Hi there. I'm Ben.
Now, I know you're probably thinking, "I'm over ten words into your bio. Aren't I supposed to be impressed by now?"
Generally speaking, the answer should be 'yes'. Typically I would have hired a master of the English language to create a stunning blend of fact, fabrication and omission that could impress the pants off the Pope -- if he wore pants -- which I don't think he does. (Though with all due respect, the Holy Father really knows how to pick versatile wardrobe. I digress.)
I am the youngest of four brothers. My parents, Cliff and Nancy, felt called to share their faith with the First Nations of Canada while at university in Seattle. So they packed up and moved north just after my oldest brother was born. To make a long story short I was born in Armstrong, British Columbia and raised as a part of a Plains Cree community in Saskatchewan. Canadians call them "Reserves", while my American friends call them "Reservations;" my Cree brothers just call it "The Rez."
Growing up "on the Rez" changes your point of view about some things. For instance, I'd always assumed that the cowboys were the bad guys in old western movies, and the obviously-much-cooler Indians were the good guys. Of course, this makes watching western movies pretty depressing. My team always loses. I guess it's like being a Red Sox fan -- and no; one pennant can't erase all of the great Red Sox jokes.
Being an outsider has pretty much been the defining characteristic of my life. I thought I was Cree until I was about seven or eight years old, only to find out from my mother that I was actually very white and descended from a US Marshal. I was pretty upset, but it made sense. The Cree are my family but I never did quite fit in. We would visit our friends & family back in the States periodically only to discover that I didn't really belong there either. Too Canadian or too Indian. Even when we moved to a predominantly white community in Canada I still dwelt on the fringes. Finally here I am, a Canadian-American Cree-hearted white-faced pastor/missionary-kid pop-writer living in the home of country music: Nashville, Tennessee. I must be a masochist, but I can't complain. It's given me a very unique perspective on life.
In my junior year of High School two friends and I started a band that would eventually morph into the Canadian pop/rock group Sweetsalt. The three of us loved music, and I thought that was more than enough reason to start recording an album. After a fairly miserable student-loan-funded first attempt (a bad idea) and a bunch of touring to support the miserable attempt, Sweetsalt signed on with a small indie label called Slyngshot Records for our first "official" release.
It was raw but Sweetsalt's self-titled debut somehow hit a nerve in Canada. The year I turned 20 we received a nomination for a Juno Award (Canada's highest music honour), a few Prairie Music Award nods, and from there we were off! We kept trying and nearly as many times as we failed we got lucky and hit what we were aiming for. It was crazy. Prairie Music Award and Western Canadian Music Award nominations kept coming in. Our first single was picked up on the local top 40 station and then spread across the prairie provinces. We started getting calls from California about shows like Dawson's Creek and Party of Five wanting to use our songs.
The second record, Radio Soldier, (recorded with daCapo Productions in Winnipeg) fared even better than the first, tying Nickelback for most nominations at the 2002 Western Canadian Music Awards. Again our single was picked up piecemeal across the country. Radio Soldier was even named "Best Pop Album" that year at the Canadian Independent Music Awards. We were booking festival dates headlining in front of crowds of ten thousand plus! For a little indie-pop trio from Saskatchewan we were on top of the world.
But some things aren't meant to last.
About ten days after the 2002 WCMA's my mom, my biggest supporter, passed away suddenly. It was totally unexpected and unexplained. It hit me and my family pretty hard. I started having unexplained chest pains. I had trouble writing. I began to feel more distant, even more closed off from people. Nothing really made sense and I started a very long downward spiral.
I did the only thing I knew to do. We continued to perform. Looking back it was probably for the best. My good friends and band-mates helped pull me through the aftermath of losing mom, but I'm sure the grind contributed to my loss of perspective when it came to music. I stopped feeling music and so it became work. To some degree I stopped feeling anything. I felt like I needed a real change.
I left for Nashville. There was no announcement and no warning. There was only an internal understanding that Sweetsalt was done. I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth. The end of a band is always messy, but when you've been together for as long as we had, there are bound to be some hurts left in the wake. Thankfully time has restored parts of what was lost in the intervening years. I'm glad to call my old band-mates friends again.
Looking back, my move to Nashville was equal parts trying to move on and trying to run away, but God is good. Thankfully, I met a beautiful and talented young lady named Robin who has helped me to maintain a timid hold on my sanity. They say taking risks is the only way to reap rewards, and so Robin and I were married in May of '06. She has been an invaluable support to me as I've struggled to define exactly what my focus would be here in Nashville and in the rest of life.
Since then I've been blessed with personal, financial, automotive, career, and housing disasters. I've been privileged to write with and learn from some of the finest songwriters in the country. I've found contentment in cleaning toilets, mopping floors, sweeping construction sites along with producing records and engineering recordings. I've had countless songs applauded and rejected by some of the biggest names in the industry. It's been quite the ride, never boring, and certainly never predictable.
Now in the middle of my fifth year in Tennessee I'm about to release my very first solo record. To tell you the truth, it's a little scary. I take comfort in the fact that I have labored to produce this work. I love these songs. I love these recordings. I love getting to work and write with such talented people, and if all else fails I'm proud of this record. I hope you'll like it too. Like anything worth doing, these songs were born out of struggle. I hope they speak to you.
Peace,
Ben
