They often say your friends are your hardest critics and it turns out for Benjamin Plant, of Miami Horror, that with their newest release, All Possible Futures, his friends couldn’t fault it. “Even having close friends enjoy it was a shock,” Benjamin says.
“I don’t expect them to [enjoy it], I feel like I would have expected them to back in the day but I feel like we’ve released a few singles that I wouldn’t really bother even telling them about. But they’re the ones coming to me and saying this album is effing great.”
Benjamin’s friend’s aren’t alone in their appreciation either, even though the album has only been out for a brief moment the praise is still rolling in, and is something that they’re all pretty happy about.
This time around there’s a notable difference in the sound Miami Horror have created, which can partially be put to their relocation to LA but it’s also a reflection of where they’re at musically.
“I think [this album] we were still learning and moreso we used a lot of common song writing tools but at the same time in our first world you don’t really hear people using them much. It was more just about learning how to use a pre-chorus and post-chorus and weird little things that you don’t normally have names for,” he says.
“Also just to think about tension and release and relating the music to the emotion of the song and to the lyrics and that sort of thing. I feel like we didn’t quite get to breaking point yet, we were almost accidentally doing that on the first album and what we did with this one was learn about some of our favourite songs and classic songs that we like and next time will be the one where we break it.”
As with everything Miami Horror does, there’s always that one thing, element or choice of clothing that’s a bit odd. Aside from venturing into creating hand-made sunglasses, something that Benjamin has always wanted to do but it simply felt out of reach, and air fresheners, there’s always been a fascination for the odd with the band.
“It’s a clash of my personal instinct anyway. I really appreciate the classy beauty element of life but I also appreciate the freaky weird side of life as well. I’m often trying to suppress that and it’s like this constant battle between those two extremes and they come through the music I guess,” Benjamin says.
While the band are currently touring around America with no dates as yet for an Australian tour, it seems that Benjamin is much more interested in your thoughts on the album.
“I’m more just interested in seeing people’s reactions to the actual album, because the album is what sticks in the industry and doesn’t change over time. You can always improve a live song but once the album’s done, that’s it. I kind of like to hear what people think more about that,” he says.
Release: All Possible Futures is available at all good retailers now
Written by Amanda Sherring