces each with their own mini story. However, after my first two years of school I got tired of writing that way and started composing long form forty minute sets at a time. These long pieces allowed me to better express myself and my stories because it is possible to develop musical themes over the course of an entire show rather than in a limited five minute window. So far I’ve written three of these forty minute epics which we perform at our shows now. ‘Pulse of a Nation’ is the first one I wrote, then there’s ‘Invisible Paradise’ and ‘Freak Machine’.

Now, to get done with the nasty question: I read your (interesting, by the way) report on auditioning for the Lady Gaga band. I couldn’t help but wonder what made you decide to do it. Was it the mere idea of touring the world? Or of getting your name known? Or do you also consider it to be good for you as an artist or guitarist? Feel free to elaborate on this question.
I auditioned for Lady Gaga mostly out of curiosity. I got the opportunity to audition, and I thought I’d have a good chance, so I couldn’t just stay home and wonder what would have happened. I mean, playing for Lady Gaga would have been very strange and intense, and I was really interested in seeing what that side of the music industry is like. I certainly want to tour the world playing music, and being in her band would have been one way to do that. It was interesting because in the weeks before the audition I learned all of Lady Gaga’s songs and learned a lot about her. I found myself getting really depressed while I was learning the songs because I realized that if I got the gig then I would have to put my own music on hold, and I love my music. If I don’t make my music, then no one would, so it was disturbing to think about that. Ultimately, I decided that if I got the gig I would get some great performance experience and make enough money to fund a few more albums of my own work, so I went for it. After I got a glimpse of that world, I am glad I auditioned and am also glad I didn’t make it. In the time when I would have been on tour with Gaga, I recorded my new album ‘Pulse Of A Nation’, wrote ‘Invisible Paradise’ and ‘Freak Machine’, and had some amazing tours and performances with my bands, all of which I am really proud of.

As a student at Berklee’s, you must have quite some theory under your belt, which shows in the orchestrated manner of ‘Pulse Of A Nation’. Did you compose it all by yourself, or did you also work with fellow musicians?
I composed all of ‘Pulse Of A Nation’ by myself, and definitely used my theory training for most of it. I write the music alone because I find that it helps me focus the music on a few key ideas and allows for more experimentation. Sometimes when writing in groups people compromise good ideas before they are complete. This is often because a collaborator can’t understand their partner’s idea until it is complete and heard in context of the rest of the music. I owe a lot to my bandmates for working really hard and performing the music so well. No matter how good the writing is, it won’t sound amazing without the right performers. I especially owe a huge thanks to producer/mixing engineer Vince Welch for capturing the music’s sound and story perfectly on this album. He’s really amazing.

‘Pulse Of A Nation’ is a concept album, yet mostly instrumental. This leads to two questions: one, could you tell some more about the underlying concept, and two, how did you envision to tell a concept story through mostly instrumental music?
The great thing about the concept behind ‘Pulse Of A Nation’ is that there aren’t a lot of specific details. I meant for the concept to be felt rather than literally understood. All you need to know to get the concept is that the world is ending. In my vision, all of the events in the story occur simultaneously. There are riots, orgies, mourning ceremonies, and people holding each other and singing as the world ends. The music offers images and feelings. It puts you in the middle of the apocalypse and is unsettling. This lends itself well to instrumental music because it allows for ambiguity. If I had a lot of lyrics like “oh god there are riots everywhere!” then I think the album would lose something. Everyone deals with death and endings, so it’s a really easy concept to grab onto, lyrics or not.

As a guitarist, you are mightily impressive. How did you get to this point, any advise perhaps for guitarists that isn’t heard too often on the world wide web and in lessons?
Thanks a lot! I practice a lot. Especially in high school, I used to spend every free minute practicing. In my experience, there are just a few simple rules to learning an instrument effectively. One: Use a metronome. Two: Practice at least a little every day instead of a lot every couple of days. Three: When you repeat something over and over, make sure you are repeating it at a slow enough speed so that you can play it correctly each time (if you play something wrong a thousand times, it won’t be right the 1001st time.) Four: Listen to music (and all kinds of music too!). Five: Play with other people. Performing in front of audiences with other musicians is an essential step to becoming the best musician you can be. I don’t know if these advises appear on the web all the time, but it really helped me a lot.

You are very active as a musician, doing loads of things besides the Ben Levin Group. Yet, do you consider this to be your main project? And is the line-up constant or constantly changing?
I love music and it makes me happy to be busy with music! I would definitely say that I have two main projects: my bands Ben Levin Group and Bent Knee. But the two work together very nicely like two sides of a coin. Ben Levin Group offers orchestral long form concept music, while Bent Knee has a more song-oriented Radiohead/Björk vibe, but both of them represent who I am in different ways. I write the music for both groups, and I co-write with vocalist Courtney Swain for Bent Knee. Between the two bands, I get the opportunity to perform all of the music I write which is awesome!

Is it hard to get your kind of music promoted to an audience? And how are you received at live shows?
So far although we have been working extremely hard, it has been relatively easy to promote our music simply because the people who like it love it. We appeal to a small but dedicated niche of people who are really receptive to what we have been doing. People who see us live really connect with us and we love them for being a part of the music. We don’t make much money yet, and mostly try to break even with all of our expenses. We are keeping a close eye on accounting and have professional help with managing our budget. I am working tirelessly to make the band self-sustainable because when we play shows it is an intensely religious experience for me and I will dedicate the rest of my life to sharing my music with the people who want it.

These were my questions. Thank you for taking the time to answer them. If there is anything to add or comment on, feel free to do so!
Thank you so much for giving me a chance to tell you about us!