Ben Lee

“I’m trying to express on this record the same things I’m trying to express in my life right now. It’s all about leaving rough edges, keeping it dirty, not judging it” – Ben Lee, Sept 2002

It’s been a stimulating three years for Ben Lee. Sometimes great, sometimes complicated, never anything less than inspiring.

Finally casting off the “teen hero” tag with which he was lumbered during the mid- to late-1990s (both as a solo artist and out front of the band Noise Addict), Lee emerged in 1999 with the single “Cigarettes Will Kill You” and a breakthrough album in Breathing Tornados, marked out by textured arrangements and organic songwriting.

What followed, of course, was a whole lot of touring. But then Ben’s life spun off in multiple directions. He wrote with Evan Dando and new-school Australian bands Waikiki and Gelbison. He practised the Chinese self-healing art of Qigong. He travelled several times between his new base in America and his old home on the beach at Bondi. He made his acting debut as the star of indie flick The Rage In Placid Lake.

And there have naturally also been life experiences for Ben which haven’t happened outwardly or in public. Amongst them, emotional challenges like grief and what he describes as his “struggling against numbness and non-feeling”.

All up, that’s some pretty solid currency for songwriting. Enter Ben Lee’s new album “hey you. yes you”.

Right from hook-heavy opener “Running With Scissors”, it’s evident that Lee is determined to make this new musical venture an adventure. “hey you. yes you.” will prove to any stray behind-the-timers that, yes, Ben Lee is now all grown up. This is an accessible pop album, certainly. But it’s also so much more than that. It’s a mature, honed work which explores the hidden corners of songwriting and which uses the studio setting to full effect.

“Real danger in pop music should always come from vulnerability. Emotional tightrope walking. Risk,” offers Ben. “I’m trying to change. I use music to help me do that.”

Lee recorded “hey you. yes you.” in late 2001 in San Francisco. At the helm as producer was Dan The Automator (Beastie Boys, Primal Scream, Herbie Hancock), with whom Lee shared an omissible rapport.

“Dan and I were really musically compatible from the get-go – even down to our favourite Can record. I mean, we got each other. We both love big pop songs, big hooks. We both also have a pretty wide and eclectic set of influences. It’s rare for me to find someone who can sit with me and discuss obscure NYC noise groups from the early-80s and then watch MTV with me and get off on the colours and the candy of the modern. [Making this record with Dan] was about taking all of that stuff and making the best pop songs possible out of it.”

The resulting collection of a dozen songs is dark and sexy, a reflection of Lee standing at the end of this latest stage in his life, declaring “I’m a mess” and then creating art that, by turns, admits wrongs, purges demons and celebrates the learning curve: “I needed to just let it rip.”

And rip it does. Where “Running With Scissors” screams with immediacy, “After Taste” is built on a meandering, understated beat. The first single “Something Borrowed, Something Blue” is an instant radio classic. “(Music For) The Young and Foolish” is anything but what it’s title suggests – an excursion through quirky samples and oscillating melody. “No Room To Bleed” stands out for its gorgeous piano line, while “Chills” puts a beautiful spin on melancholy.

“I guess I’d like to say that this is a dirty, soulful album about imperfection,” Ben suggests.

It’s also a mighty strong one – songs bolder than he has ever written before, an inventiveness in production and arrangement which throws sentimentality out the window, and a big fat dose of staying power. Not bad for an album half-written in the studio. But Lee says it’s the “pure and uncontrolled” approach he takes into recording which allows his work to breath and take its inevitable, winning shape: “I try to leave room to surprise myself.”

Ben Lee may be surprised by “hey you. yes you.”, but it’s the rest of the planet which has the biggest treat in store.