hello!
i felt it was long overdue for me to come on here and check in. tonight i have decided will be the rare occasion i pop out of my tiny hole at the base of the tall oak tree i reside under and say hello to you all. i hope you all are doing well. i wanted to give some updates on my life so maybe you don't feel so alone in your own. so, here goes.
i have upgraded my music setup greatly over the past few weeks. if you didn't already know, all the music i've made up until fairly recently has been with my own fingers on my phone's garageband app. so, as you can imagine, basically anything is an upgrade from there (lol). i got a new microphone (i've had my original blue yeti since i was in fifth grade, so… almost 10 years ago? oh how the time flies), a new midi keyboard, new headphones, audio interface, the works really. it's quite exciting. but i would be lying if i said it wasn't a little frustrating having to figure out how new DAW's work that i'm not particularly familiar with. i guess i had grown accustomed to garageband for so many years that it began to feel second nature to me in a weird way. i have always told people that i wanted my next album to have a more upgraded sound that felt different from my past few records, and i got that, but it's definitely frustrating and confusing at times. but, nonetheless, i am excited to push forward and figure it out.
i have been in ohio since mid-may hanging out with my friends, writing, singing, and slowly etching away at the huge marble rock (figuratively speaking) that is going to end up becoming the new album. it's in there somewhere, i just have to make it. and i am. and i will. and it will be good. i've been dealing with really bad blocks since putting out “Who We Were Meant to Be” back in january, and it is now mid-july, sometimes it feels like such a hard thing to even begin to think about, the writing. but i will push forward as i always do and create the best music i have ever made, mark my words. i have a vision for it, it's there, but like i said, i just need to make it. it has a title and i have a cover shoot in mind. but if you know literally anything about me by now it is that that will inevitably change more than a few times by the time this album ends up coming out. with “Heaven, The Afterlife” i think i did five (?) shoots for that album? one of which was for the lead single, which we shot in upstate new york in novemeber 2022 (which, fun fact, was before i even made the song to begin with, i was ahead of the curve!), so i guess i did four shoots for that album. the aesthetic changed so many times, the last shoot i did was redo of the one previous to it (a whole different story i will not be getting into here), but all of this is to say that the version of the album that comes out will be a completely different version than the one i have in mind now, one that i probably haven't even thought about yet. so there's that. i'm realizing as i'm writing this that i write horribly on these posts, i guess this just makes them more humanlike, lol.
on an unrelated music note, i went to mexico with my friends back in june. i had the time of my life. i had never even left the country before, and it was just such a blast. maybe if i can i'll include some pics of my life since the last time i wrote on here just so you guys can get a glimpse into what i've been up to. i've been taking a break, in all honesty. i feel like i needed it.
i have also been applying to interships all day. i feel like im finally getting back into the swing of things i'm used to. i'm trying to get out of the slump of hating anything i make because i've felt that way for the last few months about any piece of music i create, but i guess that's all part of the process. normally, my albums come together relatively quickly (six months-year), but i can tell already that this one is gonna take a long time. but it will come! fear not!
anyway, i hope you all are safe, healthy, and well. i'm going back to new york in a month or so, and i'm really excited. vote me if you can! you will hear from me soon, i'm sure of it.
yours 5eva,
ben