Ben howard who is he

Spring is afoot, and Old Pine is a timely breath of fresh air. Ben Howard. Social Link:. Collections From The Whiteout. Listen Now. Crowhurst's Meme. Shyly radiant in black jeans and a faded surfer T-shirt, he looks like a striking wetsuit model, or a hard-to-read hunk on Home and Away.

Everything he says is accompanied by the hallmarks of a guy who has earned his money through introspection: studied pauses, lengthy looks into the distance, expressive facial twists. I was present at two of his biggest festival appearances: first in an acoustic tent at Bestival in and then in a packed-out afternoon slot on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury last year he was on shortly before the Rolling Stones.

But in the year since, his crowd has become notably more One Direction. Living right under the Heathrow flight path, he remembers standing at the end of the garden with his mother, a jeweller, and his older sister Krysia, waving up at his architect father when he was returning from business trips. When he was eight, his parents moved to Devon, close to Totnes, an outpost of free-thinking and hippie localism in the West Country.

By age 11 he was writing love songs, jamming with his sister and her friend India Bourne on cello. A well-received first open-mic gig in Totnes set them on their way. Some would bracket Howard with the other twenty-something male British breakthroughs of the past few years, such as Ed Sheeran or Tom Odell. I ask if he gets on with that crowd; they presumably meet backstage at festivals and award shows. It was his first taste of studio collaboration, having previously kept the process between just himself and his band.

Fans on Ben Howard deep cuts might be pleased to hear that the collaboration saw him tapping into "a bank of acoustic songs" which he tends to "lean away from" in the studio. Among them is a track called Rookery, which had appeared as an untitled track during his live shows.

Fans online have called it "an unreleased masterpiece". Despite finishing the album before lockdown started last year, Ben says there was "never" a temptation to "going back and tweak it". Ben is due to play live shows in September, but for now says he's got no issue with waiting out the end of lockdown and "seeing the reaction to coming back, sharing music and existing in people's lives".

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