Road Crew Magazine
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It’s a high energy show. The joint is packed! Bodies are bobbing against each other in a sea of downbeats.

In front of the crowd, John Fred Young is assaulting a drum kit with ferocious style, and Ben Wells works the stage, lost in a whirl of blond hair. Chris Robertson’s vocals have everyone’s attention; except for the pretty girl winking at Jon Lawhon.

This is Black Stone Cherry.

The album is Folklore and Superstition.

And the tour is now.

Ben Wells took the time to sit down with Road Crew recently to discuss life on the road, respecting The King and Folklore and Superstition.

Road Crew: Now it seems you’ve been touring non-stop since 2006. How long have you guys been going?

Ben: The first album came out in July 2006 and we started officially touring in May of that year. It’s pretty much been non-stop ever since. We pick up from tour to tour and then we took some time off to do the second album, which we recorded in March, then started touring again in April. We took some time off right before Christmas. And now we’re back on the road.

RC: Do you have a favorite city that you’ve played in?

Ben: We definitely have our favorites that we go back to. Honestly, this is probably one of our favorite clubs and places to play here in Ft. Wayne (Piere's), because the people here are so nice. And then we love going down south into New Orleans, anywhere in Louisiana, Mississippi, and our home state of Kentucky. But its like going to new places is fun too. We just did Fargo and Bismarck and we’d never played those places. It’s great to meet new fans there. Anywhere we can play music is fun for us.

RC: When’s the last time you went to a concert, aside from your own?

Ben: The last big concert we went to was on the road. It was Aerosmith. We were in California, on tour with Hinder. We had a day off. And we happened to route it out were we could go to the concert. Which was awesome because I love Aerosmith, all of us do. But you don’t get a lot of time to go to them anymore. As much as we’d like to. The schedules always conflict. If a show’s coming near our hometown we’re always on the road. We don’t get a lot of time to go to concerts.

RC: Who do you listen to?

Ben: I’m a huge Elvis fan. So I listen to Elvis and all the Sun Records stuff. I love a group called Old Crow Medicine Show, which is old-time-y folk music. Love the Stray Cats. There’s a lot of different stuff that I listen to. All of us, our musical genres and influences range from really Heavy Metal to R&B. We listen to it all, pretty much.

RC: Have any new artist caught your attention?

Ben: We’re friends with lots of new bands. I think we mainly listen to older stuff more than we do the new stuff. We’ve got friends in Sevendust, Shinedown, and Seether. But we usually find ourselves listening to older blues and stuff like that.

RC: You grew up in a musical environment. Was there one specific influence, growing up, that put you on this path?

Ben: I would say Elvis. I’ve been an Elvis fan since I was … before my parents can even remember. I don’t even know where it started. That was the thing that really got me into music. So I think if I had to owe it all to any one musical person it would definitely be him. You’ve gotta love the king.

RC: Oh yeah!

RC: While you’re touring; does a lot of songwriting happen on the bus?

Ben: Sometimes. If we’re on the road and getting ready to go do an album we spend more time than we are now. This new album hasn’t been out a year. Now we just focus more on playing the shows. But we do have guitars on the bus, and little amps. We’re always coming up with new ideas in sound check. We’re keeping it in our minds for when we have to write again.

RC: Is that how your songwriting process works, a combination of the four of you?

Ben: It’s always all four of us. Maybe someone will have a general idea. Then we all take it, rip it apart, and put it back together.

RC: Sounds like fun.

RC: The new album Folklore and Superstition; the name really epitomizes what’s in the songs.

Ben: Cool. Thank you.

RC: Did a lot of that material come from real life situations?

Ben: Majority of it has. Certain songs on there like “Things My Father Said”, is a song about losing your dad. And none of us luckily have lost our dads. But we have lost Grandfathers. And had friends, even friends that are on the road with now, that have lost their dads at a young age. And it’s sad. We see them go through that. So that is a song for them. That’s kind of a real personal song. We try not to get too serious with the music. We like to have fun. Majority of the album is just about our respect for our history and heritage in Kentucky. And respect for areas like Mississippi and New Orleans that were the beginning of music. Cool stories. That’s what we like to do. Just take stories and put them into song.

RC: The story telling in the album is just incredible.

Ben: Thank you.

RC: “Please Come In”, to me, really channels Led Zeppelin. Was this intentional?

Ben: I think everyone at some point tries to channel Led Zeppelin. But that song was actually totally different when we first wrote it. And it just wasn’t working out the way we wanted. So we arranged it differently and it came out to be that. You know it does kind of have a Dancing Days vibe from Zeppelin. Which people are latching on to. Yeah, I think Zeppelin is one of our big influences. So there’s a lot of them flowing in and out.

RC: I have to ask, for my own curiosity, what’s the story behind “Long Sleeves”?

Ben: A friend of our, who is a retired Sergeant in the military. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Blackhawk Down”, he was one of the people that the movie was about; in the real deal. And he’s a super nice guy and we love him to death. And that song is kind of about him, and written from a soldier’s point of view. And “Long Sleeves” is just a metaphor about always keeping your armor on, and your guard up. Not necessarily wearing a sweater. It just means always be on the lookout and always be aware, pretty much.

RC: Have you guys started planning the next album yet?

Ben: Not yet.

RC: Guess you’re fresh off the last one?

Ben: The cool thing about it is, we’ll still be thinking of ideas when we’re in the studio doing the next album. It’s very spontaneous. We’ve got different ideas we’d like to do. But we haven’t starting focusing in on it just yet.

RC: There’s all the labels used to describe what a sound is. How would you describe your music?

Ben: I don’t know. We try not to put a category title on us. But it's definitely rock. It's energetic and it's fun. It's real and it's true. It is what it is, you know. It's just four guys who like to make music and touch people’s hearts if they can. I wouldn’t really call it hard rock or southern rock or whatever. I would just call it music, I guess. On the new album we have songs from rock to reggae to country and bluesy. It’s just a bunch of stuff thrown into one.

RC: How do you see yourself evolving over the next few years?

Ben: It’s exciting to see. Because who really knows? We definitely set goals for ourselves. We always keep the bar really high. Obviously we’ll be doing this. It’s just at what level we don’t know. It’s pretty much up to the fans. Being on record labels and like that, if people are listening it’s what keeps us going. We’re going to always have a relationship with our fans. We do meet and greets every night. We want them to know that we’re real people and not stuck up musicians like there are in the world today. Unfortunately.

RC: Is there anything you’d like to say to our readers?

Ben: For one, thank y’all for reading. If you haven’t heard the band before, I hope you take a listen to it. And I hope you dig it. It is what it is. We’re not trying to mold into the most popular scene today because we just want to be who we are hopefully you’ll want to listen to it.  

I’d like to thank Ben for his time. It was a great experience to talk with him. And take this time to add that you should not only secure a copy of Folklore and Superstition but also their self-titled album, Black Stone Cherry; released in 2006. Front to back, both albums deliver.

Get more information on the band at

www.blackstonecherry.com

and www.myspace.com/blackstonecherry.