Our first official photoshoot features a friend of The Cheetah Press - His name is Joe Ben, he's 20 years old, and he's a punk from KC, MO. He attends Missouri Western State University, majoring in instrumental music education. He loves music, he lives for it.
Scroll on for the full interview and photoshoot, and click here to listen to the guest playlist he made for us.
1) What's your major?
My major is Instrumental Music Education. I hope to teach jazz in high school or college in the future.
2) What are some things you like/are obsessed with?
I like to think I’m a pretty well rounded person! I’m an activist, I watch football, hockey, and soccer when I can, I play and write music, I run, I play Ultimate Frisbee, I keep up with video game news, I like to read, and I’m a big fan of D&D.
3) What's one of the more challenging aspects of being in college, especially right now with COVID-19?
Right now one of the most challenging aspects of college is figuring out how to schedule my time correctly. Most days I have class from 8am to 5pm, D&D Monday nights, poker on Wednesday nights, and work on the weekends. I also try to practice my instruments for about 2-3 hours per day, so I am usually very very tired by the time I go to bed! With the pandemic I have a lot of added stress about my health and that of those around me, especially since I have to be on campus quite a bit with all my music classes.
4) What do you do outside of college?
Outside of college I work as an activist, mostly protesting on site and signing petitions, and I cycle through hobbies month by month. Right now I mostly like to watch YouTube, listen to new music, and cook.
5) Tell us a bit about your favorite musical artists and why you like them.
My favorite musical artists range across a lot of genres. Some artists that I like that I think readers of The Cheetah Press would enjoy are Dead Poet Society, Zeal & Ardor, Gorillaz, Rage Against the Machine, and Zig Mentality. Bands like DPS and Zig use distorted bass guitar as support and rely on heavy hits in their music, which is not only something that appeals to me, but something that I want my own band to imitate. I’ve listened to RaTM for many many years and I hope to imitate their lyrics and their emotion in my own music. Gorillaz and Zeal & Ardor are very different bands, but they both like to bend the rules in their music. Some others that I listen to include Run the Jewels, Rico Nasty, The Color 8, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie. RTJ is a duo consisting of two rappers that not only make great, heavy-hitting music, but also are passionate activists who use their money and fame to help those around them. Rico Nasty and The Color 8 are artists that both use rap vocals with metal instrumentals, which match up incredibly well together. Duke Ellington and Count Basie are two jazz legends, and were so influential that their sound can be heard in rock and R&B music even today.
6) What do you want to do when you graduate - what do you imagine your life will be like in the near future?
When I graduate, I hope to teach jazz in high school or college. Of course, I’d love it if my band made it big and rendered my degree obsolete, but I would like to teach at least as much as I want to perform for a living. The two career paths are equal in my mind.
7) Tell us about you, about anything you'd like people to know about you.
The most important thing to know about me is how much I am shaped by music. My school life, future career, and most of my extracurricular time are dedicated entirely to
music. Almost everything I do revolves around creating and listening to music.
8) You're studying music - how many instruments do you play? Why did you chose to study this?
My main instrument is alto saxophone. I picked it when I was thirteen because I thought it was something cool people play (I was right). Other instruments that I play include percussion, bass guitar, and a little bit of piano. I am largely an orchestral percussionist, and if I have a main percussion instrument that I play then it would be timpani. My bass guitar work is almost entirely devoted to punk rock licks, and I really only play pop songs on piano. I chose to study music because I will never stop learning for the rest of my life. Every single day I will be able to improve my technique or learn something new. Essentially I picked it because it will grow with me for the rest of my life.
9) What has been the hardest part of pandemic life for you?
The hardest part of pandemic life is finding motivation! It is so easy to ignore the things I want to improve or new projects I want to take on in favor of watching Netflix or YouTube. I haven’t really found a good solution yet, outside of handing my electronics to someone and telling them not to give them back until I’ve practiced for at least an hour.
10) What do you love about music?
I love how music builds itself. Techniques and motifs used hundreds of years ago can be heard in modern pop songs. American jazz has shaped every modern genre of music.
Chord progressions from Bach are still used in metal songs. And despite all this building, the old styles of music still haven’t gone away. Modern symphonies play Baroque style music, some that was written in the 1600s and some that was written two years ago. Music intertwines with itself to make new styles, and there’s really no limit on how far that creation can go.
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