Ben Barnes reveals that his mother’s advice helped him make his first album
Ben Barnes Has seen his music inspire people to sing covers, to hug their loved ones and even pole dance.
“A lot of pole dancing. I don’t know where that comes from, but it was just so great to see people taking a bit from me, “said Barnes, 43, told US Weekly In an exclusive interview. “If I can do pop music as a man in the forty, then people can do the thing they want to do.”
The actor, known for his roles in The Chronicles of Narnia” Westworld” Shadow and bone and more, his entire album, released, Where the light entersEarlier this month. The album contains stunning vocals, hopeful lyrics and many piano-heavy numbers-that would not have come together if Barnes had not returned to the keys decades after stopping lessons.
“I had one lesson when I was about 8 and the teacher was a terrible old witch, and she was a bit embarrassed at the end of the lesson,” he said. “I remember it rather lively and I thought: ‘Well, I will not go back to doing piano. Piano is stupid. ‘I know it is really important not to regret life and really appreciate it for everything that happened to you here. But if I had just returned the next week … “
It was his mother, Tricia, who inspired him to record the instrument more than 25 years later in the midst of her own battle with ovarian cancer.
“In the middle of thirty I actually had a conversation with my mother about priorities and she was not so good at the time and I said,” Well, my priorities are to do this and this and this. ” And one of them was to play more music, “she is very wise. But they are not your priorities.
His mother’s advice was that the push that Barnes needed to spend the time making music. “It was really one conversation,” he said. “It wasn’t even a long conversation, but it just hit me on the floor and I thought:” Exactly, those things I want, that I think I want to give priority, I have to make an attempt to put the top of The list. ‘I got a few lessons and I started to spend some time there. And now it has really become a place of real comfort and peace for me. After a day of filming or whatever, just sits with the piano, play some chords. It was very valuable advice. “
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Although he learned the keyboard later in life, Barnes realized that he has been training for years to become a songwriter.
“I would even meet very established musicians who would talk to me through music structure or agreement things or important changes and other things that I didn’t really understand,” he said. “They would say:” I also wrote this song, but I am struggling with the second couplet. Do you think you can view the lyrics? “I had something like:” Finally this literature diploma I did was become useful! ” And so discovering things that you might be a bit good at life is also a really rewarding thing. “
His texts are positive and hopeful, a sharp contrast with his acting rolls in recent years. His single “beloved” shows someone who loves someone while they have trouble accepting love (“You are so loved, so be loved,” he sings) while “Slow It Down” feels like a proposal (“Share your baby names With me/stand at Family Praves with me ”).
The actor does not feel like his dark roles, because bad guys influence his music, but he admitted: “It was nice to get home from long days of villain in various TV shows and to be sitting on the piano and to do these more sentimental songs Writing.
Those optimistic texts are not a character, but a real representation of Barnes. “I think the hopeful aspect of things is just a kind of intrinsic part of who I am and who I want to be as a man,” Barnes said Us. “I think sharing that message that life is short and expensive, and we have to approach life in a kind of loving and self-loving way that message manages to crawl into all my songs, regardless of what I am Want to write about them. I think that is just a part of who I am. “
Barnes will close the American leg of his tour on Saturday 1 February in New York City before he goes to the VK and Europe before he returns to Los Angeles on March 5. Tickets are available here.
