Biography
Ben Gray...
He sits alone, asking himself...
Do I write my bio in 3rd person again?
Not again.
I'm 26 now, I'm not old but I'm tired of pretending I'm someone else writing about Ben Gray when I write bios, so here it is:
I played guitar and bass guitar with the Freak Radicals, a wicked-ass hip-hop band with some of Perths finest, including Pat Giles, winner of multiple WAMi accolades.
Then I played bass-guitar with Lake of Bass, a wicked-ass electro hip-hop band featuring a guy named Diego Bosco & another guy named Tim Macnamara, both highly respected within the WA music community. This stint featured a gig at Belvoir Amphitheatre for the Break-fest festival and also playing a Triple J Live @ The Wireless.
After this, I helped form my first band in which I contributed writing, Cracker Please. Together with Nick Duff (of Boogie Smash) & Tom Cleave (of DSA, Lake of Bass) we played some jazzy weird shit. Absolute gold. We didn't really get far, but we earned the respect of a lot of our fellow musicians. Good times.
That lasted a year or so before it imploded. After that, feeling exhausted, I entered a little pop-soul ditty named "Smooth" in the WAM Song of the Year awards. It caught the attention some judges, amongst them a guy named Ivan Borgnino who has been helping me with promotion ever since.
It also gave me the impetus to create The Ben Gray Band, although at that point it was named after the nickname many of my friends refer to me by: benjwah.
Throughout the year 2006 we worked very hard and played a shitload of gigs. It culminated in an EP recorded with and produced by Pat Giles (you'll remember him from the Freak Radicals) and a lot of gigs at The Funk Club, something we had aspired to for a long time.
But all good things die in the ass, and with an egotistical frontman whose head got way too large (me) and an unhappy band, it could never last.
So here we are. I've spent the last year or so playing 2nd guitar and keys for Stu Orchards band trying to learn how to be a normal person who works well with others again.
And against my own better judgement, I'm throwing my balls in the ring again. As a solo artist. Yes, that's right, my head is going disappear up my own jaxie once again so that you and the world can enjoy pop music once again.
Good pop music. Like the Supremes, or the Commodores, not like Britney Goddamn Spears (she's still around? Who'da thunk it?), not like fucking Pink ("I don't like George Bush, I'm a punk, I'm original!" - Bullshit) and hopefully, just maybe, someone will hear it.
Ahhh, I'm done.
You can go now.