INTERVIEW: Ben Mason — Music Musings & Such

INTERVIEW:

Ben Mason

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IT is not often I get to feature an artist…

who resides away from the chaos and busy feet of a city! Those who do are usually within a short distance of a busy highway, mind. For Ben Mason; there is something idyllic and isolated that I had to explore. He tells me about his relocation from the bustle of central Washington DC and details regarding his album, Flesh and Bone. I learn about the songs and what compelled them; how his artwork – he is a talented and noted artist – blends with his music; what he thinks of President Trump’s leadership – and whether a trip to the U.K. is planned.

Mason discusses his favourite sounds and new artists; what he has planned for the rest of the year; the memories (from his time in music) that stand in his mind; what advice he would give to new artists – why relocation from the city (and noise) paid dividends regarding his creativity.

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Hi, Ben. How are you? How has your week been?

I’m doing well, thanks. My week has been beautifully hectic.

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourself, please?

I’m Ben Mason and I reside in the foothills of Rappahannock County, Virginia, U.S.A. - about an hour west of Washington DC.

Tell me about the album Flesh and Bone (your fourth C.D.) and the stories investigated throughout.

There are thirteen songs on the record. They track the last several years of my life - which was a journey for me of darkness to grace. Sunshine speaks to the celebration of a love I discovered and held onto for nine years. Haven’t Met You Yet confronts the reality that I have NOT met a partner yet that connects with me in a full-hearted way. Secret describes a relationship I had with a woman who was a swinger; bragged about it and wanted me to partake. (Which I never did). Not my cup of tea...but I’m not judging anyone here!

Beautiful Mistakes is incredibly prescient in that it foretells exactly how that woman left my life. It doesn’t describe the bowl of cereal she handed me the morning: she said she’d met a guy in a dog park and had been fu*king him for over a year.

The Only One is a song I wrote for her; when I believed in an only one. It also is shaded with my spiritual rootedness that has grown in my heart for as long as I can remember.

Born to Believe was a song I wrote for my publisher in L.A. for a movie that never came out - or has not yet come out. Again; the faith that has carried me over troubled waters appears in calm verses of encouragement. Freedom is about a soldier who kills a comrade in Vietnam while that comrade is out beyond the wire suffering hallucinations. The guilt follows him home where he finds solace in a Harley Davidson motorcycle which he names ‘Freedom’. It’s his “horse made of steel” and every year, when I play Rolling Thunder at the Lincoln Memorial in DC; about 600, 000 of these wounded warriors gather to celebrate and chant their courageous cries for recognition of the wounds of war - which cannot always be seen.

I’ve been involved in this POW/MIA cause since my first record back in 1987, River Deep in Me, and I willingly donated my time and proceeds from C.D. sales at Rolling Thunder to their cause. Sweet Satisfaction describes a soldier's dying wishes as he waits in a desert somewhere in Iraq, for a chopper and morphine, talking to his wife/girlfriend the whole time. He is alive, I hope. I met several veteran who tell this tale of chilling connection to death and the opportunity to reach through this veil to those who love them.

Carmelita is about a sweet old man who wanders out into the desert to be with his lost woman, Carmelita - and she finds him, and guides him home. My favorite line is “Beyond the mist across the sage I see the ribbons in her hair”. Hard to get through this one, sometimes. (I started it in 1997 and finished it in 2014). Complicated Stuff is about an ex- girlfriend’s bedroom and the simple truth that one doesn’t always know when love arrives. But it’s “Always simple things like this...never complicated stuff…I used to wonder what love is…but I get this”. Little Girl is about a friend whose daughter struggled with addiction to opioids and followed the lifestyle he’d enjoyed in bars. She ends up losing the child, and yet, my friends are there with at the church - as the “ashes are tossed in the sea”. Because she’s still his “little girl”. She comes to ask his forgiveness as he is on life-support - and she asks him to just “nod your head “if he wants to stay….because she’s still his “little girl…walking the fields to home.

Everything’s OK was written for my sons - one of whom has type-one diabetes and a rare brain condition. He’s brilliant, beautiful and is a body-builder. But, he could die anytime if his numbers turn the wrong way. The song is about how I sang them both to sleep every night using lyrics such as the ones in the chorus of Everything’s OK. I also advise them that, they too, will need to comfort a “child in the dark”.

Finally; I’m the One is about a detestable, passionate maniac who offer refuge to a woman and her children at his place in a swamp. He kills the man who comes looking for her and tells her she’s in on that murder. If she tells anyone, “There’s a place out-back where lots of birds will pick your bones”. He does all this because he’s “the one”. At the very end, he giggles and says “Come here baby, I’m just kiddin’ around”. I’m sincerely interested in disordered minds and wish I’d become a counselor.

Which brings me to my next answer…

What is your view on President Trump and his style of ‘leadership’?

We’ve elected a grandiose, maladaptive narcissist. The American Psychiatric Association, in their DSM-4, recognizes these disorders: borderline personality disorder; narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. What Trump has is the only disorder which is NOT treatable. He thrives on contention. He despises himself and seeks to avoid exposing this horrid inner-wound to the world and himself by constantly degrading and demeaning those around him. We are ALL his narc. supply.

I opened up for him at Rolling Thunder in 2016. I dedicated my song Heart of the Rebel to him. The crowd of 40k went wild. His people wanted to use it. I said “Talk to my lawyers.” They said: “We’ll use it if we want to…” and that was that. What nobody picked up on was that Heart of the Rebel is about three men - James Dean, John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ - who lost their lives and left us with a sense of strength. Having the “heart of the Rebel” means being good, courageous and strong. I’d hoped Trump would take that advice. Maybe he has...

Time will tell...

What was it like working with Steuart Smith on your album?

Working with Steuart Smith is like working alongside Rembrandt, Picasso and Mother Theresa: so pure, so giving…and we go back to 1973 - so I’ve only watched that beauty grow bigger. Steve and Nate are my soul brothers, musically. They are the soul of this record and the Loveland (my third C.D.) Nate is simply my favorite drummer in this reality. Steve is a mind-reading savant who walks my twisted path and catches me when I stumble.

You live in a ‘unique’ and vivid setting. Tell me about that...

I live here on thirty-acres on a river that the Pawmunkey Indians made pottery from using clay and river mussels. I find their pottery and arrowheads and tools and hear the wind making the same song sounds it made for them. I moved here from the center of the DC area where noise woke me every night - and the air and the water were treated by all that shares that space. I came here for silence. I came here to create my art…without knowing what I’d find. My own Native American heritage (Wampapanoag) called me here in other ways. I live alone but I feel the embrace of what comforts all of us: that this life is a masterpiece.

The stars, the fire; the river. I could not see that masterpiece from the paved mazes I ran through in the city. This is one of the darkest counties on the East Coast of the U.S. I’ve seen unbelievable things above me. I’m a mixed media constructionist - which is just a fancy way of saying I find treasures in the bits of things people walk across every day: on the street or along the river; the burnished beauty appears and I manipulate it to tell my stories. The art in the booklet - which comes with ‘flesh and bone’ - are pieces of some of those stories.

Do you think your art and music interconnect and are part of the same whole?

My music and my art are the same...

The mosaics I create with lyrics hold the same kinds of brilliant colors that I use to create physical art - and that physical art has a sound as it blends and calls the eyes to hear and see that harmony. I have to do both.

Have you and your sons made any art together? Is it a lifestyle they are involved with? What are the Blue Ridge Mountains like as a home?

My sons are gone mostly now on their journeys – but, yes, we made many pieces of art together and crafted stories as we rode in the car someplace. The land here gives off such intention; it’s where Pangaea came apart and back together about a billion years ago. The Blue Ridge Mountains are the oldest from that collision. In fact; I live next to the last remaining mountain that was volcanic, Battle Mountain - where Custer got his ass kicked by the Rebels.

But, these mountains were part of the Grenville chain which belted the earth about 1.1 billion years ago. There was a five-mile crack right where I’m living, the size of Yellowstone, about 735 million years ago…so; we have some crazy minerals here: green epidote, blue quartz; red jasper, pink feldspar - and I use those rocks in my art.

Is it hard living in near-wilderness and away from the city?

It’s been challenging to live in such isolation - but it’s fed my art and music as if I’d been starving. So; it’s brought me to life. I’m only seventy-five minutes from DC - and gigs I do there.

PHOTO CREDIT: Greta Van Fleet

Who are the new artists you recommend we check out?

Check out Gret a Van Fleet. They are the rebirth of Led Zeppelin - but apparently don’t even know there ever was a Led Zeppelin!

Do you have any gigs coming? Where can we see you play?

I’m playing at Pearl Street Warehouse on February 7th; Gadino Cellars February 10th - and Griffin Tavern on February 23rd.

Will the U.K. be among your upcoming gigs?

I’d gladly come to the U.K. I love early and current Brit-Rock.

What is your fondest memory of your time in music so far?

Too many memories…

But, one time, we were playing somewhere and a well-dressed woman and her navy captain husband stopped by our table to say their son was in a band. “What’s Jimmy’s band’s name, dear?” she asked her dour, naval officer husband.

”The Doors”, he muttered.