Ben Cassorla is a Los Angeles resident singer-songwriter and bona-fide (probably!) hipster with a phone book of “amazing talent”…
1. How did you get started?
Cassorla started because I got jaded being a sideman for other (amazingly talented) acts. What I wanted to do was write songs all day every day. Particularly while lying down on a futon, with a beer nearby. I didn’t take it very seriously at first. But with the release last year of the EP Amigos I decided to bring together the talented people with whom I’d written some of the songs with. Then Blitzen Trapper invited us to open for them, so we took the show on the road.
2. What ingredients do you need to mix together to produce the recipe of your sound?
I make music similarly to how I cook. I know what I like a lot of the time, and am always tinkering to make the perfect blend.
Things I like to cook:
– turkey burgers
– bbq donuts
– pancakes
– banana omelettes
Things I like to hear:
– rough double tracked vocals
– melodies
– echoplexes
– dry 70s drums
– casio keyboards
– palm muted guitars
– old amps with tiny speakers
3. Did your first gig make you hungry for more?
Absolutely. Earliest I can remember is a school assembly in 5th grade playing a Pearl Jam cover (or was it Hendrix?). That adrenaline shot is irreplicable. Trust me drugs don’t work as well. I would say I wasn’t specifically hungry for more gigs just more music.
4. What’s the biggest ‘cock up’ to date?
Does waking up in a hotel room in Phoenix a few months ago with bug bites all over my body and my eyes closed shut count? Or how about finding out my guitar didn’t make it from London to a concert in the Shetland Islands? Or my amp deciding not to work halfway through a Jimmy Kimmel performance?
5. What is it that inspires you to make your music/sound?
The satisfaction when it’s over.
Also, other great music.
6. What would be the icing on the cake?
Getting to do this ’till I die. I’m not into the whole dying on stage thing (RIP Dimebag) but more the whole never having a day go by that music isn’t an integral part of it. And always being able to bang on a guitar even if my fingers are too arthritic to do anything.
7. How will you be remembered? (what will make you vintage?)
I’ll leave the remembering up to the audience and fans. I never want to be vintage though. Good things that are vintage are inanimate objects: my fender amps and gibson guitar from the 60s. my original Duke Snyder baseball card. David Bowie will never be vintage. Donny Osmond might be though. Donny Hathaway no way. Kesha maybe (I can’t tell yet).
8. Describe your music as if it were a fine wine.
I don’t drink wine. If it was beer it’d be something like Genese Cream Ale – cheap and really good. If it was whiskey anything so long as it works.
9. Digestive! If you weren’t doing what you are doing now, what would make you happy?
Watching the Eagles play on Sunday. Listening to records. Driving slowly. Never listening to the Eagles. Seeing my sister from time to time. Getting a job using my hands. Learning to swim.
10. AfterMint! Does your musical style influence your underwear?
I don’t think my musical style influences anything about my appearance, except for the fact that I’m a blatant unrepentant hipster. If you saw me you’d say “harry potter hipster.” I love this song just as much as this one.
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