Bodega Ben for BODEGA

Recorded 4/20/19.

My name is Ryan Martin.

In early 2019, I got an idea. After a little inspiration from a Nardwaur TED Talk, I decided to pursue that idea.

It was based around a simple question: Why do artists do what they do? What made them say ‘fuck it’ and really go after their dreams? What made them want to pursue it as a career regardless of all the stability, financial commitments, and their community around them?

During one of my communication classes, I sent an email to the band BODEGA through their contact form on Bandcamp. I asked if they had any interest in doing a recorded interview and mentioned my role as music director for a radio station at the college I was attending in Hartford, Connecticut.

After some arrangements, I set up a time to go to Ridgewood, Queens to interview front man Ben Hozie. Thankfully, my very good friend Brendan had an apartment in Queens that he let me sleep over at. The next morning, I made my commute and met Ben at his apartment.

I wanted to do things a little differently during my interview. I wanted to center the beginning of my interview around five questions, and I wanted the interviewee to feel complete freedom to take as much time to answer any question, take any detour, and inform me if they said something they would like to be removed from the final cut.

These five questions are:

• Who are you?
• What are your passions?
• Where are you from?
• When did you develop your passions?
• How did you evolve from the conception of your passions to where you are today?
• Why do you do what you do?

My end goal is to capture the artist as their most human, to remind their audience of how human artists are. Behind that amazing piece of art is a human who has wanted to create something their entire life. More than creating, they wanted to feel less alone, to connect with others through mediums that impacted them.

I also wanted to be as removed from the interview as completely as possible.

For this, I took roughly 45 minutes to an hour to talk with Ben, no microphones. This time was for me and him to get to know one another. That way, when the recording began, I didn’t have to say anything about how my own personal experience relates to his, because we already talked about that. That way, when the recording began, it was about Ben being interviewed and not Ryan interviewing Ben.

I couldn’t have asked for a better first interview or interviewee. It made me feel confident, comfortable, excited, motivated and passionate. Ben was nothing but courteous and excited and kind and empathetic and wonderful to be around for someone who had invited a 20-year-old stranger into their house to talk.

After my interview, I skipped the bus and walked back to my car, taking my time, listening to Wire’s Pink Flag (at Ben’s request), then Parquet Court’s Wide Awake.

Everything was perfect, until I got back to Hartford. Once I got back, everything changed, and my interview with Ben took a back seat for over a year. Staring at me from my desktop, filling me with more and more guilt day after day until I became numb to it. It went from this thing that I had more pride and excitement about than anything in the world to my biggest failure.

In my toxic mindset, I had nowhere to share it, I had no way to promote it, I had nothing to do with it, so there it sat.

As I finish it right now, I want to thank you, my friends, my family, Brendan, and the technology of email.

Listen for the birds chirping in this recording. It was a clear, sunny day when me and Ben had this conversation in his bedroom near his window. Imagine yourself sitting next to us.

This interview, and this project, is dedicated to Ben Hozie. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Had you not taken a chance on me, I would not be where I am today.

Ryan Martin ~ 06/08/20