Artist Spotlight: Benjamin Tod
Courtesy of Benjamin Tod
The Appalachian Preservation Project is proud to present Benjamin Tod as this week’s artist spotlight.
Tell me about your background. Who are you at your core? Why did you become a musician?
I was born and raised in Sumner County, TN which is wedged smack between Kentucky and Nashville. I carry a lot of influence from both but I spent most of my adolescence in Nashville and left home at the age of 17 riding freight trains and hitchhiking coast to coast for more than a decade. I am a songwriter at my core in reference to my career, but I am a tramp, hobo, troubadour, recovering addict, gear head, homesteader, son, brother, man and outlaw beyond that. That's a complicated question I guess because I really spend very little time in the music world at this point in my life. I became a musician straight out of songwriting and the influence of growing up in the songwriting capital of the world. Growing up Johnny Cash, Leon Russell, Alan Jackson and hundreds of other legends lived down the road. I was babysat by Dallas Frazier growing up and one of my best friends' fathers was Rick West who wrote number one hits for George Strait and many others. it's just in the water and the culture here. I started playing music on lower Broadway around the age of 13 and then on street corners all over the country when I was homeless traveling in my youth.
How long have you been recording/gigging?
I started recording myself in Christian Tengelitsch's house whose father was Rick West when I was 14. He would give us his old equipment and records and we made the absolute most of it back then. I started playing shows out around 17 but not too seriously until I was 24.
Why did you begin pursuing professional music?
It really was my only option because my addictions to alcohol, speed and opiates really forced me into the lifestyle. I couldn't hold down a real job or keep a home. Playing music was the only life I ever knew.
What is the most challenging part of recording/gigging? The most rewarding part?
Writing has always been natural and easy for me. There are times when I doubt whether another song will ever come but it always does. As far as touring, the hardest thing by far is the psychological toll it takes. It's hard for most people to imagine what it's like to get up on a stage where hundreds or thousands of people have high expectations and personal attachment to you and your art. You have to deliver the first night of the tour the same as the last and we're humans like everyone else. We have bad days, insecurities, zits, family tragedies, arguments and mind fog just like you. It's hard to maintain a veneer of excellence night in and night out. With my art it's even harder because my life's work surrounds my deeply personal experiences and recovery.
What artists inspire your songwriting the most?
Guy Clark is my absolute number one hero. He enshrines my ethos and archetype as an artist. beyond that I'm proud it's people I know for the most part.
Courtesy of Benjamin Tod
What life experiences inform your music?
I was a man who woke up every day for a decade and wished he were dead. It's hard to explain what that psychology does to someone, but It took years to come back from. I have lived at the very bottom and very top of a junkie's nightmare. I've lived under a bridge with nothing but a needle and a guitar for many spans of my life. I've also almost had a heart attack from shooting up too much meth performing on a sold out stage in front of 1,000 people. Desperation informs real true blue american songwriting. I know folks who have never lived in desperation who are famous right now for pretending to have lived it. I can spot the difference but most people can't. I wear it as a badge of honor to still be here to tell you about it because it's the experience of the common person. That's where real folk music comes from. Common Desperation.
How do you hope your music impacts people?
I hope to give people tools to get better at being their ideal self with my music and public influence on the individual level. I want to give people real tangible inspiration to take responsibility for their lives and get to work making the world around them better. This generation is blinded by social virtue and I couldn't imagine a more fruitless idol. You can't begin to rework and reorganize the world until your own life, family and community has leadership and wisdom. I came out of a hell of my own making and there are absolutely objective metrics in analyzing how to rebuild a broken life. Everyone's path will be uniquely different, but it is not a complete mystery how to get back from hell but we live in a society run by relativists now who'd like you to believe any way of living is equal to every other. I reject that philosophy because I lived it and it almost killed me. You can win your life back from the pit, but you have to eat a lot of crow in the process. it's HARD work and no one wants to do it and fewer and fewer people dare even suggest it's the only way because the west has become so soft and weak. That's why my music speaks to people in the first place. My music opens people's eyes to the fact that the power and the responsibility are both their own.
What has been the most personally impactful moment in your career so far?
Stepping off stage this last time in Pineville, KY hurt pretty good. I didn't really know if I'd ever get back on a stage again. I cried on stage and off stage. Making this Honky Tonk and Lost Dog record the last 3 months may beat Pineville though. making these two records opened up my heart and my mind so much. I feel born again in so many ways. I had so many walls holding back my personal growth and I really owe it to everyone who helped with those records for breaking me open.
Who or what inspires you most?
My incredible wife, Ashley Mae. She has been my muse for over 15 years now and her loyalty to me is astounding now that i'm able to look back at how evil and selfish i was for most of our marriage. She has inspired more songs than any other force in my life and she is my greatest treasure in this world. She is the only reason I'm still here in most every way. I have watched, mentored and mourned so many people's plight out of darkness and the one thing most of them never had was someone who really deeply loved them. Most people have to do it completely on their own because they end up destroying all the good relationships they had. She never gave up on me and that was a miracle for my life.
Courtesy of Benjamin Tod
