We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Benjamin Harper a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Benjamin , appreciate you joining us 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 think we learn to do things by doing them. Do it over and over and use whatever resources you have at the time. When I started to write and record songs as a kid, I didn’t have any kind of multi track capability. I used two different cassette decks. I recorded one part, then played that back and played along with it while recording on a separate boom box or whatever I had at the time. With something like writing and arranging songs, the best thing is to just do it a lot, and listen to a lot of artists that inspire you. One of the most essential skills, in my opinion, is listening. Listen and incorporate all the cool things you hear into your own work, in your own way. The biggest obstacle for me (always) is Inertia. Life is change and art is change and if you don’t keep moving and creating, something starts to die. For artists especially, I think it’s very easy to become complacent. So I want to keep making art that is more interesting to me than the last and stop comparing it to anything outside of me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I write/arrange/produce music. Mostly for myself and occasionally for other artists. I got into this whole business just by starting to write and record and play in bands. I have a band called Smart Objects, but I’ve been involved with many bands including Magnolia Sons, The Comfies, and Feable Weiner (yes you read that right) I have a new project (Harper Mayo) out soon (10/28/22) with my dear friend, Laura Mayo. With any music project, my first and main concern is making something that I find personally interesting and that whoever I’m working with finds interesting.

What do you find most rewarding about being creative?

The most rewarding aspect is flow state. The actual creation process that you sink into and lose time. The excitement and passion that comes out of that is the real reward of creating anything.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I’d love to see more grants for artists that enables them to create. I’m very curious where the business of music might be heading. I’d love to hear about more people buying art/music from artists they love rather than *just* streaming.

Contact Info:

• Website: Smartobjectstheband.com
• Instagram: Smartobjectstheband
• Facebook: Facebook.com/smartobjectstheband
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC6xcSK2BaiQZNoeinty8q7Q

Image Credits
Elisabeth Donaldson and Travis Commeau