When 28 year old Virginian-born musician Benjamin Booker calls to chat about his upcoming trip to Australia for Bluesfest he is in good spirits, with a healthy mind and body, but he is the first to admit that wasn’t always the case. As a young teen he spent most of his time away from his trailer park home and his parents’ strict Christian beliefs, finding solace at his local skate park after the family relocated to Tampa, Florida.
“I was at the skate park every weekend and we’d listen to a few local bands,” he says. “My dad would pick me up and drop me off, so shout out to my dad for taking me all those times.”
Booker grew up surrounded by gospel music with barely any other musical influences – in fact, he says he hadn’t even heard of the Beatles until he was 16 – so it was at the skate park and small DIY punk shows around the area that Booker first fell in love with music.
“Back then no bands toured my home town!” he laughs. “It’s like the last place people wanna go. Most of the bands I grew up seeing live were locals. Which, looking back on it now, was kind of awesome because I just grew up listening to my friends and people who were my age in other cities making music. I really didn’t listen to ‘outside’ music until I was older. I didn’t know any big names back then.”
I’ve never been able to pick what people will connect to because every song I write is incredibly personal.
After high school, Booker attended college in Gainesville, but says he was miserable during the time, spending much of his late teens and early 20’s faking a smile and using substances behind the scenes to get by. “I went to school for journalism for a while, I wanted to be a music journalist but I gave up to start working for a not-for-profit.”
Booker went to work for a community organisation in New Orleans and remembers that time as an eye-opening experience. “To do anything well in life you have to be passionate about it. I’ve worked at a place where I made sandwiches all day. My parents would always say ‘You’re making sandwiches, so make the best sandwiches,’ so I did.”
However, disillusioned by the hypocrisy he encountered in the city, Booker continued his self-destructive habits and threw himself into song-writing, released his raw, gutsy self-titled debut album and hit the road. “When I first started touring it was just me and my drummer in a little SUV, just the two of us. I didn’t have a tour manager or a sound person and I did that for as long as I possibly could.”
The following year Booker went on tour supporting Jack White and Courtney Barnett. Not long after that, the former skate punk found himself in Australia as one of the most anticipated acts at St Jerome’s Laneway Festival in 2015.
“I definitely have some fond memories of being in Australia. It was my favourite time of that album tour,” he says. “It was just nice to travel around with all the bands. I’d never played anything like that where all the bands play together and you can pop around to see them – it was like a summer camp. Some of the people I became friends with I caught up with very recently and I will always keep in touch with. People in Australia still love rock music and it was just cool to see people responding to it like that.”
People in Australia still love rock music and it was just cool to see people responding to it like that
Booker returned to New Orleans. After the near death experience of being randomly shot at in the street, coupled with the daunting prospect of writing a worthy follow-up LP, he decided a change of scenery was the only way forward. Booker headed south to Mexico.
Witness, released in June 2017, is a collection of 10 powerful songs that are crafted more like essays, as Booker voices his struggle and concerns over issues such as police brutality, racism, inequality and poverty in the USA. The title track is a direct reaction to the slaying of everyday African Americans by the police, featuring singer, actress and activist Mavis Staples. “That song has really jumped out at people, but initially I wasn’t going to use it.”
“I’ve never been able to pick what people will connect to because every song I write is incredibly personal to me. I have my producer, Sam Cohen to thank for that because everybody is drawn to that song.”
The album as a whole feels like it could be the soundtrack to his young life, combining the heavenly gospel tones of his childhood, the punk rock angst of his youth, the soulful lamentations of a man who sees the injustice in society, and the strength of his convictions to no longer stand idly by.
But today, as Booker approaches his 29th birthday, he is filled with gratitude: “The people I should thank are the people I work with. The label and the management do whatever it takes to allow me to be able to write the songs,” he says. “I honestly don’t know what my last two records would have been like if it wasn’t for the support of those important people.”
Benjamin Booker plays Bluesfest in Byron Bay March 29 to April 2, joining the recently announced Ms. Lauryn Hill, and will play a pair of headline shows too, with full dates below. Witness is out now through Rough Trade/Remote Control.
Benjamin Booker Bluesfest sideshows 2018
29 March 2018
Factory Theatre, Sydney
Tickets
31 March 2018
The Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Tickets
Benjamin Booker also plays Byron Bay Bluesfest 2018
Tickets on sale now
