We recently connected with Ben Danaher and have shared our conversation below.

Ben , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I feel like I am and always will constantly be learning this craft of songwriting. When I started there was such a thrill to completing songs and getting to the next level of it. Then when I moved to Nashville, I was humbled very quickly by the amazing talent that was going around this town just unsigned and unrecognized. With that came a very valuable resource of learning the craft of songwriting. I was able to get in rooms with other writers who were better than me and learn how they approached songs. I don’t think there is a way to speed any of it up. I think you lose alot in this craft by cutting corners. Getting beat up makes you a better writer. The most important thing I am learning recently is recognizing the fundamental “why” of what I do. When I started writing, no one else was involved. Now I am navigating expectations from myself and alot of other people. I fear Im getting lost in the translation of it all.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a son of a singer songwriter from Vermont. My dad moved to Houston Tx before I was born to pursue songwriting. so, when I was growing up, our house was full of musical instruments. It was also shown to me early on that this is a very achievable career. I like to believe my song are there to help people but that might be a selfish answer. I write songs to help myself cope and in that process hope that people find some of themselves in it. I am probably most proud that I still get to wake up everyday and create. It’s something I have taken for granted for a long time, but see now that it in itself is a huge accomplishment.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think the most rewarding aspect of being a songwriter is seeing connection between you and the people listening to your songs. It always blows my mind to get messages of how my songs have helped someone through a tough time in thier life or even lately when someone cares so much about a song to have it tattoo’d on thier body. Never did I think that would’ve ever happened. But, as we create it’s easy to feel like these songs are only for ourselves or that no one hears them and they become invisible, so getting that validation is huge in the creative process.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

They biggest lesson I have had to unlearn is that expectations are your worst enemy. A few years ago I was bartending/ writing songs and playing shows when I could. In that time, everything was a giant win. Through my climb up, I was awarded an opening slot on a pretty big tour. Thousands of people every night. Even my overhead was taken away as I was able to get on the bus and ride gig to gig and sell more merchandise than I ever had. The problem with that was that when it ended my expectation was through the roof. Now all of a sudden the gigs I would’ve killed for as a bartender were a big inconvenience, but I had no other option but to take them because my career was still at that level. It turned me off of writing for a while until I recently had a hard look at the fundamental why of why I write. That has helped me take things day to day and be happy with the results.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bendanaher.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/bendanahermusic
• Facebook: Facebook.com/bendanahermusic
• Twitter: twitter.com/bendanaher

Image Credits
All photos Daniel Shippey Photography