While many artists found themselves having to shake off the rust brought on by COVID-19 lockdowns, BENEE has impressively managed to remain fighting fit as a performer throughout the 2020s.
She was one of the first major artists to return to live performance in her native New Zealand circa late 2020, touring through Aotearoa into 2021 eventually making it to the rest of the world throughout 2022.As such, she's continued to develop her own tics and eccentricities as a performer – as local fans will once again get to see when she returns this September as part of the Gold Coast's free, all-ages SPRINGTIME festival.
Speaking from her LA home a month or so ago, with a cuddly rescue dog in tow, BENEE explains that a lot of her onstage persona is informed purely from nervous energy.
"Feeling like I need to scream into the microphone is usually when I'm overwhelmed with everything that's going on," she says.
"I think I'll always be a little bit nervous when I'm up there. It definitely is crazy when you realise how many times you've performed when the shows are all added up, and I think you definitely become a lot more comfortable once you get to that point.
"I love performing, and like everyone I was f...ing gutted when COVID happened. It really made me realise that being on stage is half the fun of being a musician – if not more.
"It's just so exciting to be back at it. Everyone's kind of a little bit crazy after lockdown, and so I've kind of got that energy that's built up for two years in every crowd I play to now. I feel like everyone just wants to be out listening to music, from here in LA all the way back home in New Zealand."
When the Kiwi indie-pop darling ultimately returned to the stage, she didn't come empty handed. In February, she followed up her 2022 'Lychee' EP with the bouncy kiss-off 'Green Honda' – so named after her beloved car, Steve.
When queried as to whether the song's heavier electro sound will inform the creative direction of her next studio album, BENEE is hesitant to commit. "I think it's a stand-alone song, the more I think about it," she says.
"I have lots of demos going currently, which will be an album eventually, but none of them really sound anything like ['Green Honda'].
"I still had so much fun making it, though. I feel like I was really able to let off a lot of steam with it – while, at the same time, making something that was really playful. I know it's not for everyone, and it definitely freaked out a lot of my fans, but I love it all the same."
Talk turns to what her second album will sound like, if not the free-wheeling pop chaos of 'Green Honda'. BENEE – who confesses she has "a mind that works at a thousand paces a minute" – says she hopes the album is reflective of her own evolution; both as an artist and a person since her debut album 'HEY U X' came out November 2020.
"This new stuff. . . it doesn't sound like 'Green Honda'; it doesn't sound like [2019 EP] 'STELLA & STEVE'; it doesn't sound like anything else that I've done before," she says.
"Moving to LA, I think, is going to open up a really different chapter for my songwriting. There's so many cool producers and writers out here that I want to work with – and now I can be in the room with them, not just over Zoom.
"I want to really open up all the avenues of my music. There can be sad songs, which I'm really good at, but also songs with heaps of bubbly energy that help me to remember who I am. They can even be really stupid songs if I feel like it! Whatever kind of songs they end up being, I think they'll be my best songs yet."
Is BENEE concerned that another change of creative direction could throw her fan-base off the same way that 'Green Honda' did? "They've really come to expect the unexpected from me," she reasons.
"I don't want to just keep making stuff like 'Supalonely' and 'Glitter' – I mean, I could, but it wouldn't be any fun for me. It was fun for me when I was 18, and I love those songs for that.
"My goal, however, is really to keep evolving constantly and keep it really interesting. That means some people are going to come and go, but it also means some people are going to take this whole ride with me and eat up everything that I serve to them, no matter what flavour or taste I'm attempting. I f...ing love that."
BENEE is acutely self-aware when it comes to the divisive nature of her bigger hits, particularly the internet-breaking 'Supalonely'.
The reactions have been polarising, to put it lightly. She's one of the scarce few artists of the last handful of years to regularly feature on both best and worst year-end lists of music critics – something she wears with pride, given that there's no fence sitters either way.
"I think you need to not take it too personally if people don't like what you're doing," she muses. "It just comes with being an artist, of any kind.
"You're signing up for hate as soon as you enter the music industry, because people have a lot of time on their hands. They'll always have a lot more to say if you're a woman, too. You'll be targeted, compared unfairly to other women, have your weight and your looks commented on as if that has anything to do with the music.
"But every time they leave those comments or make those videos or whatever, they're signal boosting the music – there will be someone who will not have heard it if you didn't say anything, so thank you!"
SPRINGTIME takes place in Surfers Paradise (Gold Coast) 1-3 September and is 100 per cent free.
SPRINGTIME 2023 Line-up
Bag Raiders (DJ set)* Friday headlinerBENEE* Saturday headliner
Matt Corby* Sunday headliner
Babe Rainbow
Boo Seeka
Eliza & The Delusionals
grentperez
Sunshine & Faith Disco Choir
Sycco
Austin Mackay
Bella Amor
Betty Taylor
Big Fuzz
Bill Durry
Chutney
Dizzy Days
Daste
Girl & Girl
Greatest Hits
Jason Van Miert
Lemaire Matonii
Sabio
Mitch Santiago
N'Jaane
Pure Milk
Radolescent
The Vultures
Taleena
Tomorrow's Forecast
YB.
