Actor, Singer, Songwriter Ben Barnes releases his first EP “Songs For You”
Fans of BEN BARNES all over the globe know him as Prince Caspian from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Billy Russo from Marvel’s The Punisher, Logan from HBO’s Westworld, and Neil McCormick, Bono’s best friend in Killing Bono. More recently, he stars as General Kirigan in Netflix’s #1 show, “Shadow and Bone”. After years of being directed, written for and edited in movies and television, Ben just released (Oct 15, 2021) his new EP, Songs For You, lovingly crafted at his piano at home and presented unedited and straight from the heart.
About Ben Barnes
Ben Barnes is known to many for portraying fantasy heroes and comic-book villains, characters from history and classic novels and the occasional romantic street busker or wannabe rock-star. His own fantasies, stories and dreams have until now been eclipsed by these roles.
With Songs For You, Barnes is baring his soul through his music for the first time; hopeful, joyful, passionate, nostalgic, vulnerable and loving. The lyrics to most of the songs, he explains, came from “poetry written for a loved one or just for myself, a long-forgotten phrase I jotted down in a notebook years ago, inspired by a photograph, a moment, a quotation, or in the case of one song, a story I read about a female pirate!”
He sent his songs to veteran producers John Alagia (Paul Simon, Dave Matthews, John Mayer, Herbie Hancock) and Jesse Siebenberg (Ke$ha, Miranda Lambert, Neil Young, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald), who are proud to have helped orchestrate the ‘70s-style, rich, entirely organic instrumentation on the record. As evidenced by the lush strings of Oliver Krauss to the throwback brass and raw bass and drums (played by Paul Hamilton, a musician friend of Barnes’ who appeared as a band member in the musical film Killing Bono in which he starred in ten years ago!).
The single, “11:11,” is a track that could not be contained to one genre. The soul-pop vocal soars over a jazzy piano, sacred-feeling organ, Queen-inspired guitars and a bursting “Penny Lane” piccolo trumpet fanfare. As Barnes reflects, “I’m fascinated in acting by the duality of people, and that we all have the capacity to feel everything and more than one emotion at a time. I feel that way too about my songs. Even if they seem to be about one thing, I’m interested in conflicting emotion and transitional feelings… the in-between. ‘11:11’ is about real love; the kind of love where you would give up all your wishes for the one you love to feel whole… even if it costs you, even if they can’t ‘be yours.’”
About the EP title, Barnes shared, “Songs For You comes from one of my favorite records, ‘A Song For You’ by Leon Russell (but the Donny Hathaway version, of course), from wanting the songs to speak intimately to anyone who listens to them, and because if a song is written for you, you know who you are.”
Ben Barnes has starred in films, TV shows and theater productions spanning the last 20 years:
Movies have included, The Chronicles of Narnia franchise (Disney), Seventh Son (Universal), Dorian Gray, Easy Virtue and musical films Killing Bono and Jackie & Ryan.
TV shows he has appeared in include Shadow & Bone currently streaming on Netflix, Westworld (HBO), Golddigger (BBC) and The Punisher (Netflix).
Stage productions include The History Boys (National Theatre) and Birdsong (West End).
Need more entertainment? If you enjoyed this interview with Ben Barnes and want to hear more interviews with musicians and entertainers, be sure to Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCntJrEWmH4h5rEPFQHLQwUQ?sub_confirmation=1
