Ian Garland BOTW #5 – Benji Hughes

All you’ve got to do is fall in love with me. Don’t worry, that’s not a request. I’m not so desperate that I’ve started adding subliminal -or somewhat, obvious – messages within my newsletters (or blogs or whatever you call these things I write) in the hope to find romance. No, no, no, no …NO!

These are the lyrics from …what I would say is the most beautiful, endearing love songs I’ve heard in a long while. Who would write such a short, straight to the point, infectious love song? The sort of song that’ll bring even the insensitive, the hardest of the hard, the impregnable, the great BIG oafs of this world to tears?

All You’ve Got To Do Is Fall In Love is a quintessential ballad from the inconsequential, singer, songwriter, musician…..BENJI HUGHES (pic -Captain Caveman decided to let his hair down).

Benji Hughes is a musical maverick from Charlotte, North Carolina in the US of A. To be fair, you wouldn’t put the appearance of Hughes or perhaps his persona to his music. He’s overweight, long haired, has a beard that you could hide a small dog inside and to top all that off, he’s ginger – OK, strawberry blonde. He likes a beer or two, or three or six…

And from what I hear, he’s prone to the odd friendly wrestle if you were to meet him in a bar. This guy is one that doesn’t give a flying or a flaming **** about what people think or say about him. Quite frankly this is my kinda guy, and the kinda guy that I’d be honoured to share a beer or two or three or six with and then have a friendly wrestle (the heterosexual way).

Hughes released his debut album A Love Extreme in 2008 with label, New West Records. A bold statement I would say as it’s a double album with 25 tracks on it. Many artists would steer clear of releasing their debut as a double but clearly this guy doesn’t care and good on him!

If you’ve got the songs, get ’em out there, why hold them (extra tracks) back only to release them several years later on some ‘special’ unreleased songs and B-sides compilation album?

A Love Extreme is an album which has been written from the heart. You can tell this guy has suffered for his art, there’s songs of love, songs about rejection, heartbreak and disapointment but there’s also a whimsical element to A Love Extreme, he has a song about a drug-addled experience at a Flaming Lips concert for instance. ALE (an appropriate abbreviation) is an ambitious effort for a debut that’s not afraid to experiment with genres from piano themed ballads, stoned melodies, jazz style chord changes to spaced out synth pop.

Hughes has naturally been compared by many to Beck, which is a fair comparison but I’d like to add Sebastian Tellier to that and perhaps Richard Swift.

It’s taken me practically three years to discover this guy and If you’re like me, All You’ve Got To Do Is Fall In Love with Benji Hughes (his music that is)!

More from Benji on Myspace HERE

Pop F@ct

Michael Peter Balzary, better known as Flea the bassist from The Red Hot Chili Peppers makes a cameo appearance in Back To The Future parts 2 and 3 as character, Noodles …..F@ct!