Benjamin Booker Quotes

I hardly ever go back to Florida. It’s really hard to go back. I mean, I hated it so much. I didn’t grow up in a great neighborhood, and it puts me back in that feeling of, “I want to get out immediately.” That was kind of the push and what still pushes me, that I don’t want to end up back there.

Blind Willie Johnson is a pretty big vocal influence. He can be very harsh, like gargly, gruff vocals, but also just slip into some very delicate, vulnerable soft stuff. I like that combination.

I was just a music lover who wondered what it would sound like if Otis Redding strapped on a guitar and played in a punk band. Thats it.

I guess I would call my music ‘blues punk.’ There’s a lot of influences.

I went to school in Gainesville because it was a huge punk and folk town. So I went to class twice a week, and then I went to shows and wrote. I did a lot of music writing before I actually started playing music.

It’s not enough to have good intentions. If you want to be a good person, you have to make good decisions all the time and live a life that’s worth living and that you can be proud of, and that’s what I wanted.

You will never have the answers, but you have to keep pushing yourself and keep reading and keep working on yourself.

You have to have some kind of clarity or understanding of what’s happening to write.

I hope that I can make music that helps people in some way or that they can connect with, and that I can just live a life where I’m surrounded by people that I love.

Music helped me to get out of a rough period in my life when I really struggled to see any future for myself and was terrified about what was happening to the people around me.

Ive been making music since I was 14, but for a while, I was afraid to perform.

My grandfather learned to swim in the Navy by getting thrown off a boat into the ocean. He had to learn fast. And I think I learn pretty well under pressure.

There are a lot of really good skills you get from doing journalism – it completely changed my world and how I interact with other people.

I dont think I ever wanted to be a journalist – I was more interested in what comes from being a journalist.

I’ve grown up on gospel and blues music, and now it’s a huge part of who I am.

I was just a music lover who wondered what it would sound like if Otis Redding strapped on a guitar and played in a punk band. That’s it.

Life is short, so I am one of those people – and luckily my girlfriend is too – who wants to live everywhere. I don’t know how long I’ll be there, but I like it right now.

In 2012, I started writing songs – not for the world to hear, but for certain people I needed to talk to. My family, we were not big communicators. I had a hard time talking to people in general.

I don’t think I ever wanted to be a journalist – I was more interested in what comes from being a journalist.

The time after college and before music was really rough. I couldn’t afford food. I was eating bread and butter for five months. Living in New Orleans, I couldn’t afford to take care of myself. I had no health insurance.