Benefits interview – “We’re both pretty bolshy and headstrong”
The benefit of Benefits
“You poor sods…” laughs Kingsley Hall to an enraptured audience at Benefits’ instore show at Rough Trade East. “It’s Tuesday night and you’ve come out to hear about a burnt out house in Redcar!”
We laugh back, but no-one’s complaining. In fact, we’re here on this Tuesday night precisely because Benefits love to grasp the uncomfortable nettles of life in Britain in 2025. The band – now trimmed to a duo consisting of Hall and Robbie Major – made a name for themselves with the unbridled social commentary of songs like ‘Shit Britain’, Brexiteer-baiting ‘Imperfect’ and the fiercely anti-patriotic ‘Flag’ and ‘Traitors’, all from the perspective of their native North East rather than the more usual metropolitan elitism.
With their just-released second album, Constant Noise, they’ve forged new territory, bringing more spoken word into the lyrical equation and given full reign to their experimental bent and electronic music influences. Fusing the intensely personal and the unashamedly political, it’s another bold statement and one that’s only serving to accelerate their ascendance from DIY darlings to one of the UK’s most essential and vital musical forces.
Once the pair had finished their nationwide, release week tour of record stores in support of the album, we tracked down Hall to tell us more about the album, being on the road and what’s next…
Hi and thanks for your time…. First of all, can you tell us where you are right now, and what kind of day you’re having… Been anywhere already or going anywhere interesting later?
I’ve just got home to Middlesbrough after a week of playing instore shows in record shops shamelessly flogging our new album. I’m absolutely shattered. Got back from Coventry last night at about 3:30AM and was up with my daughter at 7AM to get her ready for school. I’ve been a zombie all day. I’ve got a million things to catch up with, but my brain is still somewhere on the M1. The shows were great though, we’ve never done anything like that before, the idea of signing records for people always seemed a bit too rock starry for us, but it was a lot of fun. Met some lovely people and had an unreal halloumi wrap from an Afghan takeaway in Brighton – the pitta had a kind of pancake texture to it, it was incredible, can’t stop thinking about it.
Congratulations on your new album Constant Noise – out last week… You’ve talked about the need to not simply repeat yourself on album number two, so tell us how it’s different musically. Where did the new influences come from – what were you listening to? Did the creative process take a different shape?
I think the not wanting to repeat ourselves thing manifests itself in a few ways – some intentional, some accidental. Firstly, touring our debut album for 18 months effectively destroyed my vocal cords so I was physically unable to record an albums worth of mainly shouted vocals. Lots of the vocal takes on the new record were done the day after playing a show and though a lot of it is delivered as spoken word, it was still absolutely brutal to perform. Most of it had to be done in one or two takes as it deteriorated as soon as I pressed play. Secondly, although our first album was received well critically, it didn’t exactly make us popular so we don’t have a huge fanbase that would demand more of the same. Being a bit of a niche act means we can slightly change style without the record label advising us to stick to a tried and tested successful formula – because we’re not successful. Relative commercial failure allows you the luxury to experiment in a way. Plus, we’re both pretty bolshy and headstrong so when we get set on an idea, we go for it. We’ve both been in bands where we’d occasionally err on the side of caution but now – probably because we’ve been around the block a bit – we’re much more willing to take risks. It’s way more fun this way. Also, you’ve got to remember that when we developed Benefits during lockdown it was based around the concept of two people sending each other electronic music, if anything we’ve reverted to that.
Other things obviously effected what we were sounding like too like our inability to keep hold of a drummer and collaborating with producers James Welsh (of Erol Alkan’s Phantasy Sound) and James Adrian Brown – both of whom are absolutely vital to the sheen of the record. They added a level of quality and flash that we all thought was essential if the record was going to feel like a step up.
You’ve also mentioned that while in the past lyrics have been very confrontational, the change in political climate since Nails demands a different approach – how has that manifested itself on the album?
The lyrics have changed in a few ways I think for a variety of reasons. On Nails although it wasn’t entirely one note, the dominant note was cartoonish aggressive sloganeering, and that was completely intentional. I was sick of hearing right wing voices being amplified because they simply shouted the loudest. Short, snappy and simplistic seemed to be the way they were messaging and rightly or wrongly I decided to retaliate in kind. The left’s argument is usually pretty nuanced and can’t easily be shouted in two or three word bursts, but I felt the right needed to be countered in kind, so I did. The delivery may have changed in two years but this is still a very angry album, I don’t think we’ve gone soft. But again, if we just repeated what we did on the first album, either musically or lyrically, it would have bored us so much that I doubt we’d have bothered finishing the thing.
Your live show has always been as important – or so it seems – as your recorded work. How has the reaction been to the new material?
It’s been great really. I think we’ve probably underestimated our audience over the years as we were absolutely terrified of returning to the live scene as what is essentially an electronic duo, albeit not exactly a conventional one. We maybe relied on other musicians over the last few years to be our crux and hold the live show together. They were great shows, don’t get me wrong, I’ve absolutely loved doing every gig we’ve ever done, I’m just not convinced what the act became matched up with the original blueprint. Not sure if it was a confidence issue or a tech issue, even going back to lockdown when we were purely an electronic act, we didn’t think we could do a live show as just us two – despite yearning for it. If we’re honest, the endgame for this band was always to be a two piece, we just didn’t quite know how to achieve it.
When we first started messing about in practice rooms before the pandemic, we talked of doing gigs with some decks, effect pedals and a microphone, and now we’re closer to it than ever. It’s been hard though. I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous as I was when we did our first duo show supporting Arab Strap at a sold out Barrowlands last September. Every song was new, we were still getting to grips with the set up, we’re playing with our heroes, it’s sold out with people who couldn’t care less about us, and I’d ran over a nail in the loading area so had a flat tyre waiting for me to fix after the show. In the end, it was a dream show.
There’s a new generation of bands taking punk aesthetics and attitude and transferring them to more electronic-based forms. Why do think that is? Does the ease of making music without having to shell out on drums, guitars amps etc bring a freedom with it?
There’s definitely been a shift in more indie or rock based venues for sure. Obviously, there’s people about who have been doing minimal set ups for years now (Sleaford Mods, Billy Nomates, Meryl Streek etc) but I think we’re going to start to see more touring acts taking this approach. There’s loads of reasons – the tech is great for starters, and really easy to use – but yeah, it’s mainly down to expense. For us now, it’s the difference between getting one hotel room instead of two, using a car instead of hiring a van, less logistics etc. If you want to try and make touring work, it’s an option to consider. I don’t think it gets frowned upon by the audience as much as it used to either, in the performance sense. You’ll always get people moaning about playback and lack of traditional instruments but if you can create a show that’s exciting to watch with a basic set up then you’re onto a winner. Look at Meryl Streek for instance – he plugs an mp3 player in, picks up a mic, turns all the lights off in the venue and switches his pocket strobe on and goes for it. He’s one of the most exciting live acts around yet it’s such a simple set up. You’ll still get bands touring with five or six members, plus the inevitable tech crews and videographers, but they’ll be funded by major labels or rich benefactors. The creative arts can’t end up monopolised by the privileged though so if we want people from all backgrounds to survive and thrive in the music industry – and we definitely do – then in order to compete you’re going to need to adapt. And from this adaptation I honestly think it’ll create some of the most exciting music we’ve heard for years. Tech over the last couple of decades has meant you can make music that competes with the majors in your bedroom, switching it to the live environment is just a continuation of that.
Do you have a long term vision for where you’d like Benefits to go in the future, or are you very much living it ‘day by day’ and seeing where it goes? What’s next for you in the short/medium/long term? What are you hearing that’s inspiring you? Any more live or release action we should know about?
I’m not sure we’ve ever had a long-term vision for Benefits. We’ve never had management, so we’ve never had anyone discussing long and short term goals with us. We’ve shunned the traditional industry way of doing things completely. I don’t think there’s any rules to how any of this should be done. We’re still focused though, you’ve just got to remember that we feel very lucky to have achieved what we’ve already achieved. If it was all to stop tomorrow, I don’t think either of us would be sad. We’ve managed to take an act that was essentially a Thursday night hobbyist jam band to the pages of nearly every major music magazine in the country, to Glastonbury, to perform in Europe, and to record two albums with a guy who was in one of the most influential bands of all time. We’ve been written off at every turn but we’re still in the game. We’ve done alright.