Get Over Yourself! An Interview With Cheyenne Benton
Cheyenne Benton is a singer/ songwriter/ producer from San Diego, CA. I personally met Cheyenne in a gig a year back. Her performance blew me away; her band was crazy, and so was her singing! As a musician myself, I wanted to know more about her and what she does.
Photo taken by @thecaseyperson on IG
In 2017 she released her first EP, "Secrets." Fresh out of High School, she decided it was time for her to start pursuing this music thing. It's a big deal going to the studio for the first time. I asked her about that experience.
"That was my real first time in a studio recording anything professionally, and I wasn't sure where I was going sonically at the time. Also, I had a lot of ideas that I felt like I wasn't able to communicate very well. It came out good, but it just came out different than what I wanted it to be."
Music sometimes being such a collaborative process, working with others always influences the sound of the final product, but the message of the EP still remains.
"- Secrets is just about those teen years trying to hide who I was and putting all out there."
Photo taken by @isthatsamirose on IG
For her, the first release was a huge learning experience and a minestrone into her development as an artist. Pushing her towards what she really wanted to do.
"The whole theme of [Secrets] was self-discovery, holding on all these secrets in and just letting them loose. The whole process of that led me to this other discovery process."
"- discovering production opened a lot of doors for me."
The experience of working on her first EP helped her realize that she wanted to learn production. At the time, her lack of experience felt like an obstacle.
"- I was in that space where I felt like I needed to find all these people to do these things for me 'cause I don't think I'm smart enough or capable enough to do it by myself."
Creating music can be a fun process, but it can also be emotional. Those feelings of inadequacy can be daunting; we all want to sound like the people we admire. How we overcome that feeling is different for everyone. Cheyenne went on to work at Studio West and produce her newest release album, "Beautiful Chaos," but the journey to getting to that point takes some time.
"-Get over yourself!"
Photo taken by @michaellopezjunior on IG
YOUR ENVIRONMENT MATTERS A LOT. WOULD YOU SAY WORKING IN A STUDIO HELPED YOU GET INTO THE RIGHT MENTALITY FOR WRITING?
"Working in a studio has massively helped. One of the biggest hurdles that musicians face is impostor syndrome, feeling like I suck, I don't know what I'm doing, everyone is gonna figure it out. So the cool thing about working at the studio is that it gets out to the test.—as a vocalist and a musician, sometimes you're asked to hop on tracks or do this and that, and it helps just to get over yourself. It doesn't need to be perfect; you just need to make the attempt, and the more you do it, the more comfortable you will be in front of people as well."
"- going to play a show was like a whole mental thing and having to prepare for it and get ready. And now I'm kinda like, 'yeah, can you just hop in there and do it and like just turn yourself on and go?' Working in the studio has been a good help with that, but there are still those days where it's difficult to do that, but for the most part, you just have to think on your feet and be able to perform on your feet. For the most part, I feel better at that. -"
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR EALY RELEASES?
"I think it accurately reflected who I was at the time, but obviously, I feel that I have grown since then, not only as an artist but as a human. I think back then, I was really trying to cater to what I thought people wanted to hear from me and less about really just checking in with myself and being honest about what is actually me. Not to say that it wasn't. I think it's true to who I was at the time, which was a girl just trying to figure out who she was in the world. And I think this time around, I felt more convicted about the work that I'm putting out. Like, it's definitely me, and it's how I was feeling at the time creating it. I was really excited about it, and I wasn't thinking so hard, you know…. What are people expecting from me? I was just thinking about how I wanted to sound. Does this resonate with me?"
Sometimes the reality of the business sets in, people want to hear what they want to hear, and musicians want to be heard. Why else would we do it? But in that idea, it's easy to get lost and forget who you are when you do.
Photo taken by @jessdvoart & @thecaseyperson on IG
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WRITING PROCESS.
Everyone's writing starts differently; some pick chords from a chart, and others have random bursts of creativity. How does she do it?
"I am a really feels-y writer - I'll be honest. I've worked with a lot of people that are very mechanical when it comes to writing. – it's a lot more planned out, and there is a goal going into it. A lot of time, when I write, it comes from a place where I'm feeling really intensely about something that is eating and rotting me away. I have to write about it. "
I wondered about her lyrics; music can be a form of poetry or… not poetry. But everyone has a style.
"I air on the side of being kinda direct."
"I think my style rides the line; I want it to be clever but still straight to the point."
DID YOU PRODUCE YOUR NEW ALBUM? WHO MIXED IT?
Self-production has become increasingly common as technology makes DAWs and VSTs more affordable and easy to use. Gone are the days of waiting for the tape to reel back, real-time rendering, and needing to condense eight tracks into one.
"It's self-written for the most part. I have two songs my friends co-wrote with me, otherwise self-written and self-produced myself. The majority I did when I was in school at Studio West. And then various different people helped me out along the way."
She goes on to name: Ryan Finch, Cedrick Courtois, Ethan Kregel, and Andy Walsh. These are other musicians and engineers who helped her get to where she needed to get to in her production.
WHAT MADE YOU START WANTING TO WORK ON MUSIC?
"Singing has always been part of the world and my life; it's just always been something I've done not thinking about it. The older I got, the more I got into bands, the more I wanted to do it, and I guess it was more so becoming confident in that. For a long period of time, I wasn't really in an environment that supported that."
Photo taken by @michaellopezjunior
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE KIND OF MUSIC YOU WRITE? WHAT IS YOUR GOAL STYLISTICALLY?
"I really want to blend my favorite genres of music; the genre that I'd put it in if it needed to be put in a genre would be Indie pop or indie rock. But I take influence from a lot of things I listen to."
She went on to name Shania Twain, Boy Genius, Lana Del Rey, and Paramore as some of her favorite artists. It's easy to see how these artists influence her style, taking parts of them and putting them into her work.
"-The goal is more esoteric than it is genre-wise.--- I really wanna make the listener feel the way that I felt when I wrote this song."
"The album tells a story."
Her newest album, "Beautiful Chaos," released earlier this year with 14 songs, an hour of Cheyenne. This is her first full-length album. Production took around four years. In it, she wanted to turn the worst and find the positive.
"You just go through s***, and it kinda jades you and changes your outlook. In the past, I've been very ashamed of that, but inevitably you will encounter things that do change who you are, and I think it's okay to lean into that and to lean into some of the more unpleasant feelings that come with that. --- The very last song [Beautiful Chaos], it was a hard song to write, and I wanted it to - evoke the same feeling to the listener."
She used synths and vocal samples to try to bring you (the listener) to the mental place she was when she wrote that song—using the background noise and solitary piano to try to convey those feelings.
"—My goal is to create that feeling and tell the story the way that I experienced it."
Photo taken by @michaellopezjunior on IG
WHY DO YOU HAVE "LONLEY 1" AND "LONLEY 2." WHAT INSPIRED THAT CHOICE?
"Each song tells its own individual stories, but as a whole, the album is about the journey from co-dependence to independence, and the first lonely sets the stage, and that song itself is kinda the plot line of 'wishing for this other person to come and save and transport you and for them to take care of you the feeling of loneliness, and as you progress you get to lonely reprised. And I realize that what I'm feeling doesn't have to be loneliness necessarily. There is a sense of freedom in being alone. And some sort of weird comfort in it. Loneliness doesn't have to be lonely; it just means I'm alone, and there is power in that."
WHO ARE YOU GETTING OVER IN "BEAUTIFUL CHAOS"?
"It's not specifically about anyone— throughout the grueling four years --- there are different people who go in and enter the picture. – sometimes, the songs take on a different meaning. It's like I'm writing for myself in the future. - There are a few key players in the story for sure, but it depends on what song you're listening to."
Full discretion, I LOVE drama, but she wouldn't give me names, just a short threat for the offenders.
"It the shoe fits, it's probably your shoe."
WHAT'S NEXT? IS THERE ANYWHERE STYLISTICALLY YOU WANT TO PUSH?
It's natural for musicians to experiment and change their style. Naturally, I wondered, when is Cheyenne going to use trash cans as snares?
"we aren't using trash cans for percussion yet."
"but this project, I really want it to lean into a heavier - getting a real live sound, lean into a grittier heavier sound."
"The project itself is very cynical, caustic, and bitter. I'm just pissed."
"I don't wanna hold back; I don't wanna polish my message. I just wanna get straight to the point."
Photo taken by @thecaseyperson on IG
Learning about Cheyenne, her music, and who she is as an artist was fun. I can't wait to hear more from her. The next release is a live version of "Enabler," coming sometime at the end of August. Make sure you give her a follow and check out her music on Spotify, Apple Music, and many other sites!
