A few words with Gentle Ben and his Shimmering Hands
Gentle Ben and his shimmering hands is a rock band based in Meanjin/Brisbane. Formed over a decade ago, the project has morphed, moved and adapted - culminating in their latest record BRUT, released back in May.
Singer and lyricist Ben Corbett sat down with me recently to chat music, growth, life and more.
How are you going man?
I’m good, just got back from France a couple weeks ago – everyone was a bit sick from travel but we’re all good now. Back to work, all that stuff
Heard about the tour over there, how long were you there for?
Only like three weeks, wasn’t a massive tour. Got to do some great stuff while we were there, played the Binic festival – two shows at that. Started in Paris, went up to Brittany, played some amazing shows in Ren, drove down to Parigo near Bordeaux. Ate lots of good food, saw some good friends and got to watch a bunch of cool bands.
It’s been great to see a bunch of dope Aussie bands in Europe, just doing it.
God yeah, that’s kinda the only way to break into it. Go over, lose money, just commit to playing a bunch of shows to hardly anyone – but it means the next time you go over you’ve got friends and connections.
There is a fantastic scene in France nowadays, they’ve really upped their game in the past fifteen years. Seems to be a real love for Australian music. Our French label Beast records release a lot of Australian stuff. Sam who runs Beast records has a little store in Ren, and you go there to find Australian stuff you can’t even find here. The amount of Split System tee shirts, they’ve got a rep.
Half the lineup on Binic was Aussie; CLAMM, Goutlaw, Party Pest – there’s a lot of love for Australian underground rock music. Probably more international bands on the lineup than French. I think there’s a love for the grittiness of what Australians seem to do, that darker element.
Where’d you grow up?
I grew up on a farm near the Big Pineapple, Wumbai on the Sunshine coast. My parents are still there, amazingly. They’re getting on a bit though. Grew up there, went to school there. Didn’t really appreciate it at the time, just wanted to get outta there. Moved to Brisbane to live with my brother. Dropped out of uni, made a few abortive attempts at making music. I ended up writing a play that had a live band. Lots of big ideas at eighteen. We ended up putting the show on, and that band ended up rolling into Six Ft Hick. We were really awful for a few years, but we managed to stick around for quite sometime.
After a few years of that I started Gentle Ben and his Sensitive Side because I wanted to do something a bit different, and that kinda morphed into something else. That kinda fell away a bit, and then we changed the name, changed lineups a bit and turned into shimmering hands. That’s a very pottered history of what I’ve been doing obviously.
I was going to ask what a young Ben looked like, but as you said you were writing plays at 18, what did that guy look like?
It’s a bit sad because I think I lost a bit of that youthful confidence. It’s a bit of a mixed blessing because I’m glad I didn’t grow up in the internet era, I would’ve had some awful hot takes that would come back to haunt me. I’ve got a lot of friends in their twenties, and I look at them and go “fuck, you’re so switched on, you’re so savvy”. I was fucking useless in my twenties, completely gauntless. I thought I had everything figured but I was useless. I’ve got so much admiration for them - they’ve got a much clearer picture of the world and their place within it than I did.
Tell me about that music video for Spices – I saw your bass player Dan Baebler directed it.
I was particularly ragged on that day. We shot it at this reservoir thing, looks like a ziggurat or something. It was a fun time shooting it, there was all this weird green algae in the water. I ended the shoot very filthy, don’t know if I picked up some stomach bug.
Dan’s a very talented filmmaker, he’s done clips for a lot of people including Regurgitator, Sayer and Yr Familiar. He does some amazing community-based work with indigenous artists and gets to travel around Australia doing some awesome stuff. It’s really cool cause he and I actually went to school together. We’ve been friends and playing in bands together for a really long time. When you get older, you know your friends do cool things for work, but then he shows up to the shoot and can pilot a drone – he’s very good at teaching himself things. Bit of a self-taught wunderkind.
I remember when he learned to play bass. He would’ve been about 15, 16. Broke his leg skateboarding, and within a month he could play bass. Just sat there in his bedroom and played bass. I’m not blessed with that kind of focus, but geez I admire it. And I’ll ride his coat tails.
So, considering the title of the band, how collaborative is Gentle Ben and his Shimmering Hands?
It’s incredibly collaborative. Every day I regret not getting my name out of the band, it’s just one of those things. As the singer and lyricist, I guess I’m the focal point, but I feel a bit stupid because it’s a collaborative effort. Everyone has a hand in songwriting. Tony (Giacca) probably wrote the basics of the songs, but Dan’s also a great guitar player. Spices came from a bass riff of Dan’s, so he was at the core of that. And Jhindu (Pedro) is an incredible drummer – we love what he brings to the band. It’s a real collaborative feel, and I reckon that’s what’s made the album work as well as it has.
We all dropped the egos we may have had in pother projects, just listened to each other’s ideas and tried those ideas, learning to communicate better. We always talk about getting out of the way of the song. Just being brutally honest with each other. The other thing we got really good at is being able to throw out our favourite ideas.
There are songs that have morphed from one thing to another completely, just totally unrecognizable from what we brought into the practice room. Throwing out lyrics, coming back to it at a different angle. I used to get really bummed out about that but now it’s just part of the process and it’s fine. We’re very good at telling each other no, but now we’re actually getting better at hearing it. I think we’re all happy to give each other the power of veto, no one is left unheard. That’s kind of the point of a band, otherwise you might as well be playing solo. Maybe it’s part of being a bit older and just realising what we’re trying to achieve.
How do you think the Australian scene has changed since you came up?
I feel like I was very active for a number of years in the early to mid period of Six Ft Hick. Playing a lot of shows in Melbourne and Sydney, putting in a lot of miles in the van – later frequent flier points. We went to Europe like fives times and Japan, that kinda thing. Even through that era we never felt we were super part of a particular scene. We hand bands we felt a kinship with, but we never really felt part of a particular scene,
As the band played a bit less and we had children and that sorta thing, we all soft of withdrew. Didn’t go out as much, didn’t see so many bands. The person id say who remained active in the scene is Fred (Noonan) from Six Ft Hick – our drummer. Always playing in about five or more different bands. Always deep in the Brisbane punk rock scene, but would also play with like a blues rock band or a country band. Had that “Do you need someone? I can do that” attitude. He did it for the love of it. I’m probably not the best person to answer a question about scenes. I’m on the outer and I haven’t paid as much attention as I should have.
How has survived and making a living out of music changed for you?
We’ve never made living. Its been cool, but its never been our meal ticket. Whatever money is made has been chucked into flights and recording, and often chucking our own money in. Occasionally wed have a bit of cash leftover to make sandwiches on tour, but generally chucked back into band itself.
I’ve known a few Australian bands to make their living out of music – and to be honest it looks like a pretty miserable existence. I know there’s some real benefits artistically to just make music all the time, but unfortunately I don’t think it works out all the time. You’ve gotta play shows that kinda suck, go on tribute circles and all this kinda thing. I’m not ragging on people for doing that, but it just looks really hard.
Everyone in all the bands I’ve played with have had full or part time day jobs. I’m a posty. I’ve done various things, used to own a café/bar with my wife, but then Covid kicked us in the guts. Few years later and I’m going around on my electric posty bike.
What does the new record BRUT mean to you?
So the actual word is a French word which means raw or unfinished. I just really like the word. I have this thing where I fall in love with words of phrases. They’ll just stick in my head, whether it’s the sound, the meanings or whatever. I find these sort of magic moments in language. For me, this record is a good example of that. The beginnings of most of those songs have come from a word or phrase, just rolling around my head and gathering meaning. Like a snowball of terrible thoughts. Its probably the first time I’ve allowed myself to write like that. I’ve been less worried about people under standing exactly what I mean – I just make it the way I want to and that’s enough. The meanings can be extrapolated, but I just dope it sounds good. Freeing myself up from worrying about what the listener thinks has been freeing.
I’m a pretty anxious individual. Really prone to rumination and overthinking. For many years it really poisoned me on songwriting, everything I wrote down I hated. It probably coincided with a dark, anxious mental health time. From a creative perspective, it was just poison. Thankfully, I’ve drifted up from the bottom of that particular well, and things are starting to bubble away in my brain again. I’ve found the love for creating again.
Songwriting is a bit of alchemy. It’s a bit magical, and when that leaves you it’s de[pressing. I felt like I lost a bit of myself during that period, and so finally recording this tuff and releasing it feels like a small victory. And to have done it with my friends, people I’ve been doing stuff with for a really long time is really rewarding.
What advice have you got for young bands?
Take up plumbing. That sounds like an old cynical rock guy answer but I also absolutely wish I had picked up a trade when I was younger. You have so much time when you’re young, and you don’t realise it. You can learn to do something useful with your hands or your brain that can support you while you go to play music. That’s a nice feeling, not being fucking poverty stricken while you it. There’s a romantic idea about being a poor musician, but how long do you want to do that? Do you want to end up being a poor alcoholic cunt?
And the other thing I say is go on tour. That’s what makes or breaks a band, and it also is really fun. Just go to tour, lose money, don’t worry about any of that. Say yes to all those experiences.
Also don’t take advice from old people.
It’s never been any better or worse – its all about what you make of it. Things will change, but its about getting out what you put in. as long as you don’t think about it for getting rich or being famous. Everything else is a bonus.
Where are you going from here?
Doing a little Australian album launch tour, and by that of course I mean Sydney Melbourne and Brisbane, sorry to the rest of the country. Would love to get to Tassie and Perth and whatnot, but that’s it for the moment. Were also looking at recording the next thing, we’ve got a bunch of songs in the works, and I’m really excited about getting in the practice room and the studio and seeing what happens next.