Unveiling the Creative Process and Inspirations Behind Benny Fisher's Musical Journey
Benny Fisher ©️2024
GH: What inspired you to start writing music?
Benny Fisher: I joined a Mod band at school. I have two brothers and we are all music nuts. If you’re immersed in musical culture when you’re a teenager, I think it stays with you forever. But the amazing thing I’ve found with music is that it just keeps on giving. The older I get, the excitement, the wonder, the sense of discovery that I get from music has, if anything, gotten stronger.
GH: Can you tell us more about your experience performing live at gigs?
Benny Fisher: Plenty of gigs, but my focus now is on the songwriting and production. Certainly, I’d love other singers and bands to perform my songs on stage. I guess I have a romantic notion about it, like the amateur songwriters in the Billy Wilder film Kiss Me Stupid. A gas station attendant and a piano teacher in a one-stoplight town. They get their big break when Dean Martin’s car breaks down on his way to Vegas. Obviously, all hell breaks loose. A fun film. I live in Bologna, Italy. Not quite the boondocks but a long way from Hollywood. I’m still waiting for my Dean Martin to roll into town.
GH: Do you record at a big studio, or do you have a home studio set-up?
Benny Fisher: I’m a bedroom musician, a balladeer of the boudoir and when I don’t have a microphone I sing into a hairbrush. I have an 8-track digital Tascam recorder, a Yamaha DGX-640 keyboard, a Martin acoustic, an AKG condenser mic and that’s it. I put the keyboard through guitar pedals. By modern standards, it’s simple, but the limitations help.
GH: What is the writing and recording process like for you?
Benny Fisher: A little slow because I tend to do everything myself and I’m working with a limited set-up. The editing options with the Tascam are just too painful, so I don’t bother. If I make a mistake, I record the whole track again. I’m kind of making up the songs as I go along, which is fun.
GH: What motivates you to create music and who are your influences?
Benny Fisher: Not sure if this happens so much these days but sometimes you get a global hit that comes out of nowhere, like Young Folk by Peter Bjorn and John, y’know, that song with the whistling hook, or A Girl Like You by Edwyn Collins. Songs with a breezy innocence. I love Wildflower by Avalanches and Random Access Memories by Daft Punk. Hugely ambitious records. So much inventiveness. Daft Punk loved Chic so much they created some new Chic songs. What a brilliant idea! It’s like re-writing history or what Tarantino did with John Travolta. And I love those artists who pull on your heartstrings, people like Nick Lowe, Rumer, Edgar Jones, not only for their music but for their warmth as people and how they go about things.
GH: What can we expect from you in the near future?
Benny Fisher: I’m having a run of singles – Near To You, Try, Oh Yeah, Teenage Dream, Lovers Rock, Love Come Back – so it’s really about keeping up the momentum and creating interest with my audiences. I have another single that came out on May 9. Constellations. I hope you like it!
Don't Forget To Follow Benny On Instagram And Listen To "Constellation”
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