“I’m really into this one, it’s catchy, it’s well produced, and it’s well thought through” - Sarah Gosling, BBC Introducing Devon & Cornwall
"Ben Kidson is crafting alternative Pop Music with a unique and diverse flavour" - CLOUT Magazine
Growing up on My Chemical Romance, Nirvana and the 1975, Ben Kidson never considered pop music to be a path he could access. A keen self-taught musician, he was inspired by the great rock stories of Led Zeppelin and David Bowie. Honing his craft in a string of indie and rock bands the left of centre indie world was a place that Kidson felt very at home in.
Despite that, Ben found himself being invited to take part in songwriting camps, and thought he had discovered his dream career as a pop writer. Over time, the restricting nature of these camps lead him to become disillusioned with music, and he came close to dropping out what what he thought he’d always wanted “I was working with developing pop acts. I’d be part of a group there to help write these songs that had to be a certain structure and about a certain topic. It was very restrictive and far from what I thought I’d ever be doing. One day after one particularly ridiculous session, I literally thought what the fuck am I doing here so just left, and started using what I’d learned writing songs for myself. Don’t get me wrong - I love co-writing, but these sessions were designed to make music to sell, rather than express emotion.”
Frustrated by his creativity being restricted, he began to obsessively learn production in his bedroom. With reems of demos being bounced, and a newfound fascination with hip hop, it was seemingly out of nowhere that Ben was in fact writing pop music for himself without even realising.
“I was playing demos to my mates who were shocked that it was so pop driven. I’d always been this super ‘anti-chart music’ guy and hadn’t really listened to anything that was happening at the time, someone joked that what I was making was “accidental pop music” and from there it stuck”.