Latest / The Front / Ben Abraham: Hitmaker who's not too cool for Christmas

Transcript

Ben Abraham: Hitmaker who's not too cool for Christmas · The Front

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I was the page turner for twenty years. I've actually
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: been on TV more than any of those performers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: You like the ball Boy of Christmas exactly exactly from
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I'm Claire Harvey. Melbourne born, LA based musician Ben Abraham
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: is one of our most talented musical exports. He co
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: wrote one of the biggest songs of the past decade
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: and performed it at the Grammys. Inside the music business,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: he's absolutely huge. Ben is cool Christmas concerts famously. I'm not,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: but Ben Abraham has made Christmas concerts his signature move,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: rapping every year with an expression of pure joy before
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: sellout crowds, often starring his famous musical mates. Ben started
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: the Christmas Gigs in Melbourne fifteen years ago. This year
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: he'll bring his message of community, hope and faith to
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: New York, LA Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: I don't know how not to be obsessed with you.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Every trainer I thought, I'm just ends with you. I
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: try to redirect my mind to something new.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Ben Abraham can really sing and he can really write.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: But I've never been better and I'm in love with
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: the person that I'm becoming, that I'm more insecure than ever.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, Ben Co wrote for American Superstar a
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: mega hit, Praying, and then performed it with her at
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: the Grammys alongside Cyndi Lauper and Camilla Kabeo. This song,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: which became a me too anthem, helped reshape kesher as
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: a serious artist with something big to say.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: I hope your summer worth.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Ben's talent is undeniable, but like so many artists, the
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: beginning was pure grind.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I came up in music at a time when the
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: only pathway was Triple J on Earthed and engaging with
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: that machine and the kind of music that I wanted
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: to write. The artist that I looked up to, the
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: big singer songwriters James Taylor, Elton, John Carrol King and
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: then animal contemporary artists like Sarah burrellis very American singer
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: songwriter types. They weren't part of that ecosystem, you know.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Triple J was like cool indie bands, white people largely,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and so I just I found that the only way
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I was able to do things was to do it myself,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: play shows in venues that didn't typically have music. I
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: remember doing gigs in places that people would be like,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: why are you playing there? And I was like, because
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: no other venue would let me play, like this is
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the only venue I could get and because I built
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: it like that, I would get big audiences. But nobody
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: in the Australian music industry kind of cared about what
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I was doing because I didn't check off any of
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the kind of boxes that you're supposed to check off
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: to say, oh, now he's had a song on like
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Triple J on Earth and now we can invite him
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: to this festival. And so I'd watch my friends get
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: all the invitations to the things. I would get more
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: people at my shows, but wasn't getting invited to anything
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: because everyone was like, who hell was this guy. It
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't until my music got sent to some managers in
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: America and they heard what I was doing and I'm like,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: this is great, come over here. So I went over
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: there and that's when I signed to Secretly Canadian, which was,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: you know, the cool indie. I was cool for a minute.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: It's such a cool name for a label as well.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Love it you were Secretly Australian.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Good, what have.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: This song? This is on Me is from Ben's album Sirens.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: It features his friend Sarah Burrellis. Though Ben had a
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: three album deal with Secretly Canadian, albums two and three
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: weren't to be, but not because he got dropped.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I was on Secretly Canadian and I had started writing
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: songs for other people and they were looking for songs
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: for Kelly Clarks And the president of Atlantic Records, who
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: was A and R and Kelly's record heard two of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: my demos and then asked for a meeting with me.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: And I remember sitting in his office and he was like,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: why are you on this cool little indie label. You
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: should be on like a major record label. You know,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I grew up in the nineties, so you hear the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: president of a major label tell you that, you're like,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: give me all the money, let's go.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: That was friendly Fire a friendly Player. Friendly Fire was
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: released in twenty twenty two. If there was ever a
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: moment Ben made it, this was it. The album was
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: recorded at the legendary Barefoot Studios in Hollywood, where Stevie
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Wonder worked on his famous album Songs in the Key
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: of Life. Ben prioritized using live musicians overprogramming to achieve
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: a classic sound, with Atlantic footing the bill. Shortly before
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: the album was released, Ben took to Instagram to open
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: up on the themes he was exploring on Friendly Fire,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: sexuality and spirituality, and his own identity. Ben's described himself
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: as a church going Jesus guy and a queer person.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: My album was scheduled to come out in May. You know,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I remember the meeting showing everyone at Atlantic Records the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: album and end of January, and they were all like,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: this is amazing. We're so excited about this project. They
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: were going to fly me to this big conference in
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Miami to play the music for the heads of Warner
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Music and all. It was just, you know, it was
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the kind of the dream story. And then of course
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the pandemic happened and the album didn't come out for.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Two years, and then Atlantic dropped you what happened there?
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Obviously I want to blame everyone but myself. I both
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: believe that, like good music finds its own way, and
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I think I was the casualty of the pandemic.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: You've had two strands to your work. Of course, you
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: are a performer yourself, and you're also a songwriter with
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: immense success like songs that are absolutely huge. Have you
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: found more satisfaction in one of those than the other,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: or do you like doing both of them side by side.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: You know, for years I would have said I don't
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: want to be a songwriter. I want to perform and
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: write my own songs. I think now that I'm back
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: to being an independent artist, and I have had the
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: experience of feeling a little bit of the sort of
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: ground fallout from under me, I realize that I'm pretty
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: lucky to be able to do any of it. To
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: be honest, I think now, if anything, I'm just trying
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: to find the joy of making music, and if I
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: can get paid for it, then great. I just want
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to make good music with people that I really like,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and I don't care if it's if I'm the one
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: singing it or if I'm the one writing it.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Well, what does it feel like to look at a
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: song that you've written or co written, like Praying with Kesher,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: and see it having tens and tens of millions of
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: views on YouTube alone? You know that's the only interaction
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: millions of people have ever had with your work or
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: will ever have with your work, And you know it
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: may may not be emblematic of everything that you've done.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: What's that feeling?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Like, Well, it's two things. One, you're very proud of
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the fact that you helped somebody. You know, I helped
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Kesha get quite a big hit at a pretty important
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: moment of her life. So there's the pride and the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: excitement to just be involved. And then, as the art artists,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: there's the other side of it. I do sometimes get
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: baffled by, like how have I been able to give
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: other artists these huge hits? And what's happened with my stuff?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Like why did I give Ben Platte a song that
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: has you know, one hundred and thirty million streams? And
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: why can't I get twenty million on any of mine?
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: It's baffling, and it's a source of pride. It's you know,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: it's complicated.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Yourself a little. Christmas.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: You talked about the joy before of making music, and
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: that's a word that people associate with your Christmas concerts,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: which I haven't seen, but which I gather are very joyful.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: What's your relationship with Christmas?
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I so a lot of people wouldn't know this, but
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I was the page turner for John Foreman at the
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Melbourne Carols. I did it for twenty years. So if
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: you look at actually been on TV more than any
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: of those performers, you just have to know where to
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: look for me.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: You're like the bull boy of Christmas exactly Exactly.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: What I find fascinating about that program and that event
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: is that you literally sing the same songs every year.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: You just kind of rotate who sings what. But what
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: ultimately it becomes about is just the community and the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: kind of everybody loves to like watch it, either to
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: celebrate it or kind of hate watch it. However it
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: is that they engage with it, like it just becomes
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: this son of cultural centerpiece. And what I've learned over
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the years, and I've been doing it this year will
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: be the fifteenth year in Melbourne, It's about more than
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: just the music. What I love about it is that
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: it is actually about the joy. And I've really felt
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: this acutely this year. No one's trying to be cool,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: no one's trying to impress you. We're going to play
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: some Christmas music and everyone in the room is just
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: going to have a great time.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: You had a childhood in the church, and obviously a
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: relationship with songs of faith and Christmas has this double meaning,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: doesn't it. It's the great Christian festival, and yet it's
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: also a secular celebration of love and family and commerce
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: and togetherness. And in Australia summer and the holidays. How
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: do you perceive Christmas in amongst all of those things?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Does it he a religious meaning for you?
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I really have come to just associate it with the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: communal feeling of like getting together to celebrate the year,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Which is not to say that I don't still have
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: religious kind of importance. So I just for me as
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: a person of faith, the story of Christmas is kind
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of relevant all year. So then this particular focus at
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: this time of year is about the community, the music,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the kind of season changing. I mean, I just played
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: in New York. There's a lot of Jewish people in
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the room, Like I'm pretty sure they're not seeing the
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Christmas carols the same way that we are. But it's
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: not about that. It's just about the kind of joy
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: and the season I suppose.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: After the break Christmas music from the cheesy to the
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: slightly creepy. Do you have a favorite carol, whether or
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: not it's something that you perform at these shows or
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: you have someone else before I do.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: My favorite Carol to sing along with is the first Noel.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know why, just melodically, I've always loved it.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: My favorite Carol to sing and listen to is Acome
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: a Manual. It's apparently like a thousand year old Carol.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: This has very beautiful harmonies and it's my favorite one
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: to perform. And then I also I just love the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Christmas songs that were written in the forties and fifties.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: You know, have yourself a very little Christmas silver bells.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I feel like, if I'm ever trying to write original
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Christmas music, I'm sort of chasing that version of it.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Do you ever do Baby? It's cold outside? It's got
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: a kind of creepy overtimes that one years ago.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: When I was an idiot and a lot younger I wrote.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I added a verse which was basically just explicitly calling
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: out the kind of undertones of the lyrics and the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: girl basically being like, okay, no, let me go.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: This is date Raphael exactly exactly. Have you got special
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: guests at your Australian shows this year?
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah? The list of guest changes every year, and I
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: don't usually announce who they are ahead of time, just
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: because I sort of want people to just come for
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the nights, not to come for the guests. But in
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the past I've had Gortier has done it, Vance Joy's
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: done at Missus Higgins has done it. So this year
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I've got some fun guests. I have a comedian coming
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: to Sydney, which is fun.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Cool something that I think people who perhaps grow up
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: in a religious household or go to a church school,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: they grow up and they don't necessarily have any faith themselves,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: but they still love Christmas and they still love Easter,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: and I think sometimes they can feel a bit weird about, say,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: going to a church or singing the songs, or even
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: feeling anything about those kinds of festivals if they don't
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: believe in the Holy Spirit and you know, the Resurrection,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: what's your perspective on that? Do you have to believe
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: in any of that for it to be relevant.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that most of my audience don't necessarily believe anything,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: but I'm also not shy about allowing them a window
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: into what I believe, and so I do sing some
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of the religious carols or I sing you know, the
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: album that I put out, Friendly Fire, deals with a
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: lot of religious themes, and I've sing a couple of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: those songs at my Christmas shows, and I'm not shy
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: about telling them, Look, you're stepping into my space. This
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: is at something that's very important to me, and I'm
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: not shy about letting them see me sing a song
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: like Oh Come Emmanuel, and there is I think for me,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: there is a spiritual engagement with that song, and I'm
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: quite happy for people to see that, but I'm certainly
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: not expecting them to like participate in it the same
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: way that I'm doing it. But I think it's nice
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: for people to see people of faith engage with their
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: faith in an authentic, honest way.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the things about your Christmas show is
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: that you know, they're live concerts that you have to
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: go to to enjoy. One of the challenges for the
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: music industry at the moment is that people are very
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: comfortable in their homes. You know, we can all have
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: a great listening and watching experience at home without having
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: to do anything or really spend much money, and that's
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: created such a difficult environment for artists. What do you
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: see as the future of live performance. Do you have
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: hope that you're going to still be able to do
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: this in ten or twenty or fifty years.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: That question and the anxiety around it is part of
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: what really drove me to want to do the Christmas
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: shows this year. When I look at what's happening with
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: AI and some of the political tensions and the kind
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of divide and the country's climate post Charlie Kirk and
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: some of the things that have been happening, I just
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: look at how scary and detached from each other the
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: world is becoming. And actually live music has maybe never
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: been more important. I don't know what the future of
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: that is, but I know that certainly if you come
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: to my Christmas shows, which are about community, are about
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: kind of sing alongs and joining with other people and
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: like making friends with people in the room and stuff,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I think that stuff is going to become more and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: more important. Look, whether you like my music or not,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you can listen to it, you know, at home, if
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you want, in your headphones, But coming to a Christmas
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: show or coming to a live show is different. And
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I think artists, as we go forward into the kind
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: of new age of whatever artificial intelligence is going to be,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: need to realize that we are holding space for a
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: room full of people and that that can't be replaced
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: by computers. So yeah, I'm hopeful. I don't know what's
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: going to happen in the next couple of years. I
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: think we're about to see some huge changes, but I'm
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: pretty confident to say that I'm going to keep being here,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: playing live in a room, inviting anyone to come and
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: join me if they want.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: You can catch Ben Abraham's Christmas Special this month in
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Sydney at the Metro on the sixteenth, Brisbane on the twentieth,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: and Adelaide on the twenty second. Melbourne's Forum Theater. Show
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: has sold out. This episode of The Front was hosted
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: by me Claire Harvey and co produced with Jasper Leek.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on the Front this week. Our
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: team also includes Kristin Amiot Leat, Tammaglue, Tiffany Dimack, Joshua
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Burton and Stephanie Coombs.