Benji Miller Interview

What inspired you to start creating music and how long have you been creating music for?

I started off playing the piano when I was about five years old, I had some piano lessons and I played until I was about 11, but I honestly wasn't that into it, I wasn't completely obsessed with it. I wasn't very disciplined. I was more interested in other things. So, I sort of stepped back from the piano and when I was around 14 I started getting into music production. It was the early days of YouTube and I was watching Ryan Leslie and Scott Storch making beat videos and I started looking into DAWs like  logic and whatever else was around at the time wondering what the hell is this? I got thrown out of school when I was 14 so I wasn't very disciplined, but then in my later, teens, I really came back to it and I started practicing piano a lot and taking my beat-making seriously. 

I had a mix of inspirations, my dad always listened to a lot of jazz when I was younger and my mum always listened to a lot of classical. So I always had that growing up and then the UK grime scene was very inspiring for me. I was really into a lot of the London Grime rappers like Kano, Wiley, P Money, just a bunch of that whole scene. All of those things were coming together and I was like, I think I want to get into this world. But it seemed unfathomable, I was like where do you even begin?

I was very inspired by the US scene as well; Dre's 2001 and all the sample making videos that they would do. I don't even know if it ever came together but there were these crazy sessions of just like 10 sample makers in a room, everyone with MPCs, and I remember watching these videos and it was so alien to anything, I had seen in my real life. I wanted to get into it because I always loved music and I've been around it from an early age, but just the discipline and the understanding of what doing it in the music industry means was definitely something that took a while to grasp.

Age-wise I was 14 when I really first started making beats but then like I wouldn't say I liked any of my beats till eight years later, same with my piano playing.

How many beats do you think you made before you finally started making beats that you were happy with?

So many, hundreds to thousands, who knows? Especially early on I think the idea of finishing ideas is difficult and I remember that being a big thing. You know, how do I finish this? How do I make this sound finished? There were a lot of unfinished ideas. It's a huge learning curve and I think you just have to love it and keep coming back to it. That's what it's always been for me, I just love it. It's amazing getting to create music that other people then work on, rap on or express themselves on. That's very inspiring to me, so it doesn't really matter, I actually learned that I have to love this journey. I have to love this process.

Have you had any placements and with who have you had these placements?

Yeah, I have had quite a few placements. My first placements were engineering credits with different UK London Grime rappers like Kano, P Money, and a few other people in that scene. And then when I was getting more into the production, I partnered up with this guy called Rejjie Snow who's this very dope Irish rapper who had also spent a lot of time in America and lived in London. We got in the studio and made a mixtape and I worked on one of his albums, it was with 300 Entertainment and that was some of my first productions where I was taking the lead as a producer with an artist and I wasn't the assistant or the assistant engineer. That really led me to realize that I was more into the American sound and so I moved to LA and started working with a bunch of different American artists. This guy called Aries who's really cool and Julia Michaels, who's like more pop. I have written some songs with her and produced some of her records. This year I've got some stuff coming with Trippie Red which I’’m super excited about. There's also this dope artist KayCyy Pluto who's an amazing songwriter. Now he's just killing the artist thing and I've got some placements coming wit him this year too. He's really exciting because I love artists who are trying to push sonic boundaries or the idea of songs and production and genre and everything in between.

When you make your own beats, what samples do you like using? Do you like using your own samples using other people's samples?

I love all samples really whichever one works and whatever gets the idea across if there's a specific idea. Anything that catches my ear, it could be a YouTube rip sample, it could be an old record like a Motown record. It could be a friend who just messaged me singing or a cello line. That's what I love about the

There's a lot of collaboration going on and it's kind of removed from needing to make something that an A&R needs rather than just something crazy that another producer might be like ‘Oh, wow, I can turn this into something no one's ever heard before’. That's what excites me about sampling anything, it could be something I hear in real life, like a bird sound

What was the vibe that you tried to create with your sample pack?

I've always had an obsession, definitely in my older slightly older years, with analog gear. I think because I was an engineer, I always liked the classical production techniques.I wanted to use a lot of analog gear things like old vintage synths like the Yamaha CS-80, the Mellotron. I love using keys just because that's naturally what I've grown up on, so I like the organ too. But I love experimental electronic stuff too so I really like to blend acoustic things with more experimental, electronic synth lines, whilst using modern plugins to add organic warm sounds and twist them up more. Really the vibe is just a blend of all my inspirations and influences.

How do you see other creators using this pack?

Honestly, anyway they see fit. They could chop it up. I love the idea of people listening to a sample and then just druming it up as it is, or pitch it up or pitch it down and then put some drums on it. I think that's dope.

I also think it's cool if they just take it in a completely other direction too, really chop it up till you almost can't recognize it or maybe they take just one tiny part and then expand on it. A lot of my stuff is very music based, it hasn't got many drums in it so I really like it when people actually add to the music, maybe change the harmony.

Do you have any tips or tricks for creators using the pack?

I think there's a lot of different ways to create and it's really about finding the process that you like. Some people are clicking things, some people are completely analog, some people are a mix of both. Some people like hiring musicians and recording the most amazing string sections. So being open-minded, being serious about your skill set. You know, instead of focusing on a release that's coming, think about what are my skills? How can I get better in the studio? How can I be a better producer for the kinds of artists that I want to work with. How can I meet those artists in a better way? Or what would make me more useful and a better composer? So I'm always thinking about those things. I'm going back to my piano, I was a big jazz person but then now I'm trying to really understand classical. So really being open-minded and trying all the different things. Finding what works for you and then locking in and just making five beats a day.

What advice would you have been for like up and coming producers and creators?

Definitely getting out there, and collaborating. Finding other people at your skill level or wherever you're at. You've got to reach out to artists. You got to reach out to other producers. Expanding your skill set. Doing what you love, you know, find the music. Think about the music that you want to make, or the types of things that you want to do and why you want to do it. Because, it's just going to help. It's just going to help you understand and appreciate working in music and getting to do this.

It’s a skill set not trying to focus on the accolades and the numbers. We need to get paid and that's important, but you can go insane. If you just look at stats, it can take a long time and and change very rapidly. So, keeping grounded and (focusing on) skill set.

Who are your top three producers of all time?

Kanye. Quincy Jones. Dr. Dre

What is your favorite studio snack?

The cookies are good but I love any kind of gummy sweets. So something between those…

What's your dream collaboration?

Yeah, it's it's probably always gonna be Kanye or Frank Ocean. I'm such a fan of both the discographies, all of the stuff from writing to production, so they're definitely up there.

There's many, there's many, obviously Timbaland too. Even his first beat-making videos and beat-showing videos with Jay Z. I remember that was so inspiring to this generation of producers.

Interview by Sean P. Jones

You can check out Benji Miller’s sample pack here.