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Ben Michaels By: Debbie Federico Photos by: Stacy Fortson
B
en Michaels is a man who has been humbled by life and by the mistakes he made in his. He has overcome alcoholism, his ego of playing for the girls, the money and the desire for fame, to get to a place of serenity and to play music that people pay attention to and believe in.
For him, music is the best way he knows to express himself. It allows him to connect, to find his center in his spirituality. After a bout with drinking and taking a look down that long dark tunnel that led to nowhere, he had to get sober to save himself. “I have to live my life in hand with my spirituality.” His biggest obstacle he claims “is my own head. Thinking too much has gotten me into trouble in the past. I got to stay grounded here. I picked a place on the map to move to and it was Tucson, the polar opposite of Clemmons, North Carolina. Tucson is exactly where I am supposed to be right now.” Showing the Buddhist within, he says, “Things will turn out the way they should.”
Onstage, behind his guitar, barefoot because it’s comfortable, he exudes a life force that lights up his face and aura. Sometimes shouting his lyrics into the microphone because he wants the audience to feel what he feels. He does not try to be entertaining, he just is. Joking One would think, after watching, hearing and talking to with the crowd, doing Lil Jon impressions and proclaiming Ben, that he is a veteran of the stage, but he has only “I’ve got sweat on my guitar. been playing professionally I’m rocking!” “If I can just help other people the since earlier this year. His way I was helped through music then impact is already sizeable, Ben is young, at 19 years old I can be happy.” ~ Ben Michaels earning him fans at every he has already experienced venue. Most of those fans life’s potholes, mostly by his have asked for a CD, and he is working on one. He plans own doing. Unlike most young adults, he has discovered to give those CDs out for free at his shows, because of a secret that grounds him. He spoke to me about the the person he is. “This is life,” he says. “What would be spirituality he had to find in order to overcome his inner demons. He accepts and reads Buddhist and Hindu a better way to talk to people about life? Why would I teachings, and cites Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” want to listen to that? I want to give back and music is as an aid in squashing the ego within. He finds those the way to do that.” messages best convey to him how he can be grounded. “Everyone is Southern Baptist back home,” he tells me, “If I can just help other people the way I was helped “and I revolted against “God”. But I found it within myself. through music, then I can be happy,” Ben says. He That’s what Buddhist teachings did for me. All religion doesn’t have to have fame, just enough money to get by. has the same message if you think about it.” (I agree with Mentoring others would be a great accomplishment for him.) “And the best songs come when I’m connected to him. The way he says his idol, Trevor Hall, did for him. my spirituality.” Going through the hardest time in his life he listened to Hall’s music, and it got him through it. He wants to be able to do that for others.
Ben may just do that with his song “Life Up High”. It is song written after the memorial that was held for the victims of the January 8th shootings that killed 6 people and injured 13, including Representative Gabrielle Gifford’s, here in Tucson. “I was actually angry, that it took such a tragedy to cause people to come together. But then I went and wrote the song in about 5 minutes.” I believe that once 3
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Issue #07