DAYDREAMER: How Benjamin Carter Continues to Have Fun with his Music, and what the Future Holds for this Star
Benjamin Carter is a singer-songwriter who has been surrounded by music his entire life. Raised by a father who directed local choirs and bands, and wrote his own songs, music creation is in his DNA. Originally starting off as a rapper, he found his footing making alternative and rock music, picking up a guitar and playing with school friends. Experimenting and playing with different sounds is very important to Carter, and it is clear in his songs.
Released in 2022, Black Boys On The Radio Pt. 1 is a look at the story of life as a Black American from Carter’s point of view. Raised in both the United States and the Cayman Islands, Carter saw how people outside of the country perceived the Black American experience through media, and wanted to portray his authentic experience that many others could relate to. The follow-up album, Black Boys On The Radio Pt. 2, portrayed feelings of loneliness and loss, a more introspective look on who Carter is as a person, yet still sending a message to the audience that they are not alone in these feelings.
Graphic by Paige Firsten
Image via Benjamin Carter + Team
“The sonics may change, but the message stays the same,” is how Carter describes himself and his work. His work may be evolving and changing with the times, but the messages he is presenting will always ring true with the listener, no matter who is listening. “Fragile” is for when you feel as if your voice is not being heard and you’re screaming into an echo chamber. “Sticks n Stones” is for when you need someone to remind you that you’re not the only one feeling this way. ‘*DAYDREAMING” for when you really miss that special someone.
Carter has fun with his music. From the production process to the final product, his passion is shown through his work in a carefree yet meticulous way in his works. While experimental, his songs and lyrics are all very well constructed, almost methodical, and will have you craving more after each song you listen to. There’s something for everyone, and greater and more ambitious things in the near future.
INTERVIEW
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INTERVIEW ☆
Crave had the chance to talk with Benjamin Carter about his latest album, the creative process, and his upcoming secret project.
CRAVE: First: introduce yourself, talk about your music a little bit, and add anything you want to add.
Benjamin Carter: My name is Benjamin Carter. I am an artist, songwriter, I make music and I’ve always made music my entire life. Ranging in different genres, different styles. I just love making music and [I] come from a musical family, and right now I’m just having a lot of fun making a lot of old indie rock and vibing out on stage with my friends.
CRAVE: You had previously mentioned that you grew up surrounded by music, that your father wrote songs so often that you believed the process of songwriting itself was something everyone did. How did those experiences as a child shape you into the artist and performer you are today?
Benjamin Carter: This is one of, probably the most pivotal things. It was up until, I think I was in the eighth grade, and I was writing raps, and my dad’s a pastor, but he’s also a choir director and a band teacher at the local high school and middle school. He was a songwriter. [He] put out his own albums and put out a rock album. He had like a Jheri curl and played electric guitar and tried to do the whole big hair rock thing but as a Black guy. I was in middle school and I’m listening to his old records and discovering music on Youtube, and I’m like “This is cool.” Thinking about how I wanted to make music but I was only rapping at the time and writing raps in my journals. But then I went to a friend and said, “Hey, what kind of music do you write?” and they were just like, ‘I don’t write music.” I was like, “Oh shoot, I thought we all wrote stuff, we just didn’t all share it with each other.” I just ended up finding my crew and my group of friends from that point on and we would always just write. I moved on from the hip-hop thing pretty quickly after middle school when I realized I’m really bad at this. So I just kept writing and picked up the guitar in high school. [I] met a friend, who’s the youngest sister of the artist known as Father John Misty. She was in high school with me and she starts showing me her brother — who wasn’t Father John Misty at the time, he was just the drummer in Fleet Foxes. She’s like “my brother is in this band,” and I’m sitting there playing the guitar like “This shit is crazy. What is this music?” because I had never experienced that. It shaped a lot of how I wrote and created music. Then on Sundays, I’m still going to church, playing bass and listening to some gospel music… My whole world was just very musically involved for years.
CRAVE: Kind of going off of that, you said you discovered your dad’s music later on in life. What was that process like, just discovering his music on your own terms?
Benjamin Carter: It was definitely cool in middle school when I got to discover and listen, like put on a CD of his… But again it was something so normal. I never noticed the song my dad was getting his choirs to sing were originals. And he’d write raps. Have you ever seen Sister Act? It’s the choir and it’s the rappers. My dad, that was his thing. We were gonna have a choir and then we were gonna have a rapper come out. He would write these big gospel-rap songs. He’s big into Kirk Franklin, and he took me to my first concert ever with Kirk Franklin, this gospel artist. It was a show for him when I lived in the Cayman Islands. So I think again, it just felt so normal. Then one day randomly, I’m just like “Oh, this is what my dad writes all the time.” He’s constantly in the basement, constantly writing on guitar. It was just a cool experience to know that this is something that we both do and we both really like. Now even when I go back home to visit, I’m bringing my wife, my daughter; we’re at the house, I can still hear him in the basement. He’s 65 and he’s just down there like [imitates guitar playing and singing] and he’s just playing guitar and writing and picking up his trumpet, playing trumpet. You can tell that’s what he loves to do.
CRAVE: How would you describe your song writing/record making process, and what motivates you to create art?
Benjamin Carter: It’s definitely a lot of play. I like play [laughs]. A lot of the joking around and playing and not taking things too seriously definitely makes the writing process feel way better. It’s hard cause you know, I got family, I got a wife, kids, like responsibilities, all this stuff. So [it] can definitely weigh on you to a point where you go “eah, there’s responsibilities” and a seriousness to take of everything. But I try to, you know I call “keeping the spout open on your water.” You don’t want it to back up. So I try especially when I’m creating a record, I’m writing poems every single morning. I just don’t wanna walk into a studio or walk into a session or walk into something and be like, “I don’t know what I want to say.” I wanna be like “Oh, I got references if I need something to start.” If I’m feeling blocked up — what was I feeling yesterday or the morning before — I’m just trying to constantly be open to whatever it is that I’m thinking of wanting to say and wanting to do and just trying to keep myself as open as possible. Whether that’s watching certain shows or documentaries, specifically documentaries of other artists that I really like, and maybe there’s something in there that inspires me or sits in the subconscious. Then three months later I’m like “I should do this.” But I try to keep myself as open as possible. When I’m in the studio the biggest rule I kind of tell everyone, especially if it’s a new producer I’m working with, just first rule of improv is you don’t say no. It’s “Yes, and.” I just try not to kill [the] momentum. I think that’s a rule in my life in general. I’m flexible; let’s see what this is. I’m curious, I wanna know. Maybe curiosity is the biggest thing. I just wanna know how it can lead into the next thing, and then sometimes it turns into dogshit. And it’s a bad song, and I’m like “Well, now we know,” and then we try again. That’s probably where I come from when I’m saying I don’t take it that serious… Not “I’m such a bad songwriter.” I’m just like “When I said yes here, it led to here. When I added this, that made it here. So now we know don’t do that.” And try again.
CRAVE: On an episode of your podcast Benjamin Carter and the Big A$$ Dream Society, you discuss having a “feeling” about songs, if they will perform well even if they may not be your personal favorite, or if you are indifferent towards a song. Have there been any songs with the opposite effect recently, songs you have felt so passionate about sharing that you did not care what the outcome of the release was, but you made sure it made its way out into the world?
Benjamin Carter: I think even on that episode, it was the song called “Finally Sober,” and that song did the opposite of what I thought it was going to do. It didn’t gain any traction, didn’t catch anyone’s eyes, anything specifically. I didn’t feel it resonated as much but sonically I think I was just excited about it. I think there’s a lot of songs that might do the opposite on both ends. Where I’m like, “I gotta get this out, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever done.” I posted the other day, maybe a couple months ago, (stripped & reimagined), is gonna forever be my favorite work that I ever put out. Although that’s not true, ‘cause the next batch of songs… But (stripped and reimagined) I really liked doing, and those songs, most people don’t even know they’re there. The “Miss Me” and “*DAYDREAMING” acoustic versions… They're just so fun and they remind me of a time when I was a kid listening to Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Iron & Wine. All these other groups that are playing acoustic folk music. Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, I’m trying to resonate that in my vocal range a bit, and playing acoustic guitar and singing a little lower. I thought it was cool. I really liked it. Those songs were kind of like passing notes. I don’t think people really resonate with [them] but I’m so proud of them. I love them so much so in the end that’s all you can do. “Sticks and Stones” was the only song where this has happened where it’s the complete opposite. I was writing it in the session with a producer, and we got chills, both of us. This was in 2022, and I was like ‘Woah, what did we write? There’s something weird about this song.’ And then that was it. I didn’t put the song out until last summer, 2024. Then it popped off in January, February 2025… But I remember being in the studio… There's something about this song that made me go home and I cried… But I haven’t been living in that emotion ‘cause that was in 2022. It did everything that I thought it was going to do… But I wasn’t as excited about it as I was (stripped & reimagined). This is a cool song and I like it, but I was so excited about the references in (stripped & reimagined). Yet nothing compares as far as what resonated with people.
CRAVE: Your songs are very personal, sharing life through your own lens, but of experiences that are shared by many Black Americans. You have stated that you wanted to share these experiences so people feel less alone. Does this sentiment continue to ring true in your new music?
Benjamin Carter: I always wanna make sure that anyone who listens [can resonate] which is fun. One of the guys who works with us, he’s a director, he’s white, and I remember we’re sitting there talking about Black Boys on the Radio Pt. 2 in this room of whether people are Asian, Black, Hispanic. They’re talking about using race, and he sat there and it was just beautiful. He was just like “I didn’t get any of that out of the record.” I was like “What’d you get?” ‘cause I’m actually interested. What did you hear out of this? He was like “I felt you talked about loneliness and how you felt being alone, and that’s all I heard.” Now I did that, and that was based off race and maybe that I felt ostracized from my story. But it was cool to watch someone who had nothing to do with that part of his life, like race wasn’t a part of the story, but he could still resonate with that feeling. I just want, even on the next record, for people to feel seen. Now I want to do that through referencing historic Black art, historic Black artists, specific time periods. That’s stuff I’m still interested in and I think that’s cool. I think when everyone listens to it they’ll find their pocket of feeling seen in whatever the way it is.
CRAVE: In Black Boys On The Radio Pt. 1, you discuss themes of race in America, how people may view the Black experience from the outside looking in, and sharing your experience growing up Black in the United States. What was the process for creating that album, and how did the creation of Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 come full circle?
Benjamin Carter: Pt. 1 was definitely, if you listen to earlier stuff, it was more R&B, singer/songwriter stuff. I just kind of wanted to blow off steam and do the stuff that I have fun with, the stuff that I like. The stuff that me and my friends were doing in the basement in high school, and I hit up one of my homies who’s a producer. He used to be part of this band called My American Heart. It’s kind of a more pop-punky band, they toured with All Time Low and Paramore back in the day. He produces still with me. He’s actually on this next record with me too. He was like “Let’s just get some energy out. Let’s just make some fucking rock music.” I was like “Thank GOD, let’s just go back to our roots. I’m gonna start a whole new band name.” I had already written Black Boys on the Radio which is what inspired it all. I had wrote it in my bedroom in 20 minutes. I was like, “That’s a cool song.” I hit him up and was like ‘Let’s go to the studio,’ and we did “Psycho” and “Finish the Job” back-to-back, two days… All of these songs feel so personal, I don’t wanna start a new band name, a whole new thing, a new alias. I feel like only Benjamin Carter should speak on this. Even though I didn’t want to, I wanted to hide behind something else. But it just felt so personal. So I kind of just stepped out on a limb. I remember I dropped “Psycho” before I dropped an R&B EP, drastically different. It just felt right. I would play people the R&B song and then “Psycho” and people would be like ‘“Psycho” feels really authentic.’ and I agree. I didn’t feel like I was trying, it just felt like it flowed out of me. Versus some of the R&B stuff felt a little more like I’m really trying to write up that vibe. Versus the rock stuff, we just did it. We weren’t really thinking or overthinking it and it was just honest. That process was just getting out honest stuff, it wasn’t meant to break up like that. Actually, Pt. 2 was supposed to still be talking about the black experience. But then I wrote a bunch of stuff, and then I went through a bunch of shit. Then when I started going through the shit, I threw away all the other songs. The only song that stayed was “m.m.s.l.g.g.h.” which was something written during Pt. 1 and I kept that song ‘cause I was like “This is a fucking sick song.’” Everything else got thrown away and I restarted. The songs were about love, and loneliness, and confusion. It was kind of introspective versus extrospective… I don’t know if that’s a word. The first one’s kind of like outside looking in a little bit more of the experience of ‘this is the world of being a Black man in America,” how I’m expressing and talking about it. And the other one is “I’m gonna tell you who Ben is.” Pt. 2 is a long ramble. Which is why it ended up being an album versus an EP.
CRAVE: Your discography reaches across a variety of genres, from rock to pop to punk; are there any genres you have yet to work with that you want to try out?
Benjamin Carter: It’s not that I’m trying out stuff I haven’t, ‘cause I think it still sounds like me. But more like time periods, so the rock that I touch on in this new thing, it’s like “Sticks and Stone” was. You can kind of hear some of the guitar in there, it kind of feels like an 80s rock vibe. I touched on that ‘cause I was listening to only 70s and 80s rock music in 2022. But then the last three years, I’ve just been watching documentaries on great rock artists and rewatching the David Bowie Moonage Daydream on HBO Max over and over again. Then I’m like okay, well now I’m deep in it. So now this next project is a mix of some Motown love, you got some Marvin Gaye, you got some funk, you got some Bowie, you got some Prince, you got a little bit of a Beatles vibe. You got kind of this larger spectrum of maybe more classic rock with pieces of what we do now, a little bit of a modern twist. But it’s still, to me, when I’m listening to it… this is still rock. It’s just not necessarily the indie shit that you got on the last project. It’s a little less indie, a lot more… rock and roll shit my parents would probably blast the fuck out of, probably were raging to in the 70s.
CRAVE: What can we expect to see from your upcoming project?
Benjamin Carter: [The] live performance is gonna be really exciting for this next one. Visuals, potential short film. We just have so many ideas. I’ve really never done this before, even when we created Black Boys on the Radio Pt. 2, I had released two singles in 2023… and then the team and I worked on putting together [the album] and that was released in 2024. And it kind of created a world. But this is the first time I’ve ever had a project where none of the songs are out, no one’s heard anything, and we’ve just sat and created an entire world that I really wanna welcome everybody into. Help them sit with it, enjoy it. It’s a mix of both things of how I see things on the outside, but also everything can be looked at and seen as a metaphor. Every single piece you look at… that’s not supposed to be taken literally. It may look literal, it’s so plain it might just look like a guy and a girl loving each other but everything is a metaphor. It’s so deeply connected in this world within me, and we’ve given a name to it, we’ve made it a place… and we’re gonna bring everybody into this place. They’ll be able to see all the moving parts and what’s going on in that place, and that place is also literally my fucking head.
CRAVE: Anything else you would like to add?
Benjamin Carter: I think the only thing I would say is some cheesy shit, like; don’t take things so seriously… Everyone should do your best and be okay with stepping out. And if you fail, you fail. Your voice, your stories, deserve to be heard.
Keep up with Benjamin Carter:
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