Season 1, Episode 2: Ben Lee

It's Episode Cocka-Two! 

In this episode,  Host Adam Burke chats with the one-and-only Ben Lee. They talk about Ben's move to the states at the age of 18, how LA-based Australians look after the touring Aussies that coming through town, and how a bathroom interaction with Russell Crowe became a defining moment in his life.

Interview Transcript

Interviewer: Welcome to The Cockatoo, your source for all things Australian music in the USA. We're coming at you from Los Angeles, California and this is the interview part of our newsletter where we talk about musical journeys to the United States. Today I'm very excited to be speaking to the one and only Ben Lee. Most of you will have known Ben for some time but if you have not he's an Australian entertainer best known for his music. He started out as a teenager in the band Noise Addict out of Sydney in the early to mid-1990s and since then has released 14 studio albums. Welcome, Ben.

Ben: Hey man, thank you for having me.

Interviewer: Great to be talking with you Ben and let's get this little bit of credit for you out the way. The whole idea of us doing a newsletter was originally your idea when we caught up maybe over a year ago now. Credit to you for a great way to bring the Australian community together here in the US and yes, thanks for the idea mate.

Ben: That's cool. It feels like everyone follows each other and stuff on socials but actually getting people relevant information is still tricky. You still got to finesse the best way to do that.

Interviewer: It's great and I think it'll be really welcome for people trying to work out, especially people who are new here and that's a lot of what we talk about in this interview is the journey. Let's get into it. When did you move to the US?

Ben: I moved officially basically the week after my HSC so that was '96. I didn't call it moving then, I just called it having an adventure. I'd already built an audience that was actually just numerically bigger in the US than in Australia. I had the same tiny slice of the pie as an indie musician but that's more meaningful numbers-wise in America. There were people that I could play to. I was ready for an adventure. Ready to see where it all went.

Interviewer: You were 18 when you moved?

Ben: Yes.

Interviewer: You did it early. Obviously moving is often a process. It's not something that just happens on one day. From that time in 1996, have you lived back in Australia since then or have you been a permanent resident?

Ben: I lived there for one year in 2021. Lots of trips. I always took the attitude to treat Australia and particularly my work as an Australian artist which meant being very present. Even if I wasn't living there, I didn't necessarily want my audience to relate to me as an international artist. I don't know. I wanted to stay present in the music industry in a certain way.

Interviewer: Let's go back to 1996. Tell us about how that went down for you pragmatically. Housing, visas. Tell us that story of how you made that step across.

Ben: If you create work, it's actually very easy to get working visas. It's hard to get a working visa if you're going to take a job from someone else. If you're employing musicians, agents, whatever it is, they love people coming and giving them working visas if you're creating work. I just always went working visa to working visa until I got married and then I got a green card. I guess when I first came, I just crashed with my friends in Glendale and I didn't drive or anything. All I really did when I wasn't in the studio was ordered pizza and watch Donahue. I was really just waiting for stuff to happen. There was a quote from Kafka, there was something about you don't need to do anything. I'm paraphrasing it, but it was like, "Be still and solitary. The world will reveal itself to you. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet." I took that very literally. I watched a lot of Donahue and had a lot of pizza. Slowly things start to happen. I think part of the issue people have in new places, and I particularly see a lot of Australians have this in LA, is they go, "I'm going for two weeks and I'm going to understand it." Particularly a city like this, it takes a very long time for it to unfold and for you to grasp just the rhythm of the city, I think.

Interviewer: Absolutely. For those who don't know, Donahue was a reality show. I think it was probably the pre-Jerry Springer. It was a little bit more…

Ben: Yes. It was Oprah and Donahue. Exactly. It was chat show, reality TV panel thing. I made a record right away. Then I was waiting to go on tour, but I didn't want to go back. Because also all my friends were either doing gap years or were on mopeds in Bali, or had gone to uni, or working. Everyone was getting on with their life. I wanted to get on with mine, but I knew it involved some patience and some just being present. I think what I always liked about just the music scene and the creative industries in America was a lot happens every day if you make yourself available to it. I just considered it my job was just to be attentive and to just say yes to opportunities.

Interviewer: Got it. Awake as a New Sleep comes out in 2005, right?

Ben: I think so. Sounds right.

Interviewer: That does incredibly well. At this point, you're signed already through Noise Addict and what you've been doing as a teenager, right?

Ben: That had already been because then Breathing Tornadoes was a record I made when I was 19. That was I guess '99. That was my first hit in Australia. As always, it was so archetypal. I had my first hit when I left.

Interviewer: Of course. [laughs]

Ben: I'd already been through, but by the time Awake as a New Sleep, I'd been through multiple record labels, managers. I was a decade into my career by that point.

Interviewer: You're a pretty experienced artist by the time you move here. You're moving here in the system. You've got management, you've got a label, you've got sponsors for visas.

Ben: I didn't have management. My manager was in Australia. I thought he'd keep managing me, but I remember him saying to me, "I can't do this from over here." I didn't really have a manager, but I had a good relationship with my label, this label Grand Royals and Indie. We just figured it out. I was touring solo acoustics so I was pretty adaptable. It was cheap for me to tour. I could go out and support. I did a lot of support tours. I supported Cat Power, the Lemonheads, G. Love & Special Sauce. Anyone that would have me, I would just take my acoustic guitar and just go out and open for them.

Interviewer: Even though you're eating pizza and watching Donahue, you're hitting the ground running. You're well ahead of your years in terms of your career for where most people are in their teens. You're booking some really nice support acts there.

Ben: Like I said, it was the same level, but I was selling about 1000 copies of each of my albums in Australia. I was the similar size in America, but the equivalent was 30 to 35,000. I could play to a nice audience in New York or LA or Chicago. It's not a national touring act. I had a little bit of momentum.

Interviewer: Got it. You've got the momentum, you're doing a bit, you move out here. I want to talk a little bit about what was that moment when you made that decision? I've got to move my life to the United States of America. Do you have any recollection of how that went down in your head?

Ben: I do remember I was at a party for that movie, LA Confidential in New York. I went to the urinal and Russell Crowe was peeing next to me.

Interviewer: [laughs]

Ben: He was like, "Where are you living?" I was like, "I think I'd like to live in Australia, but I'm in love with someone. My girlfriend, she's from here. I don't know, I just feel like if I stay, I'll never go back." He was like, "You'll always go back, mate. Australia is the best country in the world." He goes, "but moving for love, that's all right. That's a good reason." I was like, "Yes, that is a good reason." It's a defining moment. He has no memory of that moment too, by the way.  Honestly, I feel like in some ways until I had kids I didn't really feel that I'd made any-- Even kids until they were in school, I didn't really feel like I had to make a decision about living anywhere.

 Now, a couple of things that you touched on. I want to talk about city culture and culture because you mentioned the two-week thing and I think it's a very common period for Australians to come out and do business and whatever it may be, music and other industries as well. Tell us about your initial culture shock and the timeline that it took to start to feel like you were part of the community over here in the United States?

Ben: There were all these funny little moments. I remember I befriended this young singer who was just about to put out her first record and that was Fiona Apple. She hadn't put anything out yet. She invited me to her show and she was opening for someone. It was the Universal Amphitheater but I didn't realize that was in Universal Studios. I took a cab and it was basically just City Walk. I was like, "What neighborhood is this? This is the weirdest--" It was like I was in Terry Gilliam's Brazil. There was all this culture shock but in a lot of ways, I think I don't know, I always held onto my Australian playfulness and openness and humor.

In some ways, I don't know. I always saw myself as an artist first and I've never been that geographically minded. I never really missed anywhere or never really felt out of place anywhere else. I was just in my process where I was.

Interviewer: Got it.

Ben: I was more interested in was I connecting with people? Did I find like-minded people around me? Was life interesting? Rather than some identity based on where I was. Having said that, I can look back at my life and say some things were very defined by living in New York for five or six years and have been very defined by living in LA and very defined by keeping and protecting my connection to Australia because just like I was saying, you can't just come to LA for two weeks. You also can't just show up in Australia randomly.

You look at even artists like Robbie Williams and Pink and those are the top level, but they've fostered a relationship with Australia that has a lot of loyalty and mutual respect.

Interviewer: Got it.

Ben: I think succeeding anywhere involves that type of mutual respect with the place you are working in.

Interviewer: Yes, definitely when you're building an audience because that is the ultimate connection.

Ben: Business-wise too, people knowing that. It's funny because in Australia, because my label said to me once, I was around a bit and they were like, "You should leave now." I was like, "Why?" They were like, "Don't underestimate the power of being unavailable for half the year."

[laughter]

Interviewer:  How would you compare that environment to what you see now in terms of whether there is an Australian industry in music and a US industry in music?

Ben: I would just say the main thing that's different now is that when people start their career, they usually already have an international perspective or vision of what they want to achieve which we just didn't have at all. It was shocking to me that my records came out in America and England and stuff. Australian bands, maybe the Hard Ons put stuff out in South America. It wasn't easy to do and then American bands at the level I liked didn't even come to Australia. That's what was so interesting when Pav started working and bringing out Mud Honey and My Bloody Valentine and bands that Australia would not have been on their radar as far as a touring kind of thing.

It used to feel really separate and now it's much more. It's interesting in some ways they take the Australian industry more seriously because they've seen enough people come out of it that are contenders on an international level. It's seen as a market that you can make money in too. I think American acts and European acts want to do well in Australia. It's still thought of as a smaller win I guess internationally and I think the American psychology is always bigger, bigger, better, better, more, more, more, more. Sometimes smaller markets are a little bit emotionally dismissed a little bit.

I get the logic in that but I also think that, I don't know, for me, Australia it is my biggest touring market and that's why I'm back so much. I can have a really nice life wherever I want in the world as long as I'm willing to put it-- I always say as an artist you should be lucky enough to have one market that is blue chip stock. For some people it's Germany, for some it's Japan, for some it's France. If it's Australia, you're really lucky because Australia's a great country to tour in throughout the year. It's interesting because on one hand it feels very international now but I still notice that not every Australian act has the stomach for coming and giving it a shot in America. Especially they have to humble themselves if they've had success in Australia.

Interviewer: Absolutely. That is a big reason why we have these conversations because we're talking to the artist, the manager, whoever it could be. It doesn't really matter. Sound engineer who is thinking of moving their career to the United States. It's not easy. It's expensive, it's bewildering and you have to eat some humble pie on the plane because you're not going to probably show up and have the same notoriety or be a smaller fish in the bigger pond.

Ben: I've got to say the Australians that end up in LA, I love them because they have all of the humility and common sense that Australians have but they've broken through their own glass ceiling on ambition. They're able to be more flamboyant and bolder and creative and in ways that maybe they felt in their smaller communities in Australia a little more peer pressure to fit in or that sort of thing. Yes, you really get the best of both worlds in the Aussies that come out here.

Interviewer: Absolutely. I've seen that for sure for many years and enjoyed it too. I think what happens, obviously we go to places where our music will be received well and also where we speak the language. You see a lot of Australians looking at London or somewhere in the United States often Los Angeles or New York versus say Mexico City or Madrid or Tokyo or Berlin, or other places even if there is a lot of English-speaking people there. Tell me how you've seen that evolve in the last decades. If you're going to make the journey, is it London or is it the United States? Is that changed or is it about the same? Did you ever consider potentially ending up in England?

Ben: Not really. I don't know. I've always just taken a very pragmatic go where you're invited. That doesn't need to be a literal invitation. It can just be there's a vibe. There's someone there who's saying, "Hey, come on. Let me show you how it works. Come over here." You know what I mean? I don't know. I'm a firm believer in life that you get little clues of what the next thing should be. I don't think it's just a conceptual throwing a dart at a world map. It's about you go where there's a vibe and you go where there's opportunity.

Interviewer: That for you was clearly US.

Ben: Yes. It was just America was where the labels that signed me were and they had ideas. I worked here and there was an audience.

Interviewer:  This is a very broad question but if you were talking to an Aussie artist today who's thinking about coming to the US, what would you tell them besides go where you're wanted or where you feel the pull coming from? What else would you tell them?

Ben: Yes, I would just say be patient and become an actual member of a community which isn't just based on career opportunity. It's based on friendship and laughter and sharing of ideas and all good stuff anywhere in the world comes from that. From people actually genuinely connecting and that involves consistency. It involves showing up for people, it involves accidents, and spontaneity but I think that's really the key to embedding yourself somewhere and getting to know it properly.

Interviewer: Absolutely. I think one of the interesting things about that is that there's communities within communities because we have our Australian community here in Los Angeles or wherever else you are. I think I read the other day there's around 100,000 Australians in the United States.

Ben: Wow.

Interviewer: Yes. A good chunk of them are in California. There's that community but also the importance of why we originally called the Australian Music Alliance. That is why we gave it that name because a lot of it's about becoming part of the American community, whatever that means.

Ben: Something that I think we've talked about is particularly in the early 2000s, I saw how the Australian actors really looked out for each other in LA and this was before the transition to streaming. There was pilot season where the actors would come out and do all their auditions. It was constant barbecues and people staying with each other. It was Heath and Rose Byrne and Joel Edgerton and Philip Noyce and Gregor Jordan and all these Aussies who were just willing to help each other out and find their feet here. I found that really inspiring.

I've tried to take that attitude a bit with the music community here. That when bands come out, if it's Amil and the Sniffers or Mall Rat or Cub Sport, and just like, "Hey, we'll host some drinks. Come on over. Come to the house. The problem is if you come here and all you know is a producer that you're working with or something, you can have a very isolated experience. You need a few phone numbers of people that are not connected to professionally what you're doing. Put some roots down, enjoy it. I think that way of Aussies looking out for each other is really nice.

Interviewer: Absolutely. When you go to those parties, they're often not just Aussies. There's a few other people and then all of a sudden you find yourself with a broader network of friends.

Ben: Yes, exactly.

Interviewer: Yes. It's all a process. It's a long time for you so this is [laughs] an interesting question… Before you made the trip to the United States

Ben: I would buy stock in Facebook.

[laughter].

Interviewer: We go well before Facebook even existed. Before Zuckerberg was even at Harvard or wherever it was. If you go back then, what advice would you give yourself before you moved here?

Ben: I don't know if you need much advice. Just be brave. Figure it out.

[laughter].

I don't know. Advice is more like, "I'm more just look at other people's journeys and get courage from that they did it."

It's not that you can do anything the same way someone else did it. It's more just that, "Hey, it can be done."

Interviewer: Yes. I'm speaking more to you personally. Is there anything you're like, "Oh, I shouldn't have done that." Or "Oh, if I'd done it this way, would've been"…

Ben: A million things. Nothing particularly to do with moving. Nothing particularly about being in America. Just overall, I would say maybe with my career the realization of how long a game it is was very slow dawning on me. You want to win every fight but the war is so long.

Interviewer: [chuckles] Yes.

Ben: Long careers, people come and go and that's all okay.

I think that just if there's any way I could have prepared myself for a longer-term understanding of what an actual career in entertainment was but you're not meant to understand that when you're young. You are meant to burn bridges.

Interviewer: Absolutely. Especially when you're doing it as a teenager and you are in a world that is so focused on hits and heat versus just hanging in there and just doing it right for the journey. That is a wonderful conversation. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, Ben.

Ben: Yes, good talk to you too.

Interviewer: I really hope that others listening get a little bit of your journey and help it form theirs. It's been great talking to you. A reminder to everyone, this is the Cockatoo's interview portion where we talk about the journeys and music from Australia to the United States. We are a 501C3 nonprofit so if you want to support what we do, you can donate or get in touch. Tell us your stories, let us know your news. Thank you very much for listening.