Benjamin Earl was born on February 28, 1978 in Brigham City, UT. Ben
always wanted to be a musician from early in his life. Piano lessons
at an early age didn't spark the interest, but an Alto Saxophone at
age 11 did the trick. Determination and love for creating brought Ben
to the top of musicianship all his life.
Ben spent 13 years in Utah before his family moved to Florence, AL.
At age 15 and now in high school, Ben was challenged to play the Bass
Guitar for a friends gig at a local club. A loan from the friend in
need bought a brand new Peavy Fury $150 and a used combo 50 watt amp
$100. 2 weeks later was their first gig as a band called Rainbow Licorice,
and bass player was born.
From this band Ben met some new people from across the river in Muscle
Shoals, including life long friends Bryan Farris. Their first band was
called The Jarmains. Bryan and Ben moved to New Jersey at age 19 to
pursue the large music scene of NYC. Soon after arriving in NJ they
met drummer Steven Dans and started a band called Opaque (AKA OpaqueTones
or FED). Opaque performed for about 4 years before Bryan decided to
move back home to Alabama.
During the recording of Opaques first full length album Ben and Steve
began working with the engineer/producer on different projects, including
the new Naughty By Nature album. From this experience Daylow was born.
Daylow began as Ben and Steves production company... making hiphop beats
and electronic compositions.
Their first gig as Daylow was an open mic for emcees at the Court Tavern
in New Brunswick, NJ. CO-hosting with Nabil from Underground EXP and
later Open Mindz, Daylows open mic was a huge success and will go down
in NJ history books as "...the closest vibe to the New York underground
scene you can find around (NJ)..." [Daily Targum]
Daylow also CO-hosted a poetry reading called "Floetry" with
local legend Jerry Gant. This is where they met poet Likwid Thoughts,
eventually leading to their first full length album "Likwid Thoughts
and Daylow". During this time Ben and Steve also had the oportunity
to play a large event at NJPAC with artist Omega (Fugees).
Continually looking for new musicians, Ben and Steve joined numerous
bands. Most notably The BrainTrust NYC (AKA The Prophets). This hiphop
rooted reggae band had a great influence on Ben. It was the first opportunity
he had to incorporate his love for reggae and ska. Almost all the music
in Braintrust was written by NYC prodigy Steven Lopez, but Ben and Steve
had their creative input on all song arrangement and recording. The
BrainTrust was a long practiced and short gigged band, before Lopez
moved to LA to go to college and continue his undoubted long career
in music.
During that "searching" era of their lives, Ben and Steve
began working with good friend Mike Hemberger and released a Daylow
colab called "This is the Life" (and Braintrust song "Iconoclast")
on a compilation CD by a collective of friends and musicians called
Freak Genes. Hemberger (AKA Jive the Universal or Dynamike) is ultimately
who introduced Daylow to their current singer Hyphen One.
Soon after the Freak Genes compilation Ben and Steve joined the band
SJSLCB. Ben engineered their first album "Lifeguards -vs- Vic Thrill",
a 7" split released on Circus Clone Records. They recorded a full
length album entitled "Dive" with Jay Kahrs and an EP entitled
"Wave Goodbye" with producer Godfrey Diamond. During the mixing
of their final album "Darkside of the Pool" the band parted
ways.
At one of the last BrainTrust shows, Ben was approached by singer who
needed a bass player for a project he was starting. After some thought
about joining a 4th band, Ben eventually joined the rock band Hello
Eden. They recorded 2 EPs, "Grand Bizzare" and "Euphoric
Utopia" before the band stated to look for a bass player that had
more time to devote to the project.
During all the crazy 3 and 4 band days.... Ben continued to write music
with Hyphen One and they put together a band to play the music live.
Ben found time to engineer Daylows first EP released in 2005 entitled
"Hyphen One and Daylow".
In 2006 Daylow released a song entitled "One Night Stand"
on Hyphen One's 1st Solo album. Soon after this release Daylow recorded
12 songs at William Patterson University where trombonist Matt Ryan
was a senior in the recording program. This was the basic tracking of
their full length album "Ill Regular". The 13th track on "Ill
Regular" entitled "Daylow" was engineered by Ben as his
Recording II final project at CCM.
Daylow finished tracking "Ill Regular", and employed legendary engineer
Chris Badami to mix and Scott Hull to master by the end of 2007. Two
years in the making, Daylow released thier masterpiece "Ill Regular"
on June 13th 2008.
Currently Daylow is working on a single entitled "Smile"
with Grammy nominated producer/engineer David Ivory. This track and
a new album are expected to be released sometime in late 2009.
Ben has recently been performing live with an improv drum-n-bass group
Planetary
Escape Pod with long time friends Mike Biskup and Steve Honoshowsky.
Ben has also been working hard with the cover band The
Uptown-Getdowns. His cover song list is ever growing including mostly
hits from the 50's, 60's, and 70's in the vein of Soul, Funk, R&B,
and Reggae.
Ben studied music at Northwest Shoals and recording at CCM. He learned
a lot from studying with Phil Saruk, but Ben is mostly self taught and
learned from experience. He is also a self proclaimed Pro-Tools wiz.
Currently Ben plays a Ibanez ATK 305, Fender P-Bass Deluxe 5, and a
Peavy Cirus Fretless 5. He uses a NS Design CRM5 for recording and sometimes
pulls out his rare 4 string American ATK Series Ibanez. He has been
playing with the same Hartke 3500 for 14 years and uses an Ampeg BXT
4X10.
Ben recently has picked up a new hobby with filming things and online
band promotion. Slowly learning about the web Ben controls all production,
promotion, and design of online content for Daylow. He films local bands
for free to promote the community of great musicians in NJ/NYC/PA on
Youtube @ Earlounge.
Ben also produces his own viral videos and Vlogs at NOONE3NOON.
Listen to some of Bens remix projects and some of Bens favorite songs
from his career here:
