Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben Stopfel.
Hi Ben, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born and raised in a small south eastern Ontario town called Brockville. I started playing guitar so I could join my youth groups worship band. Guitar became my obsession, and I spent my evenings learning folk songs and my Saturday mornings playing them at the farmers market. Life then took me to Winnipeg, alone at 17, where I started playing at open mics, then moving on to bars, restaurants and festivals. Check out the Winnipeg music scene if you can, it’s mind blowing.
All the while I worked a series of odd (sometimes literally) jobs, and settled into trade work. In 2023, my now wife and I moved to Nashville where we both are continuing our careers in music.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Definitely not! I believe any journey worth taking has its bumps. The most recent bump would be an injury that I had on two of my fingers at my workplace. It was on my right hand, so my picking has been affected. I’ve adjusted but it’s been difficult. There are some of my song songs that I now can’t play. I have learned a lot from that experience, and it hasn’t stopped me from finding a way to keep playing.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a folk singer songwriter. I like coming up with interesting guitar parts that I can put complimentary melodies over. The songs I’m proudest of are at the edge of my playing ability- I believe I create at my best in those moments. I don’t believe I’m set apart- I think I come from a long tradition of folk singer-songwriters and I’m grateful to be able to learn from all of my influences and to make something from that.
One thing I do that is a little outside the box- rather than traditional merch (T-shirts, stickers, etc) at every show I do I make doodles. They could be anything from a man riding a scooter on Ellington parkway to a goose holding a knife, referencing Mary Oliver’s wild geese poem. It’s a fun way to bring levity into my sometimes dark music and to access a different part of my creativity.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I can’t make any kind of official prediction, but I can hope that some kind of legislation will come for generative AI music, especially because it trained illegally on so much of our art. I think some kind of reckoning is coming- as music as a career becomes more and more untenable, there will hopefully be some kind of inverse response. More diy, community oriented music. People already are distrustful of labels and their new attempts at marketing in the attention economy, so perhaps this will cause them to enter their communities to find their favourite artists rather than scrolling. That’s the dream anyways!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ben.stopfel/?hl=en
- Other: https://benstopfel.bandcamp.com/
