How have you been keeping yourself busy since you haven't been able to tour?

Yeah, I haven't played a show since the beginning of March. Haven't played a concert, but I'm fortunate to have a platform where I can stream live a lot. I have a platform where I can offer Skype lessons. I can do a lot of recording from home for other people, for clients, produce, finish up other projects I've been working on. And most importantly finish this new album, which has been done for a while now, but I was working on that a lot during this time as well.

It wasn't just playing gigs that was keeping me going. That's just one of the elements under the umbrella of music for me, so I consider and myself fortunate in that regard, for sure.

Do you think that what you're doing now is sustainable if this drags on into next year?

It's hard to say. I'd like to think so.

I'm not a pessimist, but I'm definitely a little bit skeptical, and my mind, like a lot of people, tends to just veer off the deep end of thinking the worst rather than ... 'I think this'll just be fine.' (Laughs) Like, why would it? I tend to feel like, 'Oh, I don't think this is gonna work out.'

But I think that way when things are good and normal and there isn't a pandemic too. If it looks like this next year, and if I can continue doing what I'm doing, I think it'll be okay. I can only hope that it'll stay the same or get better. And if it gets worse, that's what we have our federal governments for, to help us (laughs). So, yeah.

Is the new album all done?

It's all done. We recorded this new album in December, working all o fDecember, worked in January. I was on tour in January, February, beginning of March. And then the idea was to really just hone in on the mixes, which we did. It's all wrapped, but the album's still not gonna come out for a while.

There are up-tempo songs on How Long, but I was still surprised a bit by the bounce that the new single "Coming Back" has. I don't associate that sound with you so much. How do you look at the song in comparison to your other work?

Well, this song definitely is in the same vein of my previous music. Production-wise, it comes from the same place, you know, in terms of instrumentation, in terms of arrangement. The song itself is a bit less roots-y per se. It's almost like taking a pop song, but masking it in roots music curtains ... the song definitely has a bounce.

It's definitely a jam. I wanted to put out a song that ... something that you could just bob your head to. Medium tempo, but high energy was what I was going for.

I wrote ["Coming Back"] two years ago. Basically, when I finished my last record, when we signed off on masters and everything for How Long, I immediately started writing new music. This is one of those first songs that was written.

It's just a jam!

Ben

About Ben