Burgeoning singer/songwriter Benjamin Steer unpacks love, loneliness, and the chaos of your 20s in his debut EP ‘Figuring It Out,’ launched scorching on the heels of sold-out exhibits, viral success, and a career-defining danger.
Stream: ‘Figuring It Out’ – Benjamin Steer
Benjamin Steer isn’t any stranger to uncertainty, having made a complete EP about it.
On his debut EP Figuring It Out, the fast-rising British-American singer/songwriter captures the emotional rollercoaster of your early 20s with uncooked vulnerability, restraint, and a sincerity that’s turn out to be his calling card. Launched August 15 through Artist Concept, the five-track venture marks the official arrival of an artist who appears to have struck a chord with a technology attempting to make sense of affection, objective, and the mess in between.
“The EP is a hopeless romantic’s dream and downfall,” Steer says. “I needed to seize the helpless unknowns of being in your 20s, and hopefully create one thing folks can relate to.”
To this point, individuals are greater than relating; they’re displaying up. Figuring It Out lands off the again of Steer’s sold-out debut London headline present at The Grace, a sequence of main help slots with UK hitmaker Myles Smith and viral singer Arthur Hill, and a rising fanbase that now contains almost a million month-to-month Spotify listeners and over 14 million world streams. On social media, his music continues to make waves, racking up over six million views on user-generated content material and greater than 3.8 million views throughout his personal platforms.
Initially from Washington D.C. and later relocated to Scotland for college, Steer’s journey into music wasn’t precisely deliberate. A former economics scholar at St. Andrews, he started writing songs throughout lengthy, isolating winters, processing every thing from existential angst to romantic infatuation. A kind of early tracks, “Muted Colours,” caught the eye of label execs and shortly led to a file deal simply days earlier than he was as a result of begin a flowery company job in New York. Steer selected music. And that leap of religion is now starting to bear fruit.
Steer’s allure lies in each his humility and his emotional transparency.
Onstage, he’s quietly magnetic. In dialog, disarmingly honest. And in his music, he doesn’t fake to have the solutions.
“I’m nonetheless figuring it out,” he admits. “However I feel I’ve realized that discovering one thing you like — and somebody or one thing to like outdoors of your work — is the best key to happiness.”
Throughout the EP, Steer paints his world in muted colours and unfiltered truths: From the starry-eyed craving of “Oh Darling” to the aching readability of “No One Needs to Die Alone.” His songs may be soft-spoken, however they communicate loudly to anybody who’s ever felt caught between who they’re and who they’re turning into.
Atwood Journal caught up with the ever-charming Steer to speak emotional cycles, sold-out milestones, and the fragile dance of danger and reward.
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:: stream/buy Figuring It Out right here ::
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A CONVERSATION WITH BENJAMIN STEER
Atwood Journal: You’ve known as Figuring It Out “a hopeless romantic’s dream and downfall.” How did writing these songs assist you to make sense of your personal experiences of affection and uncertainty?
Benjamin Steer: I feel love of any sort comes hand in hand with a sense of objective. And when you find yourself attempting to determine issues out in your twenties you fall out and in of affection with many individuals and issues, and also you undergo this emotional rollercoaster of feeling like you may have every thing one second after which the subsequent…you aren’t fairly positive what you might be doing. It’s an unsure time for everybody and that’s form of what I discover the best to put in writing about… as a result of even now I do not know what I’m doing!
The EP feels prefer it strikes by levels of youth: infatuation, ache, readability. Did you got down to construct that arc, or did it emerge naturally because the songs got here collectively?
Benjamin Steer: My entire life is cycles of this, so it was not a tough factor to return naturally. I wish to really feel issues… of their highs and lows and in between. One factor {that a} buddy as soon as mentioned to me that basically caught with me – it was proper after I went by a extremely unusual situationship, and I used to be extremely down unhealthy… felt exhausting to select myself up. I used to be speaking to them about how troublesome and low I used to be feeling… They usually checked out me and mentioned “good.” If I really feel love or feelings deeply it solely makes the existence of being a human extra saturated, extra significant – maybe within the good and the unhealthy.
“No One Needs To Die Alone” resonates with so many individuals. What truths about loneliness and connection have been you attempting to seize in that tune?
Benjamin Steer: I at all times describe this tune after I play it stay as “Simply what it says on the tin” I feel at instances I could be a straight-to-the-point-writer, and this can be a prime instance of that. I don’t wish to die alone… which sounds fairly heavy however what I feel I’ve present in the previous couple of years is that I crave companionship and a larger objective in issues outdoors of the obsession in my skilled life.
Life might be fairly lonely in your early 20s and discovering somebody you could share your highs lows and in-betweens with might be some of the precious issues I’ve discovered and makes you a greater individual. I feel notably within the music trade your private {and professional} sort of mix collectively and so extra so than ever I want somebody or one thing to care about and love outdoors of the work. I wish to promote out the 02 however I additionally desire a farmhouse with my spouse and children and some canines.
You started writing in the course of the lengthy winters at St. Andrews. How did isolation, and that individual atmosphere, form the way in which you method songwriting even now?
Benjamin Steer: My time at college was definitely not one which I want to return to in some ways. It was a particularly aggressive atmosphere and there have been little to no retailers. It was very isolating, and I felt, though I used to be surrounded by nice buddies… it was lonely. I usually assume that if my time at college was superb, I’d have by no means picked up a guitar and I’d have by no means began songwriting.
The primary tune that I ever launched was a commentary on the numbness and isolation I felt throughout my time there however form of disguised within the feeling that you just at all times had put on a facade like life was nice and that you just had every thing found out… when in actuality I had no concept what I actually needed to do and what made me excited and comfortable.
You have been standing on the point of an economics profession earlier than a file deal shifted your path. What did selecting music over that future train you about danger, objective, and belief in your self?
Benjamin Steer: I feel it was a giant danger, however it was one which I by no means actually thought twice about. I at all times needed to really feel like I used to be accountable for my future and that my success could be because of the work that I had accomplished purely off my very own again.
I feel I’ve at all times tried to embody a little bit of an entrepreneurial spirt and I feel the music trade is sort of the right place to make that occur. You may get up one morning and write a tune or submit a video that may truly utterly change your life trajectory. You aren’t working with commodities which can be owned by anybody else, you’re the commodity, and the eye is the demand. It’s an enchanting dynamic and the truth that your inherent creativity in songwriting which was already one thing I did as a interest and fervour – goes to be the rationale behind your success it makes it all of the extra thrilling.
“Muted Colours” turned your breakthrough. Whenever you hearken to it now, does it really feel like a reminder of who you have been then, or does it reveal new which means as your profession evolves?
Benjamin Steer: I feel “Muted Colours” was the unexpectedly good first tune to place out. It served its good objective within the time that it was written for me personally but additionally to indicate an viewers the kind of music and messaging I needed to pursue.
I look again positively on it now for positive, however I don’t maintain a lot emotional attachment to my music as soon as it’s launched. It was the primary steppingstone in an extended row to cross the river, and I’m so grateful that I might have even had the prospect to start out or embark on that journey.
I feel it labored as a result of it was simply trustworthy, it was one of many first songs I had ever written, and I didn’t actually have a reference level as to what was okay and what was not. I feel I do naturally cringe a bit of bit listening again to it now as a result of I feel my model and tone has modified a bit, however it definitely was a implausible first step!
Your sold-out present at The Grace was a milestone second. Past the joy, did it change the way in which you see your self as an artist?
Benjamin Steer: Oh completely! I feel it was considered one of my best accomplishments in my profession but additionally personally to date… It is vitally exhausting to tangibly quantify your success in music and to have folks standing in entrance of me, singing songs that I’ve written in my bed room is among the most weird however superb experiences in my life to date.
I feel I at all times wrestle a bit with imposter syndrome – I’m actually only a man who writes songs about what he sees on the planet. It isn’t notably groundbreaking stuff, however the truth that folks connect with it on the similar degree I do is unbelievable. I really feel unworthy.
You’ve shared levels with artists like Myles Smith and shortly Arthur Hill. How do these experiences affect the way in which you concentrate on your personal stay presence and storytelling?
Benjamin Steer: Oh completely, they’re unimaginable folks to be round. Very gifted however very pushed. They wish to the perfect and they’re the perfect, and their medium is their music and private experiences. It’s superb to observe and shapes how I view myself within the trade – creatively but additionally in a enterprise and a hit context.
Your listeners usually describe your music as quietly cinematic. Do you see your self portray scenes with sound, or are you extra involved with emotional fact over imagery?
Benjamin Steer: I don’t actually are likely to overly analyze my sound or messaging. In the end, I would like folks to connect with it and it may be lyrical or only a feeling. The tune is a winner if it takes its personal form and kind out of my management – to be interpreted and shared by the listener in their very own private context.
The EP known as Figuring It Out. After writing and releasing it, what do you are feeling you’ve found out, and what questions are you continue to attempting to determine?
Benjamin Steer: Effectively not a lot I’d say… I very a lot am nonetheless figuring it out. All I’ve found out is that discovering one thing you like and one thing purposeful in life is the best key to happiness. I’m nonetheless looking out, however I feel that I’m.
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:: stream/buy Figuring It Out right here ::
:: join with Benjamin Steer right here ::
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© Andy Broadhurst
an EP by Benjamin Steer