Ben is a young artist whose time has come. His third album, Rogue State Of Mind, released by Bucketfull Of Brains on xxx represents the summation of the talents of this remarkable young Swede. Ben was born in February 1988, during the coldest winter recorded in Sweden in the 80s, and grew up on a small island west of Gothenburg in the Kattegat Sea. The seeds of many of his more autobiographical songs were sown during this formative period.

Ben started out playing drums at the age of 12 in a skatepunk band that rapidly developed into grunge, due to an obsession with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. But then Ben started listening to folk music and from there he progressed to Bob Dylan and Townes van Zandt. “Sad guys with guitars have always been my involuntary preference”, says Ben, but you could hardly describe him as sad.

His acoustic guitar skills astonishing, while his songs reveal depths of emotion and stories from a young life that has been lived hard. This is a man who has loved and lost and channels his feelings into his work. His uniquely engaging stage presence displays the kind of humour sadly missing in the work of so many introspective singer-songwriters. 

Ben’s first studio album (2013’s Too Close To Here) brought him to the attention of a wider critical audience. Now, with Rogue State Of Mind, comes the break though to a wider audience. The album was recorded with his Swedish band in their own studio in an old warehouse.  

“We are a tight bunch and we love each other. This album is completely different from the last one, which was recorded live with minimal overdubs. This time, we didn't rehearse the songs, we just sat down and recorded them layer by layer”.

Musical references are hard to spot, especially on an album as eclectic and ambitious as this one, but, as Ben avows, eighties Springsteen was ever present. “We didn't want to limit ourselves so we kept our minds open to all sorts of ideas. There's a clarinet in a few places and I never thought I'd have that on an album of mine!” .