BEN HOWARD
| BEN HOWARD |
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| Every Kingdom, due stateside in April 2012, will be the first record released in the U.S. on the taste-making independent label Communion Records. The album was recorded in a converted barn in the English countryside, and has turned out darker in its lyrical content than Ben Howard imagined it would. The melodies come easy, but he worked hard on the words. “There’s a lot of stuff about people and relationships, and about myself—I’m quite self-indulgent in that respect.” 2011 was a breakthrough year for Howard. Highlights included signing a deal, getting amazing support from the media and releasing a beautiful debut album. The record reached the U.K. Top 10, and Howard found himself back out on the road in the van with his band and closest friends playing every other town in the U.K. and Europe. Every single show sold out, bar none; more tours were added, venues were constantly being upgraded, and yet 2011 was just another stepping stone, a continuation of what he’s been doing for years, albeit on a much bigger, more frantic scale. Life on the road with his band, childhood friend India Bourne on cello and Chris Bond on bass and drum, has created a close knit unit and given them all a heightened “awareness of sound.” You can hear it in the gentle, note perfect harmonies and the fragility in which they are delivered. The band hushes rooms, scatters the audience with a sense of euphoria, and leaves them desperate for much more of the same. “I think people can hear that when the band and I play, we really mean it. I have always written songs that draw on my own emotions, and I don’t want to try and hide any of it. I guess everyone relates to raw emotion,” notes Howard. A young acoustic troubadour, Howard will make you feel as though he is the first young acoustic troubadour you have ever heard. He brings freshness to the form, gives it luster, making it all seem brand new, even though his songs have a quality of wisdom and a rootsy authenticity as old as the hills. He is something of an acoustic guitar whiz, having mastered the art of strumming, plucking and hammering the instrument for rhythmic purpose. Howard grew up in Devon, a county in the South West of England and surrounded himself with the richly textured music in his parent’s record collection. “Van Morrison, John Martyn, Nick Drake, Richie Havens, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel,” he says. “That’s what we’d listen to in the house and in the car wherever we were going.” It was these records that encouraged him to pick up a guitar, re-stringing his mother’s Spanish nylon acoustic at the age of eight. Howard’s organic success was initially marked by the core European surf scene, who had quickly taken him under their wing and were fiercely passionate about promoting him. Big name surf brands signed on to support the emerging artist, and just as Howard contemplated doing the whole thing alone, in came Island Records, U.K. Long before the hustle and bustle of press teams and radio pluggers, marketing campaigns and BBC sessions, Howard was filling the van with mates and tapes and making himself a living on his own terms. Every Kingdom was recorded in the family countryside barn of cellist India Bourne and is produced by drummer, Chris Bond. “Nobody knows the music like we do. Chris is brilliant at capturing a mood and an atmosphere so we kept close to what we know so well. I am really proud that we did,” muses Howard. Now that he’s been introduced to a wider audience with the benefit of hefty rotation on the British national radio stations, Howard is in the enviable position of preparing to introduce himself to American and Australian audiences—countries he is incredibly excited to be visiting, let alone performing to. Communion Records will release Every Kingdom in the U.S. this April, and Ben will tour the country in support of it, from Austin to Boston. “The thing is, I love to move,” Howard says. “I love to travel. I get twitchy if I’m in the same place too long.” Which is lucky really because Howard and the band aren’t going to be sitting still for a while. |
