I went and found Benjamin Francis Leftwich outside the back of Academy 1 at Dot to Dot festival casually hanging out with Ed Sheeran and pulled him away for a quick chat.
Hello Benjamin! How excited are you to be a part of this year’s Dot to Dot Festival?
Yeah, it feels good. It’s very nice to be here and very nice to hang out with people like Ed Sheeran and a few other people I’ve been looking forward to meet so that’ll be good, yeah.
What bands are you personally excited about on the line up today?
A couple, a band called Braids. I saw their set last night, they were really good! Hopefully catch them again but I’m a bit busy with press.
You’ve got a busy few months ahead of you on a headlining tour and quite a few festivals, you must be really excited?
Yeah I’m really excited, festivals will be really sweet. Looking forward to Glastonbury a lot, that should be good.
Anything special planned for your Glastonbury show?
Not really, I’m just going to do my own thing and see how it goes, you know? I’m just going to play how I always play. I don’t really have anything special planned, maybe I’ll do something.
Your album “Last Smoke Before the Snowstorm” is out June 20th, what can people who haven’t heard you yet expect from it?
I’d just say it could be again, acoustic guitar based similar to a couple of EP’s. It’s kind of just like progression, couple more tracks have a bit of a band and stuff like that.
Anything specifically that’s inspired you for this album?
Just listening to lots of different bands and records that I like…
What bands do you listen to?
My favourites are Bruce Springsteen Ryan Adams, The National. I listen to a lot of stuff like that.
Are there any bands you’d love to share the stage with in the future?
I don’t know, it’ll be good at Glastonbury to play with lots of amazing bands and lots of different stuff.
What do you do when you’re not writing and performing music?
I listen to music, hang out with my friends and play Xbox.
What is your number one aim to get out of your career?
I’d say to…take over the world. Yeah, become president.
Haha! Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you!
