Ben Ottewell - Interview

Ben’s on a UK acoustic tour in support of his solo album, Shapes and Shadows, which came out last month, and seems genuinely pleased to hear me compliment it. As someone who is no stranger to playing packed out arenas, his opinion of his work seems remarkably self-deprecating; the tea-tray sized grin to spread across his face on hearing an audience member singing along in a couple of hours’ time is testament to that.

“You look younger in person” is the first thought that pops into my head, but for the sake of dignity and avoiding any misconstrued backhanded compliment, I figure it best to get straight onto the album. It’s different, I prompt, from much of his work at the day job with Gomez, but not exactly worlds apart. “It’s a pretty mellow record” he muses, and from his body language I sense it means quite a lot to him personally. He hadn’t really even noticed the diversity of its influences until his drummer heard the songs and excitedly dubbed them “African-folk-blues-pop” on hearing the demos.

He mentions that the songs aren’t all new as such though, with a few being ideas from five years or more ago. Does that mean a solo project has been lurking in the background for quite a while then? Well it turns out the simple answer is no. “There are three songwriters in Gomez. With that kind of setup, there’s always going to be material that doesn’t make an album”. He says that most of the songs were sketches he’d come up with, “Some were just little ideas, others were 99 % finished”, that didn’t quite fit with where the band was going, but he “threw them in the cupboard” anyway, and Shapes and Shadows is what they grew into. “But no, there was never this master plan, to do anything official on my own, but it was something I’d kinda been wanting to do for a while”.

When I ask if there’s any particular song on the album that he feels defines where he’s at right now, both personally and musically, with almost no pause for thought he tells me ‘Blackbird’. No particular explanation of that seems forthcoming, but given the, well, hardly cheery lyrics to this particular track, I decide not to press the matter.

I’d understand if Ben was slightly grouchy over being asked about the forthcoming Gomez release recorded over the winter, given he’s at the start of a tour promoting this brainchild of his own. Gladly I was wrong. Sounding openly excited about getting it in the shops and hitting the road to tour it (dates in Newcastle and Leeds are likely, he also makes a token attempt at fobbing me off that they might pay a visit to York), he put any questions concerning his loyalty to the band and future with it firmly to bed. As we were on the subject, I asked if there’s any preference between these intimate shows with his own name on the bill, or the bigger audiences crammed into venues played with the group. “There’s normally more beer thrown about at your usual Gomez gig”. Diplomatic. With ambiguity like that, the man could have joined the foreign office.

It isn’t too long before I can’t resist and start prying about his experiences touring with whom I enjoy hearing him call “our idols when we were growing up”, my favourite band Pearl Jam, last time they were in Europe. We both know it’s completely irrelevant, but he seems to enjoy remembering that tour, and I’ve certainly no objections to chewing the fat about it. You’ll probably be glad to hear though that I won’t put you through the same.

All in all, the down-to-earth Ottewell simply seems happy to be doing what he is. As we part company, I get a simple “enjoy the gig”, but its sincerity says a lot more than those three simple words. For some silly reason, I wish him all the best for it. It doesn’t take long to show he doesn’t need any sort of luck on his side to deliver a great show, which left the affable Duchess audience cheering for an encore. And yes. Of course he gave it to them.

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