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Benjamin Clementine brings his solo Back To Basics tour to Australia for the first time this month, playing piano barefoot in intimate venues. The 37-year-old reflects on his journey from busking in Paris to acclaim, and on his high-profile fans.
Benjamin Clementine is bringing his Back To Basics tour to Australia for the first time this month. The 37-year-old musician, composer and actor will perform solo, with just him and his piano.
Speaking via Zoom from his home in California, his 193-centimetre frame curled into an armchair, Clementine says the Australian shows will feature him playing piano barefoot. He likens playing barefoot to the thrill of driving without shoes. Because I have never toured Australia, I want to show them my bare self, and it is up to them to take me for who I am, he says.
Benjamin Clementine Returns to Solo Piano
This pared-back approach marks a return to fundamentals for an artist who went from busking in the subways of Paris to becoming one of the most acclaimed voices in contemporary music. To be honest, I get tired of touring with so many people in a back-up band, Clementine says. There is always this offer of the Sydney Opera House. I would love to play there, but first I want to come in with a humble kind of approach.
I do not want to play in front of 5000 people right now in Australia; I want to play in front of 500 to 1000 people. My aim is to be intimate with people who are seeing me for the first time, so that we genuinely get to hear each other and smell each other. That is what I have always done.
This pared-back approach is also a chance to reconnect with his musical roots, having taught himself to sing, compose and play a number of instruments. Before all the tricks of production and frequencies and equalisation and compression, there is just the song, he says. My greatest ability, from what I have been told, is to simply tell a story without noise.
Clementine Compares His Voice to Nina Simone
Over the years, I went from that to almost showing off through production, and sometimes you get lost in those things. I am just tired of it. This is about going back to the fundamentals. It is not hard to see why critics frequently compare Clementine, with his powerful voice that shifts between delicate vulnerability and raw intensity, to Nina Simone.
Many of their songs are self-contained stories, often containing social critiques. As one reviewer observed, each sings as if all the world depended on it. They share a striking physicality that underscores a powerful stage presence. Clementine, who has modelled for Abercrombie and Fitch, has high, sharp cheekbones and an angular jawline.
As The Guardian memorably put it, he resembles an art deco illustration of himself. Throughout his career, Clementine has amassed high-profile fans including Damon Albarn, Bjork and Paul McCartney. He met McCartney after he was invited to perform on the TV music program Later with Jools Holland. Normally, I am not fazed by anything when I am performing but I could see Paul watching while I was playing and it was all a blur, Clementine says.
Afterwards, I went to go to the loo and someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Paul McCartney and I cannot remember exactly what he said but it was something like, Oh, that was a great song. He never said he was proud of me, but he showed me in his own way, Clementine says. Before he died, he said, I like some of your songs.
Clementine Reflects on Paul McCartney Compliment
It broke me down a little bit and I was in tears. For me, it was a huge compliment. Now, as a father of three, Clementine understands his parents motivation in pushing him towards a career in law. Having fled political turmoil and material deprivation to build a stable life in London, they spent a fortune on his education, including boarding school.
To them, it was incumbent upon their children to forge respectable careers. But fate intervened when his family moved to a house where an upright piano had been left behind. They did not want me to play it because they knew it would pull my interest from my study, he says. And they were right: I was going to be a lawyer but then I decided not to do that.
After suffering themselves, and working hard to be accepted into society, you would not want your children to experience similar hardships, so there was resentment and anger, he says. They are conservative; they do things the correct way so it is just embarrassing to have a child who has abandoned everything but does not really know what he wants to do, other than going for whatever is out there.
It is a really hard thing for an immigrant parent to process that. Clementine was five when an uncharacteristic act of resistance sealed his fate.
How Clementine Discovered His Musical Passion
Growing up in a household where instruments were forbidden, he became so entranced with the toy piano a classmate had brought to primary school that when she refused to let him play it, he took it, hoping to spend at least one evening at home with it, but was ordered to return it before he had the chance. How, he wondered, had this single-octave keyboard produced such an astonishing combination of sounds?
I was looking at this girl with that thing, I remember it like it was yesterday, and I asked her if I could play, he says. She said no. She just would not give it to me. I was so fascinated by this thing but sad that I could not have it. When I looked at it, I got this good feeling I had never felt before, outside of laughter with my siblings.
It is like how some kids feel when they find football or basketball or tennis. Born and raised in London to a family of Ghanaian descent, Clementine had almost no exposure to popular culture in his formative years. It was a strict, religious household. Non-Christian music was forbidden, as were instruments of any kind.
His father, who had been a professor of mathematics in Liberia, was determined his son would study law. Clementine is unbound by genre, and his compositions draw from a range of styles including classical, experimental and avant-garde. Poetry, literature and the writings of Sylvia Plath and William Blake are major influences, as is the French poet Christophe Raynaud de Lage.
Naturally, music lessons were not an option, so Clementine taught himself to play piano by ear, and tried any instrument he could get his hands on.
brisbanetimes 
theage:He stole his first instrument at the age of five. Eventually, all was forgiven 
smh:He stole his first instrument at the age of five. Eventually, all was forgivenThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Back To Basics Tour Australia Solo Piano Tour Nina Simone Comparison Paul Mccartney Back To Basics Tour Australia Tour Solo Piano
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