by emma schoors
photo courtesy of eben
When EBEN set out to create Dandelions, he envisioned something grander and more artistically satisfying than he had ever released before. A boatload of ambition and one tight-knit creative team later, the five-track EP and accompanying 20-minute short film were born. Dandelions leads listeners through the inner and outer-workings of a breakup, with frustration, grief, and eventual optimism as guiding themes. In a time of uncertainty, EBEN’s music is a sonic, stable reminder that pain can be one hell of an igniter for hope.
You're a singer, songwriter, and producer. Did you grow up in a musical family?
EBEN: “My dad, he played drums his whole life. My grandpa was a musician. He actually had one of the first live television shows in Baltimore that ever aired, which is really cool. Music’s been in my life forever.”
Do you have a first memory of music?
E: “I do. I remember my dad, he had this little recorder in his car and he would always record me and my little brother singing. So that really is the first memory that I can think of where he was like, ‘Oh, you guys are great singers. You have it in your blood.’ You know what I mean? So that'd be my first recollection of being aware of it.”
For fans who are a little less familiar with your background, you were on American Idol in 2012 at age 15. What inspired you to leap onto a national stage at such a young age?
E: “I mean, it was so fun. It was awesome. I just wanted to go see how far I would get. It was just for fun. I had no expectations. Me and my parents were like, ‘Let’s just go see what happens. If it happens, awesome. If it doesn't, it just wasn't meant to be.’ You know? I went and auditioned and ended up making it to the Top 24, which was an incredible experience. That was the first time I'd ever been out to LA or anything like that. I was just a musical theater kid from Cincinnati, so I had never really been introduced to the music industry until that point. When I went out to LA, I literally decided in my head, I was like, ‘I'm going to live here one day. I will be based here.’”
photo courtesy of eben
Was that when you decided music was going to be your career as well?
E: “I kind of had already decided that. I did musical theater professionally in Cincinnati for years, and I wanted to go into Broadway and live in New York and go down that whole path, but then did American Idol and I was like, ‘Wow, that's way more interesting.’ At least in my head, you know what I mean? That's just what I'm drawn to more. Now, what, ten years later? Ten years. That’s crazy. We’ve been living in LA for about six, seven years, and it's been an amazing, amazing ride.”
What's the most exciting show you've ever played?
E: “Radio City Music Hall was one of the greatest nights of my life. I was opening up for a band called Why Don’t We, and there were two nights, sold out show. It was one of the most amazing moments ever. The whole crowd knew every single one of my songs. There was this moment where I was performing this song ‘Freefall,’ and everyone in the whole place, like 6,900 people, put their phone lights up. It was such a magical moment for me. I will always remember that for the rest of my life.”
Are live music and performing driving factors in making your music?
E: “There's no other high that can compare to being on stage and being so connected with the audience, to where you just feel like you're in a room and it's just thousands of your best friends and you're just turning up and going crazy. And you're not nervous. It’s such a huge, natural euphoria. It’s unexplainable, really. There's no drug that could ever compare to that feeling, not even close. In regards to music for the live show, I go into sessions, I'm always thinking of the live show. I'm like, ‘Okay, we're making this record. How could I perform it live? How can we make it insane live?’ You know? So that goes into my deciding what music to drop as well. Is it going to be fun live and are the fans gonna be having the time of their life hearing this song on stage?”
What's the most exciting show you've ever been to?
E: “Travis Scott's Astroworld in Chicago was the most insane night of my life. It was wild. Also Coachella. Coachella was insane, but that's a whole other beast of a situation. Specific show wise, I'd say Travis Scott's Astroworld. It was crazy.”
“Jenny” is the lead single off of your most recent EP Dandelions. It’s inspired by Forrest Gump, but can you take us through what the songwriting process was like for this track?
E: “Writing it was so much fun. It's such a quirky record. In the session, I forget who brought it up. I'm pretty sure it was Danny Klein, who’s a part of Some Randoms, which is a producer duo, incredibly talented. We were just talking about, no one really talks about how shitty Jenny was. She was a true piece of work, you know what I mean? Obviously until the end, blah, blah, blah, it's a movie. But she treated Forrest like absolute trash, you know? So we were like, ‘Let’s write a song kind of influenced by that side of the movie and by that part.’ No one really talks about it. So that that's where that kind of stemmed from.”
What inspired you to mix music and film?
E: “We were in the depths of quarantine. I had a whole tour set up, obviously I had to cancel. Everyone lost a lot of momentum, especially myself. So I was like, ‘Okay, this isn't going to last forever, so let's prepare.’ I want to do something super unexpected, especially from an artist like myself that's at where I'm at in my career. I'm not yet A-list and selling out arenas and everything, but what would an A-list artist do to kind of have everyone turn their heads? So I called Evan. I was like, ‘Yo. I want all the music videos for the whole EP. I want it to all go together and I want it to be this whole story.’ I had the story with the music, but I just wanted it to visually be represented in a way. So Evan came over, and we kind of sussed out the basic storyline of everything, we found a bunch of pictures for the aesthetic that we wanted to do. Evan was like, ‘Let's do this cyber punk type of futuristic vibe.’ And I was like, ‘That’s so badass.’ Like yes, let's do that. And then it really just stemmed from there. Brandon Phillips, who was my drummer and musical director, he colored the video and was also the cinematographer. He’s incredibly freaking talented. So we had him on Zoom, because he lives in Memphis and Evan’s over here. We're trying to get this together, and then slowly but surely brought in more people to the team, like Tim Ogletree who produced the movie, and it all came together. It was an exciting adventure to make this, especially just having to deal with all of the COVID restrictions, we just had to figure it out and we figured it out and it's badass and I'm so incredibly proud of it.”
How did it feel to watch the film for the first time in its completed form?
E: “We all were just in shock that what we had envisioned is actually on the screen. Because a lot of the things that we were talking about, that should cost lot of money. Special effects and this, that, or the other. We talked to some special effects house and they're like, ‘We need $250,000.’ Like, go fuck yourself. Absolutely not. You know what I mean? So we figured it out, and we did it. People don't believe us when we tell them the budget of what we did this for. They think it's a million dollar budget, so that's what we're going to go with. That's just another thing. We did this and we executed it in every way, shape and form that we wanted to. I'm just so thankful that Atlantic was so supportive, like unbelievably supportive with the whole project and everything. A lot of the team, they didn't really know what they were going to get. So they really put their trust in us and we delivered. We delivered tenfold, honestly.”
What does success mean to you?
photo courtesy of eben
E: “We finished the film, so I'm good. Just the fact of us accomplishing what we truly set out to accomplish. We actually did it. I finally have my EBEN team. Tight knit, we have our people, it's my team, and I’ve never had that before. A lot of it was me and my friends just trying to do whatever to make it happen, you know? I have my Atlantic team and my best friends who are always going to be there, they're my family. Like they're my ride or die. They're my boys. Success to me, I don't know. That's only something that I can answer in my head. Success is different for everybody. Success to me could be, ‘Oh, I want to be a billionaire. Then I'll feel successful.’ But it’s like success for somebody else could be like, ‘Boom, I can pay rent every month. I'm successful.’ I don't know. It doesn't really matter. I'm just happy. That's all that I really care about. I'm just happy that this film is everything that we wanted it to be. And I'm just super excited for people to see it and see my artistic vision.”
What do you hope listeners take away from the EP and the short film?
E: “I hope that what they can take from this is that this whole project is about a real, proper breakup. Not just boyfriend and girlfriend. Love of your life type shit. You know what I mean? I hope that they can see that time heals, and that in time there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that you can get through it. You just have to walk through that pain to get to the other side, to be able to open up your heart for somebody else. So I just hope they think the music’s dope.”