Mixtape Atlanta talks with singer/ songwriter Ben Elkins of Heypenny about their music and upcoming set at the BMI Rock Showcase tonight, August 27, at Vinyl.
Mixtape Atlanta: The story of your personal musical development is an interesting one. You started out with more of a jammy sound, then moved into more indie rock influences. How did that happen?
Ben Elkins: It happened in Chattanooga.It was just me back then, and I wanted to get some people to play with me, but little did I know that the jammy thing wasn’t what people were interesting in doing any more. And I didn’t have any idea about all the really amazing indie music going on. I just wasn’t clued in to any of that. And my friend Chris and a couple of others starting passing recordings off to me, like The Shins record and The Arcade Fire, and I saw the Wilco documentary, things like that. There were a couple of years of a really great music scene in Chattanooga. I was on the outside observing it, but definitely was influenced by it and got more interested in simpler rhythms, finding something good and pounding away at it. I used to think that a song has to be changing all the time, and tricky and impressive and wowing people. But when I sat down at a piano and played one chord over and over for awhile, that felt better to me.
MA: On your first record, you played a lot of those instruments yourself.
BE: Yeah, that was like a real growing stage for me. And then, when the record was done, my whole goal of my life was to put together the right band. Kevin, our guitar player, was on board from the beginning. He’s kind of the closest guy to the project, and always has been. The two of us went through lots of bass players and drummers, but now we’ve got this super solid core four-piece. We love playing with each other. Then there are about six other people, depending on how many horns and backup singers we go with. And they’re starting to become a more important part of the band too, so it’s kind of this big monster. One show we did recently at Mercy Lounge in Nashville, we had fifteen people on stage.
MA: You ‘re going to be The Polyphonic Spree before long.
BE: (Laughs) Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. It just works really well with the music. It’s a big sound. Vocally, especially, there’s usually 5-6 vocals on the recording, and it’s really magical to do that live.
MA: Who are you bringing down to the show tonight? What kind of sound can we expect?
BE: A little horn section and two backup singers, so there will be eight of us. We have our new uniforms too.
MA: Uniforms?
BE: Yeah, we have these insane outfits we wear. It feels like 80% of being in this band has nothing to do with music. We’re always working on costumes or sets or whatever. For our EP release, we did this huge night here in Nashville. We had artists painting these 8-foot tall canvases based on the coloring book that we released the record in. That’s how we like to do it, we like you to know from the time you walk in the door you know you’re at a Heypenny show. If we had the means we’d cook Heypenny food too. We want it to be a whole experience.
MA: A full-senses extravaganza.
BE: Exactly. I don’t understand why more bands don’t do that, put on an actual show. I mean, you’re on a stage. And with all the history of people putting on shows on stage, I think you’re missing out on a lot if you just go out there like you’ve just stepped out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog.
MA: Okay Ben, what song would have to be on your ultimate mixtape?
BE: For me I’ll go with "American Tune" by Paul Simon. For Kevin, "Learning to Fly" by Tom Petty.
Watch Heypenny's "Cop Car."
Heypenny - "CopCar" from Paper Beats Rock on Vimeo.
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