{"id":358065,"date":"2021-10-22T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecreativeindependent.com\/people\/write-and-musician-ben-fama-on-learning-from-what-you-create"},"modified":"2021-10-22T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T07:00:00","slug":"writer-and-musician-ben-fama-on-learning-from-what-you-create","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/10\/22\/writer-and-musician-ben-fama-on-learning-from-what-you-create\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer and musician Ben Fama on learning from what you create"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing that\u2019s really nice about pop music, to me, is that it feels like it\u2019s a place of fantasy. It\u2019s an acceptable place to explore the kind of feelings that are usually looked down upon as too sincere, or maybe cringe, or vulnerable. Maybe we take something as cringey because it\u2019s a vulnerable thing. What does it mean to you in terms of creating that kind of music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

What you were just saying about the earnestness or simple presentation of it, that seems to un-guard it, that it\u2019s kind of cringey\u2026The appeal, to me, is that a finely crafted thing doesn\u2019t really show the traces of how it\u2019s made.<\/span> In pop, a very catchy line will make a great chorus, a line that you can say again and again. That\u2019s kind of what I was going for with \u201cTell Me What to Do.\u201d<\/a> I like one-syllable words a lot. I use those a lot in poems and titles of things. They are a perfect unit to generate meaning in music and language.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s interesting. In the total fantasy that pop lets you step into, it reveals the bad things in your life, as well. If you have a creamsicle sounding \u201960s type of song, like Mamas and the Papas, it sounds the way a soft serve ice cream tastes; we wouldn\u2019t need that place to go if there weren\u2019t the opposite of bad things happening in our life just as easily. In my songs, I want to explore the super dark side of life in general, culture. But also in the unconscious mind and in our drives. So often these songs are about love, but the death drive is a part of the drive towards love and the destruction of the self.<\/p>\n\n

You said the death drive is a part of the drive towards love?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I think so. There\u2019s just the agony of eros. Often, we look for people that reflect back things about ourselves that we like to think about. We find people that reflect back the parts of ourselves that we like to present<\/span>, and it represses more of our unconscious, dark stuff that I think also deprives us and wants us dead, in a way. The \u201cDate With The Night\u201d<\/a> song you mentioned is a cryptic thrash song. On all my songs, I want that very specific texture, that sort of garage thrash: slamming into the wall, busted light bulbs, falling on the garage floor, glass everywhere. That aesthetic is very appealing to me, because that seems closer to the energies that drive people towards love than what\u2019s on the radio. But I think both are important.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

One feels like the actual experience of it, and the other is more like the fantasy of it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Yeah. The reality of things is either very unremarkable, or sad and tragic.<\/span> At the end of the pop song, you end happy, but if that song went on longer it would be sad. Relationships fall apart, people die. Reality de-sublimates at the surface and things usually don\u2019t work out, or worse. People reveal things about themself that they usually would not let you know in relationships with other people. When you listen to pop music from that perspective, I think it becomes a lot more fascinating.<\/p>\n\n

You start to see them more realistically, maybe, which can sometimes actually be pretty tragic.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I feel like the truth of most people is tragedy. Not as a flaw, just as people.<\/span> As creatures who have to contend with other people\u2019s behaviors, and our own behaviors and moral decisions. I think we\u2019re often in a Sisyphean struggle. Through no fault of our own, often, we make bad decisions or hurt people or fail at things. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s something that is to be faulted in people, I think it\u2019s something to be accepted.<\/p>\n\n

When you\u2019re putting together music, what does that do for your mental state? How did it affect the rest of your art or the rest of your life, and how you were experiencing your life while you were heavily in this project?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I see my Bebby Doll<\/a> musician moniker makes mention of fantasy and death, which my first two books, the themes are very much the same. Contemporary textures, desire with the logic of capital, sex. The artifice of BDSM. I would say I\u2019m more interested in how that has been aestheticized, than actual BDSM stuff. In music you can give emotional information outside of words.<\/span> It is cultural, what chord progressions and keys, tempos, all that stuff, what emotions it pulls forth. But there\u2019s so much you can amalgamate from, this song is going to be fast and the vocals are going to sounds like this, the guitar is going to sound like this. You crack the song, sort of.<\/p>\n\n

Do you work on the lyrics first?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

No. I always will have a melody, at least, and then start doing the lyrics. Then I find the part of the lyrics I like, and it works with the music. It\u2019s like, \u201cWhat is this lyric? What have I revealed to myself?\u201d Then I will build it out and cut out the other lyrics that don\u2019t really fit. I like the song to cohere as a unit.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cTell Me What To Do\u201d is a very subby, bubble gum pop song, I would say. Where it\u2019s like you want to please the other. You\u2019ve thrown your sword in the sand and you\u2019re just begging them to tell you what to do to make them happy. It\u2019s not necessarily, a desperate attempt. There\u2019s a part that\u2019s, \u201cA splendor on my knees and the grass, is that too much to ask?\u201d I really like the film, A Splendor In The Grass<\/i><\/a>. It\u2019s a lot about repressed sexual drives. I realized that song was sort of about asking the question, either to god or the lover. I want to get what I want, and part of that is for you to get what you want, so tell me what to do to both get what we want, and create that harmony.<\/p>\n\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about that a lot, what it means to ask the question in general. I think it\u2019s relating to what it means to express the desire. To express a desire kind of starts to fulfill it a little bit.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Like manifestation in a way.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I don\u2019t know. Having a conversation about something you want will make you feel better than you did before. I think that there is pleasure in just being able to express the desire, even if it ends in a no.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

In the same way, I think that asking a question, whether it\u2019s an intense philosophical question or a more heady, harder to answer question starts to help you understand what the answer might be. Asking the question, \u201cWhat is the meaning of life?\u201d That will get you closer to the answer than not asking.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Even by asking the question, it begins a process of analysis, maybe even self-analysis.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

For sure. That\u2019s the next step you have to do is think, \u201cWhy do I want to know this?\u201d Then you\u2019re off. I think you know from other things, I\u2019m into antinatalism<\/a>. All quarantine, I\u2019d say, my two polar, transcendental schools of thought are antinatalism and Simone Weil<\/a>. Simone Weil is a Christian mystic, even though she was Jewish and never really converted to Catholicism.<\/p>\n\n

Antinatalism is, I\u2019d say, very godless. You kind of have to not believe in immortal life as one of the premises that the bad outweighs the good. Therefore, to bring someone into a situation where they\u2019re going to have more bad things in their life is unethical. If you believe they\u2019re going to go to Heaven afterwards, forever, I think that would be justifiable. Antinatalism doesn\u2019t really believe in transcendent things like that.<\/p>\n\n

They do believe that helping people becomes a purpose once you\u2019re alive. It\u2019s funny, because I think a lot of religious people say the same thing, even though their final conclusions about the meaning of life is the same, but the reason why is different.<\/p>\n\n

Simone Weil has a much different sense of transcendental values. She was very political and she has this sense that the bigger imagination you have about what god might be like, the farther you are from god. That is too much of your own self. I think that\u2019s why there\u2019s a beatitude, \u201cBlessed are the poor in Spirit.\u201d As she even says, \u201cAn atheist could get closer to god because they have less idea of how that might be,\u201d in existence. So, to ask the question of what god might be like is getting closer to the answer. Expressing desire fulfills the desire a little bit.<\/span> Tell me what to do, if you\u2019re throwing that question out, whatever might be listening, you might start to find the answer.<\/p>\n\n

When you\u2019re doing music or when you were creating or composing these songs, versus when you are writing a poem, which one do you feel gets closer to your approximation of what\u2019s in your head that you\u2019re putting in the world?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I think with most art, even if you think you might know what it\u2019s going to be when it\u2019s done, it kind of has its own life that it takes on once you start. You have to honor that as you\u2019re creating, and learn.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

This applies more to poetry for me. I\u2019ve been working on a poem for like, three months. I always try to start with a title, but sometimes as it goes on, I realize the title is not appropriate anymore and it needs a different title. For music, I think for whatever reason, for me, if I can get it how I hear it in my head then it\u2019s perfect. It\u2019s so beautiful. But it usually doesn\u2019t change as much as you fill the song out. Surprising things can happen when you\u2019re messing around in the studio, or recording or throwing down demos and stuff, and you know what accidents to keep. It\u2019s harder for a totally new thing to show up, at least for me and the song. I do love experimenting with sounds and sound design. I guess, in the poem, for me, is more when the unconscious will guide my hand as work. There\u2019s so few steps between the thought and the word.<\/p>\n\n

All during this past year, you\u2019ve put out stuff with Glass, the band, and then you did this solo project. What was the difference for you in working in these two separate areas?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Glassss<\/a> has Niina Pollari<\/a>, who has a new book coming out on Soft Skull. She\u2019s a really incredible singer, amazing vocalist, and a true genius, freak person. It\u2019s kind of the same thing of wanting her intuitions involved. Matt Roar who is a teacher, a skater, a surfer, also a writer, and he did drums in a lot of other stuff. Those kinds of collaborations are very satisfying, but it\u2019s all about letting go. That\u2019s a janglier project. I see Bebby Doll as very much the night inside of the night kind of project that is very dirty. The drums are drum machine, run through, dirty filters. I love those textures, and I know it doesn\u2019t sound high-end necessarily, but that doesn\u2019t bother me.<\/p>\n\n

For Glassss, I wanted that to sound as good as possible because there were so many people involved. I kind of regret never learning studio recording, because I think that would be a really fun day job to help bands record their songs.<\/p>\n\n

Do you ever feel like, while you were working on these projects, especially through the pandemic, that you got burnout at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

It freaked me out. Working through burnout is the worst thing. I think, for me, it\u2019s the day after day after day, the same, undifferentiated environment and routine that has really burnt me out. But I did writing for so long, switching to music kind of was a way of procrastinating on writing stuff, and also no one gave a shit if I was working on music. My agent is waiting for me to finish my novel, but not a damn soul is waiting for me to record a song. That, in and of itself, made it appealing, I think. I escaped burnout that way.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Also, I put on a lot of events with my press, Wonder. I started a reading series in quarantine called Club Wonder that I now co-curate with Ted Dodson, who is a Wonder author who has a great new book out called An Orange<\/i><\/a>. It\u2019s held online and it was just so good because you could just see people in California and the UK, just for an hour. You\u2019d see people\u2019s faces, wave and say, \u201cHi.\u201d Even in-person readings, you can\u2019t see that many different people that are important to you in your life. I also watched a lot of movies on Criterion and a lot of movies where God doesn\u2019t speak back to the people who were crying out for help. I\u2019m not sure if that actually helped my burnout at all. I\u2019m not actually not sure why I even mentioned that. It\u2019s one thing I did a lot last winter.<\/p>\n\n

Just to help you get through it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I don\u2019t know. What do you do when you\u2019re burned out?<\/p>\n\n

When things are really bad, I read Buddhist texts or articles from monks to help reframe my perspective. That helps. I think that helps a lot, but I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s successful or not, because I haven\u2019t worked on my own projects in a couple of months.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

People talk about meditation all the time, but what meditation gives us is realizing it\u2019s totally fine if we\u2019re not working on our projects. It\u2019s not good or bad, it\u2019s very natural and it\u2019s okay. It\u2019s not something that you need to do something about.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I think that\u2019s really true.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Someone who I\u2019ve tried to become friends with in quarantine, just because we did talk about meditation some, was Liturgy<\/a>, which is a Hunter Hunt-Hendrix project. She\u2019s taught me so much about meditation. She talks about when things are good, nurturing that inner stuff, too. Often, we\u2019re in a very stressed state. Desperation and meditation are something we always put together, but when things are good and you meditate, they stay really good.<\/span> She taught me that, so I want to give her a little shout out. You\u2019re still living in your ego to want to do those things. The problem is, I\u2019m the problem in those situations. I\u2019m the one who feels wanting for something or lacking when I\u2019m stuck. To want those problems to be gone, it\u2019s like I\u2019m still inserting myself as the actor who\u2019s trying to fix something. It\u2019s usually by taking an action, I can make it worse rather than just accepting that it\u2019s not going the way I wanted in that moment.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Ben Fama Recommends:<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n

Robert Bresson Au Hazard Balthazar<\/i><\/a> (1966)<\/p>\n\n

Nathanial Dorsky\u2019s \u201cDevotional Cinema\u201d essay<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Dennis Harte \u201cSummer\u2019s Over\u201d<\/a> song.<\/p>\n\n

James Frazer\u2019s encyclopedic The Golden Bough<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n\n

Kenneth Anger\u2019s \u201cLucifer\u201d tattoo<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This post was originally published on The Creative Independent<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing that\u2019s really nice about pop music, to me, is that it feels like it\u2019s a place of fantasy. It\u2019s an acceptable place to explore the kind of feelings that are usually looked down upon as too sincere, or maybe cringe, or vulnerable. Maybe we take something as cringey because it\u2019s a vulnerable thing. What does it mean to you in terms of creating that kind of music?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346,2500,270],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358065"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359044,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358065\/revisions\/359044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}