Fresh from storming a grey and dank Hard Rock Calling 2012, we caught up with Black Stone Cherry’s amiable axeman Ben Wells for a quick chat about the weather, playing to British crowds and covering Amy Winehouse.
Hello Ben, In England we love to talk about the weather all the time…
Ben: “I don’t know why! I don’t know why you wanna brag about this weather!”
Well it must be quite different to how it is in Kentucky?
Ben: “Right now, from what people are saying back home it’s over a hundred degrees. So when we’re returning home a lot of heat... but it’s all good! It seems like every time we do festivals over in the summertime it’s always cold and rainy. We’re like come on! It’s summertime!”
A lot of your songs seem to capture that warmth of the place where you’re from, where do you find the inspiration to play that on a day like today at Hard Rock Calling when it’s pissing it down?
Ben: “At the end of the day a song is a song, no matter what the atmosphere, and the thing about us is we’re writing personal music which everyone can relate to in some way. So for us to play those songs in places like this or in smaller clubs no matter what the weather people seem to enjoy that. And it might take their mind off the crazy weather, or whatever’s going on in their life at the time, you know? That’s the beauty of music.”
Definitely, I think your show warmed everyone up a bit…
Ben: “Awesome.”
When you’re picking your set list, how do you choose between your earlier, heavier stuff and your newer, kind of lighter material?
Ben: “It can be difficult, especially when we’re doing shorter sets. Now that we have three albums out we try and fit in a good mixture of all three records. When we do headline sets we can do whatever we wanna do. At festivals we always play all the singles, or most of them anyway, but we always put in the crowd pleasers, the ones that carry over big atmosphere. Today we played a 40 minute set and there were some songs I wish we still could have played… but you know its part of the deal.”
And there was a brief cover of Amy Winehouse’s ‘Rehab’ in the set today…
Ben: “Yeah, we started doing that on the last tour over here, just because it adds something fun, you know, mix it up a little bit.”
You were really going for it on stage it was great to see, you said you love what you do and it’s easy to see…
Ben: “Thank you. I like to have a good time you know, and entertain… we’re in the entertainment business, there’s no sense in just standing still. People come to see a show, and I couldn’t stand still if I tried anyway. I just get up there… and you get a lot of adrenaline from the music and the audience, so that’s why I have to jump around! It’s our second time doing this festival, we did it back in ’07 when it was called Hyde Park Calling and we played the tent so it was cool to be on the big stage this time.”
And your album last year, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’, had a different sound to your previous work.
Ben: “Yeah, that’s the goal, for us, to continue to evolve with each album. To mature, and keep our roots but also expand our audience and that’s what we try to do with each album.”
It was fantastic to meet you Ben and great to see you play.
Ben: “Thank you, it’s a pleasure.”
Interview: George Allonby
(Published on websites like ForthOne)
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