Interview and Review- Fryars at Plymouth Pavillions

 

Twenty four year old musician, producer and song writer Benjamin Garrett (better known by his stage name Fryars) released his first full length album Power last month to wide critical praise. Garrett’s years of composition are reflected in the polished and unified sound of the album, though it can be quite experimental in its approach to rhythm and melody, it never sounds disjointed or incomplete. 

The latest single from the album ‘Cool Like Me’ is extremely well produced; the wavering vocals and strong progressive beat making it one of the more memorable releases of last month. While slower and more reflective tracks like ‘The Power’ and ‘In My Arms’ are well constructed with punchy lyrics and pretty intense piano lead melodies. Overall the album is a strong release with some stand out tracks that sound far more mature than you’d expect from such a young artist- ‘On Your Own’ for example is of such highly stylised quality it wouldn’t sound out of place on a David Bowie or Beatles album.

I caught up with Ben after his set supporting Lily Allen (who recently hired Garrett as a co-writer) at Plymouth Pavillions. We talked sleeping in shop windows, weird writing habits and musical first loves. 

Interview:

Power is a really beautiful and emotive album; it comes across as very sincere. Do you put a lot of yourself or your experiences into your writing?

I guess invariably it all comes from me, in that I wrote it all. Maybe it’s just to disguise trying to do something that’s personal. But I wrote a 30 page script before starting the album, which was kind of on the scale of a Hollywood blockbuster, and I guess the songs are kinda inspired by that script. But I took a lot of the more narrative stuff out of the end product and just left in the emotive reflections of the characters. What’s left on the album are like little snippets of 25 minutes of dialogue that I recorded first. 

Are you hoping to pursue this script more or was it just a tool for writing the album?

No I think I’m done with it now, in a way as we were saying, you can’t make it too coloured or explored or people can’t have this emotive response to it. It was never something I wanted anyone to take too literally. But all the artwork and everything for the album is inspired by that script. 

Do you have a writing habit, routine or favourite place to write? Or is it just wherever and whenever inspiration strikes?

I like being able to have the ability to do it at any minute, so it’s good to have a computer or a pad to hand. And I kept my studio in my room for that reason, but that’s also quite oppressive. Particularly its weird when like loads of other artists are coming over and working on their stuff and they’re all just sitting on my bed! There’s nothing awkward or wrong about it, but it would be nice to get out of the house. But the reason I do it is just so I can put anything down at any moment. And then in terms of process, I mean the main thing is you’ll probably exhaust a process very quickly,  cause you’re not gonna change crazily as a person unless a dramatic event happens to you, so the easiest way to keep it going creatively is to think hard about your process and keep changing it. 

You’ve been making music since you were 14, and you’re music seems to be constantly evolving and exploring new areas, do you think composing from an early age has made you feel more free to be a bit more experimental?

I certainly feel free to do what I want, but I think with the EP’s there has been a kind of devolution because I actually made most of that after I made the album, and so it’s literally just me fucking about in a few minutes, compared to the album which is something I thought long and hard about as a kind of whole. 

Your short film for Power was really beautiful, do you get involved with the creative side of your other music videos much? ‘Cool Like Me’ had some brilliant jokes and shots in it. 

It’s all working from one concept really, so like the short film- which I didn’t call a short film by the way, I know its fifty minutes, but the guy who does our online stuff said we couldn’t call it a film- so yeah, it’s a long short film!

But yeah I think the Cool Like Me Video was the best one, but it was the one I had the least to do with, we kind of just came up with a concept on the phone and then I let them get on with it. It was a couple of guys called Ian and Cooper, I think they’d only made like three or four videos before, but they’ll go and make massive commercially but they smashed it out of the park, really great guys. 

What was the first song you remember identifying strongly with or finding inspirational? 

Apparently I was really overwhelmed by the Neighbours theme tune, when I was a one year old, I used to get up and just go crazy to it. Also, I was into military music aged around three to six, then I started like taping shit off the radio, really shit pop songs, off Capital, like Gabrielle, that song that sounds like batteries. And the first thing I brought properly was that Tin Tin Out song, it was by a band called The Sundays but they covered it with Emma Bunton singing, ‘Here’s Where the Story Ends’ …that’s it! 

Your collaboration with Rae Morris on ‘Cold’ was amazing. I was talking to your tour manager Will earlier and he said you cancelled your European tour because you might be doing a tour with her in February. What is it like collaborating with her and are you looking forward to the tour?

Yeah I started working with Rae ages ago, and I wrote and produced a track called Grow for her, and I produced a couple of Eps for her. Weirdly after that first thing, I went in to do it was a writing thing, but then everyone after she’d been sent to anyone whose anyone, they were like we love how this sounds, so I ended up producing a couple of EPs, though I probably would have been better off doing some writing. Anyway, they sounded really cool and we kinda started on doing an album and someone suggested we do a duet, so I came up with some ideas and Rae came round and we sort of thrashed it out, and then it took a while to get it sounding right but I think we go it there. 

 

What was it like living in the No. 5 record store on Denmark St., and then sleeping in the window for three days to promote the album?

It was actually really comfortable, I had a security guard to watch me while I slept, so I felt very safe, there were no creepy fans horror stories or anything, but there were a few homeless guys who’d lived on that street for years, and they occasionally sort of knocked or leered. But security Stew would have wiped them out in a second, but he couldn’t use force, he’d just have to guide them away, security guards are weirdly powerless. 

Do you have any advice to aspiring writers and musicians?

I guess, my advice would be more of a selfish thing, I mean I could tell someone easily how to make loads of money in the industry, but my advice really is please don’t do it unless you think it’s incredibly important that you bring what you’re doing to the world. Because there is a lot of noise and stuff to distract from what is good, and if everyone takes the responsibility of censoring themselves first. I mean it’s complicated, I’m sure there are people out there unsure of their work who need people to coax it out of them, but I think if we were more self-censoring it would be a good start point.