Miami Horror: Bedrooms and Stages.

30 August 2010

by Poppy Reid

Mastermind Ben Plant discusses the band’s journey from the bedroom to stages around the world – and back again.

Miami Horror could prove to be just one of many projects for introverted mastermind Ben Plant.

When TMN caught up with the producer/songwriter, he was at his parents’ house in Melbourne city, conducting phone interviews and “working on some new songs.”

On the brink of releasing his debut album, Illumination, it’s interesting to hear Plant has set to work on another EP and could be making a solo transition similar to when he first started, only this time he has some major credibility and industry support behind him.

“I’ve just had some feedback from a few other people and they seem to like it so I decided to go back and do that direction a little bit,” says Plant, sounding distracted by the house beats percolating through the phone line.

Not too much has changed for the 23-year-old who got his start like many electro acts, experimenting with his Roland keyboard and remixing his favourite tracks in a makeshift bedroom-studio. Plant was a film student at the time and juggled scoring music for his university peers with the creation of Miami Horror’s EP, Bravado. His break came when he was asked by Australian acts Faker, Pnau and The Presets to remix their work. From there, he set about releasing his own original material.

“If I had a chance I probably would have released something original first,” reflects Plant, who is now making up for lost time. Still working from his home studio, Plant takes himself quite seriously. He engineered and produced the album from his bedroom, something he plans to keep doing.

“It’s always going to be at home,” he says. So it’s no surprise that even the name Miami Horror was assiduously planned; taken from a list of words Plant put together, his final choice cements his longtime inspiration of light and dark.

“I put them together and they ended up working because both kind of give you a subconscious visual idea, or at least a feel. So Miami’s obviously really colourful and Horror’s a little bit darker, the words itself are quite bold,” explains Plant who carries this juxtaposition through to Illumination.

“There’s a subtext through it about the idea of light dawning everything which is why songs like Softlight, Ultraviolet, Grand Illusion and Illumination [all refer to light].

“I always had the idea of doing an album that was half uplifting and half dark, but digitally half-half. The only thing was I knew that making some of the dark and more epic soundtracky stuff wasn’t that appealing for other people and I learnt that from other artists doing similar things.”

Although Plant’s success could be put down to his reclusive characteristics and the time he spent working from his bedroom, it wasn’t long before his manager Jerry Soer pushed him to step things up a notch so he could play in a live realm.

The move proved to be the best thing for Miami Horror, with Dan Whitechurch now on keyboards and co-writing Sometimes, a song that catapulted Miami Horror into the mainstream thanks to heavy radio support. Guitarist Josh Moriarty (currently plays for Peacocks, ex- Young & Restless) and drummer Aaron Shanahan complete the live outift.

“I think when you can play live you can do something more than the average producer could really, and I was kind of sick of doing that, it was one of the choices that inspired stepping it up.”

Miami Horror are about to embark on a tour of North America, although when asked of his plans for the rest of the year Plant can only speak of his side projects

“There might be three things happening I don’t know. I may not even play in them. I’ll just let the other people do it.”