Ben Lee

Wed 25th Feb, 2009 in Features

Since the release of his successful Awake is the New Sleep in 2005, Ben Lee has been on something of a roll. That album’s single Catch My Disease became a clarion call for him, breaking him through to commercial radio here in Australia and showcasing his music seemingly all around the western world by being featured on the likes of Grey’s Anatomy.

The darkness hinted at throughout the majority of that album – which Catch My Disease was something of a departure from – has now been almost entirely forsaken. It was barely there on 2007 release Ripe, and his new album The Rebirth of Venus features some of Lee’s most straightforward and direct pop songs to date. It continues a productive time for Lee, having worked with Jessica Chapnick on the soundtrack to the Joel Edgerton film The Square, and producing an artist in the States.

“It hasn’t felt like too much,” he says of his workload, “because I’ve also been more domestic than I’ve ever been before. I’m getting married, and I have a step-daughter, and there’s something about that domesticity that has made me more creative and able to do work.”

It’s a marked cry from the years following his initial burst of activity as a 14-year old-prodigy, where he released albums with his fuzz-pop band Noise Addict and then his initial solo releases by the time he was 16 in the mid-1990s. “I got slowed down by label politics and pressure like, – œYou’ve got to make a great record next, and who’s the producer going to be’ – issues that weren’t about me and having songs and being ready to make a record. I think in the last few years I’ve realised I’m happier if I go at my own pace.”

The Rebirth of Venus finds him re-teaming with producer Brad Wood, who Lee previously worked with on his solo debut Grandpaw Would and its follow-up Something to Remember Me By. “I’ve always been a very contrary person, and I’ve always wanted to give the fans something different from the last one,” he explains of his approach to making records. “On this record I remember waking up one morning and thinking, – œWell, what records do people like best?’, and they like it when Lara [Meyerratken] and Nic [Johns], who play with me, and Brad work together. So let’s do one of those!”

Lee describes it as an attempt to be generous – to the fans, to the songs themselves, and to his own creative juices. “Something about when we work together makes a sound that we like and that people like,” he says. “He lets me by me; he’s never pushed me to be something I’m not.”

The Rebirth of Venus begin with the songs themselves – they all had a certain focus, about being about the world that we’re living in. “Being out of touch with feminine values,” was an important part of its make-up, Lee believes. “Creativity, nurturing, and compassion – I knew I wanted to make a record that was almost like a protest record, but a pop record, about getting back to what matters.

“II had all these songs and I really believed in them, and they seemed quite eccentric. They were songs that were sometimes very literal and lyrically were quite idiosyncratic, and I knew that I needed to make a record that would emphasise the left-centeredness of it, so it made sense to use musicians who hadn’t put their own ego into it, but supported me in being myself.”

Approaching an album from a more feminine perspective is a different way of doing things, even for the madcap Lee. Apart from using the Botticelli as an inspiration from the clam-shell, that is.

“It’s a spiritual and a political conundrum that the world’s in,” he claims. “It wasn’t so much about – œwomen’ as all the subject matter, but about ways that we’ve gone out of balance. What’s So Bad About Feeling Good was about being in a music scene where unless you’re depressed and heavy and serious then you’re not thought of as being talented. Why can’t things be light? I Love Pop Music is about wanting to talk about those things where we’re not being compassionate, but I want to do it in a fun way…I don’t want to censor myself.”

The Rebirth of Venus is out now on Universal Music. Ben Lee is part of the Big O tour, which gets underway this week.