Wake Up: The Austinist Interviews Ben Lee

Lee’s latest album, Awake is the New Sleep, has earned him fresh praise, new fans, and airtime on the radio. It also happens to be the first album he has released through the Austin/Los Angeles-based label, New West Records, to which he recently signed. Lee’s connections to our fair city have expanded in the past couple of years. Besides New West’s Austin location, he has become a staunch supporter of the local band, Zykos. He met them - strangely enough - in a bar in Lawrence, Kansas while on tour with Phantom Planet. Also, this year marked a packed performance by Lee at SXSW. When asked his opinion of the festival, he remarked that it was a bit “noisy” and “drunken” for his taste, but Lee praised the “amazing cooperation between all the bands.” He added, “the whole thing could be a disaster, but it’s a model for the kind of cooperation that should occur between musicians.”

With all the attention he’s garnered for his latest album, Ben Lee is a very busy man. He is currently on tour with Har Mar Superstar (whose company he calls an “extraordinary, weird, beautiful thing”) and Maria Taylor from Azure Ray. In late May, he will join Aimee Mann on her East Coast tour. Later this summer, he’ll open for Rufus Wainwright and Ben Folds during their “Odd Men Out” tour. He has also secured a slot on David Letterman that will air on June 7th, but only because Dave asked about him personally after hearing Lee’s single, “Catch My Disease,” on the radio.

Don’t feel too sorry for him, though. His present chaotic schedule is a result of the fact that he tries to “say yes to everything” and “rarely turns down an opportunity to play live.” For anyone who has seen him in concert, you know that Lee works hard at making each performance a truly personal experience rather than just another night on the town. He doesn’t treat it like a job; rather he sees it as the “real opportunity of a performer to help people get through their day to day life.”

Lee’s latest collection of songs continues along similar lines as his past efforts but manages to capture more of his emotional and spiritual maturity. You can almost hear him letting go of any previous self-consciousness and allowing the songs to come to him “like a gift.” He says his songs are often “complete mysteries” even to him, as they seem to “come from somewhere else.” Lee’s positive outlook, which he discusses at length in a recent essay published in Seventeen, comes mainly from “choosing to have a rich inner life, to look at things as a spiritual experience.” He notes that, “any time you try to do anything different, people will try to cut you down. It’s the tribe mentality…the experiences I’ve had are real, I know that what I do has meaning, and I’m the only one who has to believe that.”

There’s no doubt that Lee applies this confidence and intuition to his work. Awake is the New Sleep was produced by Brad Wood, the producer of his first two solo albums (Grandpaw Would and Something to Remember Me By). Returning to a former producer may seem counterproductive, but Lee says of his work with Wood: “I wanted to take a step backwards to take a step forwards. I kept saying to everybody that I want the next record to be bigger by becoming smaller. I wanted to get back to something I felt like I hadn’t experienced in a long time in my music. Working with Brad is so organic…He really understands my songs.”

So, after recording several great albums, collaborating with famous musicians, and starting his own record label (Ten Fingers), you’d think it all would go to his head. But when Austinist sat down and talked to the affable Aussie, we discovered quite the opposite: Ben Lee is fucking awesome.

You can catch Ben Lee and his energetic bliss-rock at Stubb’s tomorrow, April 30th. Tickets are available through Frontgate Tickets or at the door. Austinist will be there. Will you?

Interview conducted by Emily Rosenblum and Breanna Rollings.