Sean & Soph Catchup Podcast - BENEE Joins The Show....

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

Benee joins me to chat 'Beach Boy', high school years, and play a few games...

This is a podcast from Rover. It is The Edge Nights and I'm so excited to be joined right now by one of my favorite Kiwi artists ever. Benny. Hey! Got some brand new music out. I do. Drop last week. It's called Beach Boy.

And this is the first single of a brand new EP that's coming later this year, right? Lightchy. Sooner than you think, actually. Can I say the date? I don't know. Yeah, we can say the date. March 4th. There, that's a date.

New EP from Benny. Lightchy, so this came from your love of tinned life. light cheese right yep but like no the actual light she but I don't think you can get light cheese here like the solid fruit I don't think I've ever had light she's not in a tin yeah well because yeah but once I was in like I was in Indonesia and I had like these little light cheese and you just like peel them open and it's like really good and then you're like I've got this is going to be the next my new favorite fruit I'm gonna like go home and like rave about this fruit that I can't get in a can here so how many things in your life do you see that you like and you just

write about them because I know it's snail evil spider now light You just like see things. A lot of things. A lot of things I write about that I like. So you've worked with Josh Fountain who you've worked with in the past, Kiwi producer. And then you've worked with some real bigwigs on this one, like some LA producers who have worked with... Real bigwigs. But they are, right?

Yeah, they're people... Like one of the guys you work with is work with Adele, Ed Shearren, won so many Grammys. He did FU by Lily Allen, which I didn't know about? Was it nervous being in a studio with someone like that? Did it change the vibe of how you usually write with Kiwis? A couple of the sessions were slightly intimidating. But, like, you realize that they're all just, like, super nerdy music lovers. And it's actually very chill.

So it's a nice, it's a nice vibe. So let's play your song, Beach Boy, to start off with. What's this track about? Is it all just, like, a concept of fantasy? Pretty much. I was kind of just in LA. Thinking about, like, how maybe I was wanting attention, but also, like, thinking that, you know, I broke up with my boyfriend, like,

at the start of last year, because I just, like, relationships aren't at at the moment. You know, you feel me? And it's about how many times you could use the word bitch. song. That was like a last minute edition. Like I went in and I was like, and then kind of sounds like beach. Yeah. And then I joked about it and I was like, well, that's so much cooler. Let's add that. Let's listen to it. Here it is. New music from Benny. Get voting for this in the top 20 from 8 tonight. This is Beach Boy on the end. Benny, I've got a game to play with you. Your songs have obviously taken off on TikTok. It's been like a big contributor to how

viral your stuff's gone. And you would know that one of the trends on TikTok at the moment is for songs to be slowed down. So they'll like do a slow down version of a track and then that will take off. Okay. Are you going to get me to like guess songs slowed down? Oh man, you've done too many interviews with me. No, I've never done this before. That's exactly what I'm going to do.

So I know I'm not a Grammy award-winning producer, but I have jumped in studio with some of your songs. I've slowed them down. And they're going to get progressively slower and you, Benny, just have to tell me which one of your songs I've slowed down. Oh, yeah. This is going to be really embarrassing. Oh my God.

That sounds kind of. cooler than the original. Superluck, yeah. That's super long. All right, they're one for one. That is an easy one though. Sounds cooler when I sound like a dude. It's quite a big song.

Super lovely. Yeah, I pitched you down as well. Yeah, yeah, cool, cool. Okay, second one. This one's a bit nash, the song. Okay. Oh, the Jotie. Oh my God, I was thinking about that song today.

What is it called? I'm in love with the song. Really? You don't know what it's called? No, what's it called? I've just forgotten. Afterthought. Don't look to anyone.

This is your game. No, I know there's a... After Phil, after the song. That was a curveball for Benny. This was a feature. I was actually just listening to him. And I was going to think, oh, what was it? What was it called?

Write something? Right time? No, I don't know what it's called. That's an amazing album. And that's an amazing feature from you, by the way. It's one of my favorites. All right, third one, Benny. Cool.

Yeah. Oh, that sounds crazy. All right. And the last one, this one's going to be the hardest. Okay. All right. I've slowed this down. Hey, so you can't really tell what's something.

is. Is it tough guy? Oh my god. Four for four. Benny, Benny knows her own music. Yeah, apparently, apparently not. How did you get that out of this? The lyrics. Oh yes, I suppose. You did write the lyrics. I did write the lyrics. All right. Well, Benny, congratulations. Four for four on that. That's really impressive. Thank you. So you're 22 now, right? Yes. So school looking back about four years ago, what was high school like for you? Because apparently, I mean, I read this something. I was just talking about high school as well. Really?

Dude, your mind reading me right now. Sorry, what are you going to say? What was it like at high school? I heard you like didn't really like writing. And now you're a songwriter. No, I liked writing. Oh, you did? I liked creative writing.

Oh, creative but not like formal writing. I just, because I'm dyslexic, so I was also like, just struggled a bit. I actually enjoyed myself. I loved, like, just the structure and like being able to go there and like just doing, I mean, that was like leaving high school. I was like, far out, taking back. What am I doing with my life?

No, I loved, I loved geography and, like, art history and all that stuff. And, you know, I wanted to be an astronaut, but science... You wanted to be an astronaut? Yeah, but my brain is not really... It's more the creative kind of... I would just... I would piss off some astronauts, like, I wouldn't stop talking or something. Were you ever musical at high school?

Because you were throwing out all these subjects that aren't really music. Yes, yes. I played saxophone for, like, four years. I auditioned for some... for a choir that I didn't get into. What? I know. You didn't get into a choir?

I was like, oh, gosh, my dreams of crash. But then I go into another choir, which was like the cool choir. So it was, it was cool. It was fun. I don't know. She just told me that I had like a radio voice and I was like, thanks a lot. What does that even mean? Yeah, what does that mean?

Yeah, so anyways. I take offense to that on your behalf. Yeah. So do you think people from school, I mean, obviously it's been a bit now since you've kind of blown up per se. People from school, do you think it would be, weird for them. Do they ever expect you to be like the person who ends up being the big, the big singer because you didn't really do that much at high school? I don't know. It like

definitely came out of nowhere. Tough guy released like just as I was leaving school and everyone's like, oh, Stella. Have you had anyone reach out to you? Like is the school reached out to you and be like, Benny, can you come and do a performance? Play our school ball. No, they didn't say come play the school ball, but I think they have asked me a couple times to come in, but I've been busy like when they've asked me. So I haven't been avoiding it. It's just been like not the right time. That's fair. But also, like, I'm not really, I'm not going to go over there and, like, do some inspirational talk because I don't like public talking. I don't really know what's going to happen there.

This is called this or that. So I give you two options, right? And there's two things that are similar. And you just have to tell me, off the top of your head, first thing that comes to mind, which one do you prefer? Okay. All right, Benny, this or that? Billy Eilish or Dillipa? Billy Elish.

Cats or dogs? Uphoria or too hot to handle? Oh, euphoria. But too hot to handle it slabs like this. so entertaining. They're both great shows. Oh, man. Harry Stiles or Sean Mendes?

Oh, probably Harry Stiles. That's fair. That breakup look nasty. What? With Sean and Camila. Oh, yeah. That's a big deal. Mac is or K-fry?

Meat talents. I don't need meat, so it kind of like rules off everything. Oh, okay. What are two? Peter Pitifuls or Subway veggie patty. Subway. But when I ate chicken, the chicken, the chicken, what was it called? Was it spicy?

I don't know. There are a few good chicken ones at Subway. Subway pops off. All right, Drax Project or 660? Oh, I'm going to get cats. You don't have to answer that, you don't have to know. Okay, neither. Neither.

No, I don't read that zone. Make the hair blonde. Both, both. All right, super lonely or glitter? Super lonely, probably. And is there any song you're sick of playing? Um. Of yours.

That you're like, oh, I don't know. Glitter. Really? Most of them actually. But I've got a whole EP coming. Yeah, yeah. Of course, but I mean that happens to artists, right? You've heard your music more than anyone.

Yes. You listen to your songs hundreds and hundreds of times before they even came out. Hundreds and hundreds. I listen to Beach Boy, honestly, like, probably over 100 times before it came out, like just kind of thinking, like, oh my God, is there anything I should change? And then, like, getting a mix, listening to that, like, probably like 20 times and, like, being like, oh my gosh, they've ruined the song. And then, like, it's just a back and forth for ages.

Really? How many iterations of it was there? Like, the song that we hear now, is that very different to what you're in? initially had. It's actually not, but it always, like, the process is always, like, once I've kind of finished with the producer, and because he's in LA, I came back and he kind of tweaked a couple of things. I got it back, and then we kind of, like, had a discussion about, like, anything else

that we wanted to change. Then it goes to a mixer. Sometimes mixes, like, really, like, spice it up, but sometimes on the wrong ways. Like, it's kind of, like, an artsy, like, it's like an art-based. Because what they do is, like, change the levels of things, right? Yeah, and they, like, you know, they enhance some areas of. of it that maybe, like, you know, there's like an ad lib that I didn't even know existed, that they have, like, cranked up or they really do change the sound, though, a lot.

So that's like a big, long back and forth process because I am really picky, and then it gets mastered and then boom. That's good, though, that you're picky, because you wouldn't want to be, like, put something out because the producer thinks it's the right thing to do. No, I know. And the whole time you're like, oh, I wish the song sounded like the way I wrote it. I know. And sometimes, like, yeah, you think about that as well, because, like, once the song's out,

it's out forever. Yeah. You're not going to be able to tweak that vocal or tweak that little bloody key thing that was just randomly put in there by the mixer. Unless you do a vault series in 10 years like Taylor Swift. Exactly. True that. Take it all off. Put it back on.

So you said Beach Boy, you went back and forth heaps of times. What was the song that came from like concept to mastering the fastest on the new EP? Was there anyone that was just like happened in a series of days? Like they all took quite similar times. But the turnaround for Beach Boy was like pretty. fast because I did it like November last year and then now it's coming out so it's like usually I sit on a song for a lot longer yeah so when you're performing at like um at festivals over new years you're just like man I wish I could play my new song did you play any of them no that's like we did the we did dance farm which was like really it was actually really sick why didn't you play beach boy because we kind of already had like visuals and a whole set um all kind of organized and it was just we thought that we would end that is like our last kind of kind of bang of the last set, kind of was like a little moment. Is that the one with the trees?

No, we didn't have the trees. But yeah, we did have the trees at rhythm. So what's the new set for the new album? Have you come up with a concept for it? Is it Beachy? No, but it is different. It is very different. And I'm gutted that we can't do it in New Zealand because I was like,

oh my God, we can start here. I'm like, shall we run all the new songs. But we're going to try to figure out something else, like that we can maybe post online or whatever instead. but mushrooms. It's mushrooms. Mushrooms. That's so good.

I saw the hilarious video of Katie Perry performing as a mushroom the other day. Cute. On Saturday Night Live, she dressed up as a mushroom. Cute. Is that good? Are you going to dress up as a mushroom or just mushrooms around? I feel like both. Both.

I love that. We'll make sure you listen to Beach Boy and save the date. March 4th for Benny's brand new EP, Light She cannot wait for that, Benny. Thank you so much, as always for joining me. Appreciate it. Always good to catch up.