Life’s exciting for the members of Sydney rock outfit mrben. They’ve just finished work on their album Night & Day, and they’re preparing to unleash it at a massive show at the Annandale Hotel next month. Lead singer-songwriter Ben Wever took time out of his busy schedule to tell me more about the band, their live shows, and why we’ll fall in love with their album.
I’ve read that you have a unique style of music and songwriting. How would you describe it?
mrben’s sound is very modern, all original and would be classed as commercial, melodic rock. A little aggressive, dark at times yet full of colour throughout. Strong lyrics, powerful melodies and interesting timing signatures is our forte.
You’ve played in different bands for the last ten years. What have you found in mrben that was missing in those other outfits?
What was always missing in the other bands that we have all played in is structure, control, focus and leadership. We have all played in bands before just to play music for our selves, or to an audience of some description, but over time we realised that we were not “all” on the same page. Too many chefs can spoil the broth also, with no one really driving the ship we were kind of left to make it up as we went. Now, we have much more drive, passion for the industry and strive to be very successful. With much stronger lyrics, a real genre specific focus that has modern approaches to the songwriting fuelled by old school influences. We are very proud of what has been produced on this album
I hear mrben has been doing some gigs around Sydney lately. What do you think of the local scene?
The Sydney scene as we know it, and have known it for many years has gone through the major shrinking phases to now more of an independent scene and has put us in the right place right now. We very much understand how hard it is to stand out and be noticed, we all can sometimes predict the outcome of a gig weeks before it happens due to knowing the venue, accepting that the booking agent and or promoter is not doing much for us and if you don’t bring your own crowd “every time” then your chances of getting another gig with these people, venues etc is very slim. Without having airplay behind you and or some serious marketing dollars, it’s very hard to have great gigs time after time. In summary, the scene is still strong, the support is getting weaker.
What’s your favorite venue to play and why?
Let’s face it: bad restaurant, no customers, bad location, same result, middle of winter on a School night, even worse, so, we love the Annandale Hotel, The Bridge Hotel for example. Why? Because they are established venues that attract people to it due their reputation and location, not too mention the fact that if it’s a known venue than people assume straight away that you must be a good band to get a gig there. Having said that, if the room is full of the right people and if the band is performing well with a decent P.A system, then the smaller venues can be just as effective or even sometimes a much better intimate vibe for all.
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Sydney rockers mrben will release their debut album Night & Day later this month, but I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek.