Gold Has Worn Away

Description

Benji Kirkpatrick was still a member of renowned bands Bellowhead, Faustus and the Seth Lakeman Band when he started writing songs for an own project. As a huge fan of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, ZZ Top and The Police, he chose the classic power trio format to provide "the perfect instrumentation" to realise his songs with the biggest imaginable impact.

He found the ideal line-up with his former Bellowhead band colleagues Pete Flood on drums and Pete Thomas on electric and double bass: "Having played mainly acoustic music for a long time, I wanted to kick things up a bit with a rocky sound."

The trio's debut album Gold Has Worn Away, to be released in November 2019 on Westpark Music, has become a dynamic, rhythmic alt roots rock album, ranging from raw and abrasive sounds to beautiful emotional moments with a strong underlying power.

Songs like "Human Cost", "Hiring Fair" or "A Classic Cut" deal explicitly with political and social issues, whereas "Back To The Fold" or "Fill My Heart" look at things from a more personal angle, as Benji Kirkpatrick describes: "I think there is a micro and a macro level to things; sometimes the very personal stuff has a parallel on a bigger scale, so songs can be applied on both levels, with bigger political or social issues being mirrored by private ones. Inter-personal relationships are affected by the pressures of the modern day and that wears away at them and causes strain."

The album title Gold Has Worn Away refers to the fading promises of Western capitalist society, making the machinations behind the façade becoming more and more obvious. Kirkpatrick continues: "I feel that people are largely ready for songs about social and political matters, the times sort of demand it. The divisions that are driven politically and socially see to it that there will always be two sides to argue over something."

In concert, the threesome don't just stick the new songs but also include material from Benji's albums Boomerang (2008) and Hendrix Songs (2015). The latter – a bow to one of his biggest musical heroes – contained a collection of new interpretations of Hendrix' classic songs and was particularly praised by Mojo for its "memorably aggressive" style. The Sunday Times commented: "This is a rare chance to hear the songs stripped back to their atmospheric essentials", while Classic Rock said: "It's testament to Jimi's song-writing that the songs slip their identities so readily, with 'Voodoo Chile' becoming a cowboy storm cloud and 'Crosstown Traffic' revealing unexpected poignancy." Hendrix' influence is also strongly palpable on Gold Has Worn Away, particularly in the 'Foxy Lady' inspired instrumental "Got To Be all Mine".

The band:
Benji Kirkpatrick – vocals, bouzoukis, guitars, mandolin, banjo, piano
Pete Flood – drums & percussion
Pete Thomas – double bass and electric bass

Guest musicians:
Rowan Godel – vocals
Janie Mitchell – vocals

Background:
Benji Kirkpatrick was born as the child of folk musicians John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris and has made himself a name in the British music scene as a member of the seminal and successful folk supergroup Bellowhead. Their album Hedonism, released in 2010, was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and produced by John Leckie, and has become the bestselling independent folk album to the present day. During their 12-year career, Bellowhead played a number of headline shows at big festivals and appeared in renowned TV shows such as "Later … with Jools Holland". Even though they split in 2016, Bellowhead continues to be hugely influential to the folk and alt roots scene in Britain.

Apart from that, Benji Kirkpatrick is a member of the Seth Lakeman Band, Steeleye Span and of Faustus, a "bloke rock" trio who was nominated in 2019 for the "Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik", one of the most renowned German music critic awards. As a guest musician, Benji supported artists like Marc Almond, Green Gartside, Maddy Prior, Oysterband, Thea Gilmore and Joan As A Police Woman.

His fellow musicians are also well-known members of the British folk circuit. Drummer and percussionist Pete Flood also used to play with Bellowhead and is now part of the Oysterband. Bass player Pete Thomas has made himself a name as a session man and supported artists like The Diminished Quartet, Gonzalo Bergara or Megan Henwood.