Interview Ben Jones (Orion) "For about twenty years I've held the desire to create an album that is entirely my own" (December 2024, text Henri Strik, edited by Peter Willemsen, pictures provided by Ben Jones) Orion is the musical project of British multi-instrumentalist Ben Jones, a seasoned musician with a deep passion for progressive rock. In June 2023 he released his first solo effort The End Of Suffering. Its success was undeniable, with physical copies selling in sixteen countries and the album earning a spot on several top album lists. One year later Orion released its highly anticipated follow-up called The Lightbringers. However, for many readers of Background Magazine Orion is still a rather unknown musical project. Therefore, the editors of this website think that both Orion and Ben Jones deserve more attention. So, we put the spotlight on this project and asked Jones how this all came about and if there is a future for Orion. Are you one of the largest constellations in the sky, the warrior Orion from Greek mythology or Ben Jones the musician?
More artists and acts use the name Orion. Why did you use the same name for your musical project? "I really didn't put any thought into how many other people might be using this name. In all honesty, I hadn't even checked! When this project started, I really assumed no one would ever take any notice of it. With that in mind, it really didn't matter if a million other people were using the name. As far as I was concerned, I would be lucky to sell five CDs, then keep the rest of them to use as coasters on my coffee table. As for where the name comes from, and what it means. Well, it has something to do with the overall concept I used on my first album The End Of Suffering. It's a fairly cryptic link, and only my wife has ever figured it out, so it might be fun to keep the mystery of the name going for a little while longer." In my opinion The Lightbringers is an amazing album. How did you get the inspiration for a second album so quickly after your debut? "First of all, thank you for your kind words! Secondly, it really didn't feel like the second album came out quickly. Because I work entirely on my own, I ended up recording it over the course of about eight months, although it felt like a lifetime had passed when the writing wasn't going so well. The reason I started on a second album so quickly was because I felt like I could do better. When I wrote and recorded The End Of Suffering, I had barely played for about five years. I also wasn't listening to much music during that time. Unfortunately, this meant that my playing and creativity suffered quite a lot. By the time The End Of Suffering was finally released, I had discovered a lot of recent music, and my playing was back on course. With a lot of innovative ideas floating around in my head, it felt like I had to record a new album!" You played all the instruments yourself on the albums. How did you become a multi-instrumentalist? "Ultimately, I'm a bass player, and I always will be. However, when I was learning to play all the way back in the late nineties, it was hard to find other musicians. The internet was still in its infancy, and there were very few forums you could go on to if you wanted to find like-minded players. Whilst I met other musicians, I never really found people that wanted to write in the way that I did. And still never have! One thing that always
As far as I can tell, you master all instruments perfectly, most of all your drum parts are pretty amazing. You are an excellent drummer in my opinion! "I'm sorry, but the drum parts have been programmed! Whilst I have been a drummer in various bands, I simply don't have the space to have a full drum kit that's rigged for recording as great as that would be. The fact that I can play the drums is a big part of what allows me to program convincing drum parts. The process is quite slow, as I make sure all the parts I program could be played in real life, so you won't find drum parts that require six arms on my albums. Since my favourite band is Rush, I take a lot of direction from Neil Peart's playing. Whilst his technical ability on the drums was incredible, it's the level of detail that he put into his parts that has always captured my imagination. The nuances and variations he would use throughout a song just don't get enough credit! As for current drummers, I also love how detailed Baard Kolstad's (Leprous) playing is. I think he might be the best rock and metal drummer in the world at present." The way your vocal parts were recorded sound a bit different from the way most musicians record their singing. Do you agree? "My voice is just a little odd. Sadly, it's the voice I was born with, and I don't think I'll ever be a threat to the likes of Freddy Mercury. I suffered a mystery illness back in 2014. Doctors still don't know what it is, and this illness affected my voice quite badly, to the point where I could barely sing a single note. I was able to gradually rebuild it, and at least get it to the point where it is passable, however, some may disagree. One recording technique I use a lot is double tracking. This is where I sing the same part twice and layer the vocals on top of each other. It allows for the shimmering effect you might have noticed on the album and gives the vocals a bit of a broader sound." I noticed that you use many instruments on an album track like lots of heavy guitar or orchestral parts. I would have preferred to leave them out more often. You probably don't agree, do you? "Well, there's certainly a lot going on, especially on the second half of The Lightbringers album. The second half is made up of four songs, which collectively make up the epic known as The Cycle Of Light. When I started to write this epic, I was very much influenced by a lot of movie scores from the likes of Michael Kamen, Trevor Rabin etcetera, which is why it sounds as busy as it does. I'm also a huge fan of Devin Townsend and his wall-of-sound approach! One thing I regret about The Lightbringers is how loud I mastered the album. This might be part of the reason why it sounds this way to you. If I could do it again, I would leave more headroom in the final master, which would give more space for all the orchestral parts." What's the difference between The End Of Suffering and The Lightbringers as far as the writing and recording of the albums are concerned?
"The recording of the albums was quite different in terms of the technology that was available to me. The End Of Suffering was recorded on a much lower budget setup and was then ported over to a better setup in an attempt to improve the end result. Ultimately, I think The Lightbringer has a far superior sound to it. In terms of writing, when I worked on The End Of Suffering, I would write all the lyrics for a song, then go in and write the music. I took a slightly different approach with The Lightbringers, whereby I would write a small set of lyrics, maybe a verse and a chorus, then I would start to put some music to those lyrics. This approach allowed me to marry the lyrics and music together in a more natural way." Why did you choose to do everything yourself on these releases? "The reason why I did everything myself is for a handful of reasons. Most importantly, this is a goal I've held for about twenty years: the desire to create an album that is entirely my own. I've worked with other musicians in writing and releasing music, but Orion is absolutely my own project." When did you start working on The Lightbringers, and would you tell our readers a bit more about the album concept wise? "I started writing around the end of August and the beginning of September 2023. The album is split into two pieces. The first four songs are individual pieces, dealing with different areas of the human experience, such as the difficulties of navigating religion, the challenges of living with people profoundly affected by illness, the horrors of social media, and the weight of living in a failed relationship. The second half is also made up of four songs, but these four songs are a part of The Cycle Of Light. The overall concept here is that maybe - and hopefully - there is something in the universe that is dragging us to an ultimately good outcome. Unfortunately, it might have to pull us through some dark places to get there, but these people and entities - the lightbringers - have no concept of that. They just know they need to pull us to our final destination, which is a better one." Are you satisfied with the end result of the album, or do you think in hindsight that something could have been improved? "My only real regret is that I mixed and mastered The Lightbringers too loudly. There are times when it could have had more space to breathe. I don't think you'll find musicians who are fully happy with an album they've released. It's what keeps us coming back for more; that hope that you might eventually record the perfect album." Your latest album features the striking artwork by legendary artist Hugh Syme. How did you get an artist who worked with bands such as Rush and Arena? "It came out of a moment of desperation! Thomas Ewerhard created the artwork for my first album, and the plan was that he would do the artwork for The Lightbringers as well. Unfortunately, some personal circumstances, and a very busy schedule, meant that Thomas reached a point where he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to create the artwork. With nobody else lined up, I started a frantic internet search for someone that could do the job. After several hours of looking into different artists, my desperation got the better of me, and I sent an e-mail to Hugh. Ten minutes later, I had a reply and a phone number to contact him with. Later that evening, I spent about an hour on the phone to him, being grilled about what the album was about, what artwork I liked, and where we might go with the project. Being that, I've been a diehard Rush fan for twenty-six years, it was quite a surreal experience to be working with Hugh. He also had some quite entertaining stories to tell." Why do we never see your picture on the albums? Even your real name is not mentioned on the credits as far as I know. Do you want to remain anonymous? "Yes, I definitely prefer to be anonymous. I've only recently added my real name to some of the platforms where you can find my music such as Bandcamp, mainly because I just prefer to hide behind the name Orion. Someone else can take the fame, I'll take the money (if only there were some!). I don't think I've ever publicly mentioned this, but there is a kind of photo of me in the centrefold of The End Of Suffering. The figure in the middle has my face 'photoshopped' on to it!" | ||||||
![]() | ||||||
Orion band photo | ||||||
I guess you were surprised with the success of your debut album. You sold physical copies in sixteen countries, and the album earned a spot on several top album lists. You didn't see this coming, did you? "You are correct, I absolutely didn't see it coming! When I created the Orion Facebook page, I didn't tell anyone about it. Other than my wife, I don't think I had really discussed the project with anyone. I was curious as to what would happen if the project was launched with no support, no friends in the right places, and no one to push it. To be in the position where I'm shipping CDs all around Europe, to Canada, the US, Japan etcetera, is pretty surreal. I even have a handful of supporters in Australia." The End Of Suffering is now sold out. How many copies were sold, and how many copies were sold of your second album? Do you think that The Lightbringers will sell out as well? "There are two rules in life. The first one is: never ask a woman her age and the second one is: never ask a musician how many CDs he's sold. However, I can tell you that sales are in the several hundreds for both albums, not in the several millions. Since the first album sold out, I've received various e-mails asking if it will be re-released. With that in mind, I made sure to order a much larger number of copies for The Lightbringers. On that note, I can tell you that The Lightbringers has already outsold The End Of Suffering, which is surprising because it achieved that in less than three months." You released your albums on your own label. Were other labels not interested, or would you manage your releases yourself? "Before I released the first album, I didn't talk to any labels at all. I really didn't think anyone would be interested, never mind from a label perspective. Since the second album came out, I've had conversations with a couple of labels. Whilst I'm not going to name and shame them, I can say that it would be financial suicide to sign what they put in front of me. One label in particular, which I'm certain some people in the prog world would recognise, put together a deal so upside down that I thought they had made a mistake. When I replied to them, and pointed out the areas that were completely absurd, they told me that it wasn't a mistake... With technology as it is, labels don't serve the purpose they once did. There are certainly labels out there doing some decent work, and they can certainly open some doors, but times are changing. I'm yet to find a label that can do something for me that I can't do for myself." Do you have the intention to bring the music of Orion in front of an audience or is it just a studio project?
Is it possible that on your future albums guest musicians will help you out to record a new album or do you want to manage everything yourself? "The motto for Orion has always been'my work, done my way.' I've contributed to other people's work in the past. When someone needs a solo, or a bass part, I've jumped in and recorded something for them. That's one of the benefits of the internet age! I've had friends in various parts of the globe that have asked me to contribute to their work, and I've been able to lay it all down in the comfort of my own home, then send the files to them over the internet." I read the following statement on your Facebook page which I fully agree with! Would you please comment on that statement? As a number of you are aware, my music has been stolen and illegally shared, and even sold by multiple sites this year. The images below are from a torrent site that was uploaded too in September. You can see more than 600 people illegally downloaded both my albums since September, so more than 1,200 copies of my two albums were stolen. "Unfortunately, I called an end to the Orion project on November 1st of this year. My reason for this is that I had spent about six months battling some fairly rampant piracy of my music. Not only were dozens of sites illegally distributing my music, but there was also a large group of them actually selling my music. A few of these sites claimed to be legitimate operations, and even went as far as to claim that they shared royalties with the artists. Well, I can assure you that I've never had any contact with any of them and have never received so much as a penny! Whilst I'm under no illusions that piracy is unfortunately commonplace now, that doesn't mean I have to be okay with it. Incredibly, some people were trying to normalise this behaviour, with a few of them even telling me I should be grateful that people enjoy my music enough to steal it. After the thousands of pounds I poured into this latest album, it feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth to read things like that. In the end, I decided I would be happier to just write music for my own enjoyment." Is there anything you can do about it? "No, there isn't something I can directly do about it. For instance, I can't successfully sue them which many people have tried over the years. But what I can do is continue to be vocal about it. When I made that post on Facebook, it went slightly viral. I think it was eventually seen by around 14,500 people. It was also shared across multiple groups, many of which I'm not even a member of, and resulted in a lot of heated conversations that I wasn't even a part of. Sadly, a lot of what I said ended up being taken out of context, with a few people even suggesting I had staged the whole thing as a publicity stunt!" How do you think torrent sites get hold of the audio of your albums? "As for how these sites get access to the audio, there are various ways. When people buy the album from Bandcamp, they also gain access to the digital files. Once these files are out there, it's very easy for them to be shared with the wrong people. It only takes one person to upload them to a file sharing site, then it can spread as far as it likes. When my first album appeared on some file sharing sites, I think there were only three or four on which it was present. By the start of November, both albums were on dozens of sites. It just grows exponentially." Ben thanks for answering all my questions. "Thank you for the chance to air my thoughts. Hopefully, my rambling wasn't too much for you and your readers!" Website bandcamp review album 'The Lightbringers' |
All Rights Reserved Background Magazine 2025 |