Ben Bennett is fastly and furiously becoming
one of the most prominent uprising stars on the UK dance scene. Ben
has managed to achieve, within such a short period of time and through
great persistence and hard work, to play some of the London’s
best dance venues such as the Fridge, Brixton Academy, Turnmills, Heaven
and the legendary KoKo, with some of the countries most blistering line-ups
- along with producing tracks in the studio with some of the scenes
hottest producers! His hard edge sets consist of, and range from, Techno,
Hard Trance through to Hard House thus making Ben Bennett a diverse
and though his experience, a competent DJ for any hard dance night!
Ben’s first and successful production was just released in August
2006 on Oblivion Recordings called ‘The Butterfly Effect’
which was co-produced with Greg Brookman, and now his skills are being
snapped up by some of the UK’s A-List producers and thus has been
collaborating with the likes of Technikal, Cally Gage, K-Complex and
Dave Mac, with the productions being signed to some of the UK’s
prevailing hard dance record labels such as Impact, Science:Fabric and
U.F.C! And if that wasn’t enough, on the B-Side of his first release
is his collaboration called ‘Delusion’, where he hit the
studio with Tekelec’s head honcho Ali Wilson.
Background
At the age of 15 Ben bought a second hand pair of decks from a friend
with no real musical direction, and found himself sifting through a
collection of his parents LPs mixing Lou Reed to Bob Marley to the Eurythmics
and Fleetwood Mac. This wasn’t a promising DJ career for Ben until
he was dragged to Camden Palace to sample the fruits of dance music!
So from then on Ben was out enjoying trance parties week in and week
out, waking every Sunday to find a more than empty wallet. It is here
the addiction began. The process was a slow one, but saw Ben learn more
about the industry and what drove people to be the best.
With a couple of years of mixing experience, Ben was approached by a
local management company who gave him his first set at the Aquarium,
Old Street in May 2002. Armed with a bag full of demos and entourage
of friends he played his first ever set to packed dance floor. Once
he had experienced that, he knew it was something he wanted to carry
on doing! It was then in September 2004 where Ben’s dj’ing
career really took a stance, when he came 2nd in the Extreme Euphoria
DJ competition at Turnmills along with some of the UK’s best upcoming
talent today!
The month following he was given the chance to headline a new London
event b2b with Tekelec’s Ali Wilson. A few key members of the
industry were there to witness his set, and although unknown at the
time, people took notice. The following year saw Ben play across the
country for the likes of Innovate, Frantic, HHA, Wildchild, Heat, Freeformation
and Extreme Euphoria, as well as scores of other promotions, and with
a name like his, he wasn’t that easy to forget.
Present
Residencies at Puzzle Project, TND and Byte
With his growing success as a DJ, Ben looked for something a little
more permanent, so was asked by two Brixton based promoters to join
their party as a promoter and resident DJ. Within weeks, the party had
been re-branded to become Puzzle Project and attracted high profile
DJs such as Ed Real, Kevin Energy, Phil Reynolds, Vinylgroover, Organ
Donors and many more, putting Ben on some of the best line-ups in the
country. During his time with Puzzle Project he met many of the scenes
greats and discovered that his passion for the scene did not end at
playing and promoting parties. A conscious decision was made to learn
the ropes and get into the studio. A steep learning curve saw him join
forces in the studio with Greg Brookman, with whom he co-produced “The
Butterfly Effect” and Ali Wilson who he co-produced “Delusion”
with. With his first two tracks making a vinyl release, as well as being
made available to download for ‘Wipeout’ on the Sony PSP,
the hunger grew. This saw more collaborations with the likes of Technikal,
K Complex and Cally Gage. His more recent solo works have been snapped
up by major labels such as Impact and Oblivion Recordings and has been
remixed by Frantic resident Phil Reynolds.
With a fast rising profile and charismatic attitude, Ben was asked to
become the Head promoter of London’s longest running monthly party
– Twisted. And so with this new platform to show his talents as
a promoter, the ever-filling diary to show his talents as a DJ and the
increasing number of sales to showcase his production talent, it is
quite clear that Ben has nowhere near filled his potential and the world
is literally becoming this young mans oyster!