The Ivors Interview - Ben Drew

“The one thing that always stood out to me was a good song.”

Plan B – aka Ben Drew – scored a rare hat-trick at The Ivors in 2011, picking up Songwriter of the Year, the Album Award for The Defamation Of Strickland Banks and the PRS for Music Most Performed Work for She Said. He was nominated again in 2013 for Ill Manors (Best Contemporary Song and Best Original Film Score), which marked his return to hip-hop music after the soul sounds of Strickland Banks. He’s now also a successful actor, runs his own publishing company (Temperamental Music), and is working on his fourth album.

How did it feel to win three Ivors in 2011?

I felt I was overlooked for a long time, not by The Ivors but by everyone, so that made up for the years of hard work I put into music without being recognised. The judges are your peers, which gives it integrity. It’s my proudest achievement.

What are your memories of that year’s ceremony?

I’d flown back from America so I remember being exhausted! America was difficult as well, I’d come back feeling a bit dejected and then I won an Ivor, then I won another and then a third one… it made up for all that stuff. We had drinks afterwards but I had to get on a plane and go back to work. That’s the one thing I regret from all the success: I couldn’t take my foot off the gas. I’ve got the Ivors here, I know they’re real, but it would’ve been nice to let it soak in and enjoy it a bit more.

Was fame different to how you’d imagined?

No, I was pretty accurate with the whole Strickland Banks concept. You work hard and, through that talent, you get fame and get put on a pedestal and then, when you’re there, people want to knock you off. Maybe the Strickland Banks album is a really dark depiction of the ugly side of fame, but it’s still a reality.

You’ve worked in several different genres. Do you know when you sit down to write that it’ll be a hip-hop song or a soul song?

It’s like when you’re hungry, “What do I feel like eating today?” Because I’m versatile and understand different genres, it can be, “I want to make hip-hop music today” or “I want to make a soul song”. I’m in the studio at the minute and I’m doing songs that sound like indie rock songs, folk songs, reggae, hip-hop, dance music, I’m just going in there and letting the creativity flow.

Will that be for your next album?

I guess so. I’m collaborating with my band members. I feel like the next album may not be a Plan B album, it may be a collaborative album under a different name. But we’ll see what happens.

Which songwriters have inspired you?

One song can inspire me to write ten. Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven – any music that can bring a tear to my eye or put me in a really deep place is the stuff that inspired me. As a kid, I went from stuff like Nirvana and then listened to The Prodigy and underground jungle music. I was like a nomad, jumping from one thing to the next. But the one thing that always stood out to me was a good song.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

I’d started writing song ideas but never had anything finished. My godfather, Keith Coggins, taught me the structure of The Tracks of My Tears by Smokey Robinson. He said, “Once you master that structure, you can start messing around”. As soon as he taught me that, I was writing and finishing songs. Suddenly I could do gigs, I had a manager, record labels were sniffing round… That piece of advice was what really set me off.