Ben Bostick Navigates The Quiet Desperation Of Life On His 3rd Full-Length Release 'Among The Faceless Crowd'
A Beautiful Melancholic Rumination On Working Class America.
“Ben Bostick is an audacious, trailblazing messenger with enough promise to bode a paradigm shift in modern music.” — National Rock Review
After almost a decade in Los Angeles, Ben Bostick is back in the beautiful southeast of Lilburn, Georgia. The South Carolina native had spent a decade rambling around the U.S. before settling into LA, where he met the girl of his dreams and became a father. Now expecting a second child, the family moved to Georgia where it’s a tad easier for a gigging musician to raise children.
Moving across country wasn’t the only change for Bostick. Eschewing a producer for Among the Faceless Crowd, the musician chose to make his 3rd full-length record on his own. The album is self-produced, mixed and mastered (with the exception of a drum session engineered at Madlife Studios). Bostick also plays most of the instruments on the record with the exception of his LA band stepping in for a song or two. “This record started out as a total bedroom record,” he explains. “I played everything on every track, until I got to the point where the music demanded performances that outstripped my ability on organ and bass.” The musician brought in Luke Miller (keys) and Cory Tramontelli (bass) to freshen up the playing and included his longtime guitar player Kyle LaLone on “The Last Coast.” “We had played that song live a few times and I loved the melodic chord solo he came up with.”
Bostick’s rowdy sophomore release Hellfire (2018), was an album of 11 high-energy songs played live. As Fred Mills of Blurt noted it had, “More twang per capita than the FDA recommends, with a sonic caloric intake that’ll leave you in a puddle on the venue floor.” Among the Faceless Crowd is a continued exploration of the characters we met on Hellfire, but the more pensive side of those characters. “This album is the sad cousin of Hellfire,” Bostick describes. “Whereas Hellfire was about pent up rage blowing up into a furious night of drinking, fighting, and bad decisions, Among the Faceless Crowd is the hangover. It’s the daily grind, the repetition and quiet desperation of life among the faceless crowd.”
Bostick crafted 10 gems that are unique on their own, yet connect as an album. From the forlorn and mournful openers “Absolutely Emily” and “Wasting Gas” to the bluesy sound of “Too Dark to Tell” Bostick explores the pain and loneliness of feeling insignificant. (“I once was found, but now again I’m lost | On merciless waves I am tossed | I would tell you of His grace, and how it was I fell | But some tales are just too dark to tell”).
“The album is divided into two halves,” Bostick explains. “It would be the two sides if it were on vinyl. The first five songs are from the perspective of disillusioned working men, and then we step into the criminals and sinners section with ‘The Thief’.” This is also the first song on which Bostick used the glockenspiel, which is also in “Wasting Gas” and “If I Were in a Novel.” “Something about that pure chime gives a song an air of melancholy that fits well on this record.”
“The Thief” is about a man stealing things to support his family. “Central Valley” is about a man who goes to jail for a robbery gone wrong, “Too Dark to Tell” is from the point a view of a man who thinks his trouble may never end, and “Untroubled Mind” is told from the perspective of a man on death row. “The songs on this album could all be construed as being from the point of view of one person, although I didn’t write them that way,” he relates. “Central Valley” came about when I stumbled on that mournful guitar lick during a time when I was mulling over writing a song or album about ‘The Rest of California.’ Living in Los Angeles or watching TV, you get an idea about California that is only a small part of the big picture. The lifestyle and politics of the city disappear when you get into the Central Valley, which, if it were its own state, would be the poorest state of the nation. I met some desperate characters up there, one especially who inspired this song.”
A great song is one that matches a performer’s strengths and personality. Bostick has been getting to know his strengths and personality as he matures and he has a knack for tapping into the soul of those who struggle to survive in the everyday. “I’ve been curious about what it means to be a man in America now, and both Hellfire and Among the Faceless Crowd are meditations on that. We live in a time where preposterous beliefs abound across the ideological spectrum, and I’m trying to think clearly in the midst of the noise. When I’m unable to articulate my thoughts, a song comes out. Most of my songs are saying something I can’t yet form into a concise and elegant sentence. These songs are not ironic. They don’t look down on or glorify the characters. I tried to write what I know, what I feel, and what I observe. Although the stories aren’t factually autobiographical, this is a personal album to me. The emotions here are very real to me.”
You can pre-order this mighty fine album in digital format from here.
