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Donny Benét - All about the musician: biography of the "seductive lover"

Let's find out the mystery of the most sophisticated lover of all - Mr Donny Bene!

All about Donnie Ben... The disco-pop musician "from the '80s."

Donny Benét is an Australian solo disco musician from Sydney. His real name is Ben Waples. He can safely be called "the revivalist of the 80's disco style". His musical style is completely inspired by the colourful era of this decade... And that's not even a mild word! It would be more correct to say that the main meaning and idea of his style is a hard reference to the musical atmosphere of the 80s and ridiculing the romantic hero of that time - a charismatic moustachioed puffball. Donny Benét's music is composed of post-disco sounds that fit perfectly into a modern context.

His first full-length solo work is the studio album "Don't Hold Back", which he released in 2011. The album was released on an independent indie record label in Australia under the name "Rice is Nice".

Donny Bene's story

Donny Bene's introduction to music came when he was a child. Donny's father was an Italian accordionist who played disco music.

Donny Benét.
Donny Benét.

Antonio Giacomelli (father's name) taught his son to play the accordion, so Bene's love of music was instilled in him on a subconscious level. Of course, besides the fact that it was also inherited in his father's DNA. Donny Benét also learnt to play the electric bass.

"He definitely played an important role in my desire to follow music."

This is how the musician grew and developed musically. Donny Bene spent his first gigs as an accordionist and keyboardist (synthesiser, of course). He played in Sydney bands through the 2000s before heading to Las Vegas to perform Tom Jones covers and classic disco tracks.

First album

Donny Benét Don't Hold Back (2011) Min
Album cover of "Don't Hold Back" (2011)

In early 2010, while playing in the Australian band The Dreamlanders, led by Jack Ladder, Donny Bene recorded his first compositions as a solo artist. The recording takes place at the Donnyland Studios music studio. The following year he signs with the indie label "Rice is Nice Records" and releases his first studio album "Don't Hold Back" (2011).

Music critics and the Australian media met the musician with interest! They were enthusiastic and humorous about Donny's idea to revive 80's pop music on such a "weird level".

Influences and musical taste

Donny Benét
Donny Benét

Donny Benét's compositions are performed in the styles of "post-disco" and "synth-pop". The musician abundantly uses synthesisers, electric bass and drum machines in his songs, on which, by the way, he plays himself. Also in the compositions there is a saxophone played by his brother Daniel Waples. In his music Donny Bene refers to the work of Jan Hammer, who wrote the soundtrack "Crockett's Theme" for the cult TV series "Miami Vice". Incidentally, Donny is a proponent of the Moog synthesiser (as is Jan Hammer). Donny's work was influenced by 80's musicians such as Alan Vega and Prince. The musician's flashy demeanour was copied from the legendary Tom Jones.

Here's how the musician himself describes his image in one of his 2018 interviews:

"I kind of got the image of the poor lover. That was the idea: to create a fictitious image of a seductive lover in the style of the 80s. The posh lover I could be!"

On the image of the "seductive lover". 

Donnie Benet is an enigma. Clumsy dancing, outdated outfits and bold twinkling eyes create a comical image of personality, but Donnie is not shy about being himself in this role.

"It's all natural. I'm just a natural, freestyle guy."

It's easy to imagine a swarm of women holding signs that read, "Donnie, have a son by me."

So what makes a musician happy in his spare time? The answer is simple: "Cycling, cooking and romance". And of course, romance happens on stage too, if you know what I mean....

Donny Benét photo.
Donny Benét.

"I'm a naive kid feeling nostalgic for the 80s! I really love music with bass and I think music from that period leans towards dominant and melodic bass lines that can really give a song character."

One of Donny's hallmarks is his ability to improvise, which is how he usually begins any creative process.

"For me, what really works is creating a strong rhythmic pattern and a good bass line. Improvisation is the main tool when creating a song. At the end, I layer the synthesiser and guitar parts, after which I add the vocals."

Donny's love of cycling and his amazing passion that literally drives his artistic endeavours is also evident here.

"I've found that my most successful songs were written or changed while cycling. There's something about maintaining a steady pedalling cadence that helps establish a certain tempo or melodic riffs. Also, if I'm still humming or thinking about a song after an hour of riding, that must be 'it'."

Mr Experience album (2020)

Donny Benét Mr Experience (2020) Min
Mr Experience album cover (2020)

"People are riddled with hunger for new material at the moment, so strangely enough it's a good time for everything," he admits.

The release of Mr. Experience, like so many other records released in the midst of a global pandemic, didn't exactly go according to Benét's plan. The culmination of three years of relentless international touring and studio labour, Mr. Experience is Donny Benét's most realised and polished release to date! And his attempts to fail so quickly, frustratingly "Don"...

"A lot of people have a stage name or change it to create a character out of themselves - I've had the nickname Donny for years. I'm sure you enjoy watching James Bond films, but you know Sean Connery isn't really a secret agent, right? It's the power of persuasion and how you present him in your actions."

It's this spirit that underpins the album Mr. Experience, in which Benét eschews the ironic lyricism of his earlier efforts in favour of a fully realised concept record for an 80s dinner party soundtrack. Benét explains that the idea was inspired by cultural benchmarks such as Robert Palmer and Bryan Ferry, with tracks such as 'Second Dinner' and 'Negroni Summer' helping to detail Don's passion for culinary delights - a passion that fuels the way he makes music himself.

"I love to eat, as you can imagine," he says with a chuckle. "I love cooking food and being Italian, so it's important to me. The cool thing about food is that you don't need a lot of ingredients to make something delicious, and music is the same - if you put love, time and care into it, you can create something that a lot of people will enjoy."

However, when it comes to making music, Donny Benét is definitely not lacking in ingredients. He's an avid collector of used and vintage equipment, and his D Zone streams, broadcast live from his home studio, show that he's also a man with great taste in the equipment department.

"I have all the classics like the Oberheim OB-8, Prophet-5, Minimoog, Yamaha DX-7, Fender Rhodes, Linndrum... All the big toys from 1980-84 when this kind of equipment was in its heyday. These are just fantastic sounding instruments."

Despite a kind of mainstream revival, Benét is still aware that his beloved synths and drum machines seem to many to be redundant and archaic compared to the latest VSTs or emulators. He is adamantly against this cliché, especially when discussing the experience of playing synthesiser as someone who may not necessarily be a technically proficient keyboardist.

"It's incredible. I'm very lucky to have inherited some of my father's synthesisers, as well as searching all over the world for rare and unusual equipment. The advantage of using electronic instruments is that you don't need big studios or 'live' rooms to record music. My recently renovated Donnlyand is much more spacious than before, which in turn means I have more room to squeeze in more synthesisers!"

This addiction to wheeling around the planet in search of "something" is not limited to musical instruments. Donny finds a lot of inspiration in travelling. In them, the musician creates rousing, properly charged disco hits.

"I love travelling around Italy by train and composing 'soundtracks' in my mind. Or trying to imagine what it would have been like to live in Italy or Greece in the 70s / 80s."

Although he is modest about his musical prowess, you don't have to be a Berklee graduate to realise Bene's talent on the bass. He has been one of Australia's leading session bassists for the best part of two decades, performing with Sydney's jazz royalty and becoming a mainstay at live shows.

"Back in 1997, when I first started playing bass, there was a show called Rock School that had all these guests on it, like Bootsy Collins and Larry Graham, and there was an episode with Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers, in which he played with ease. and using very short notes," Bene says. "It was one of those early influences that I probably didn't realise, and whenever I pick up StingRay, it's always a touchstone that defines my playing. It's the same when you approach RnB with James Jamerson's sixteenth note - it's always there."

Like most bassists, Benét drew inspiration from playing. His list of main influences includes funk and soul, but there is one influence that looms larger than the rest: Bernard Edwards of Chic, whose style Bene directly channels on the disco-tinged title track Mr. Experience.

"Like any musician, the more experienced and older you get, the more economical you become when playing with what you have to say," Bene explains. "When I was 21, I probably played a million notes a minute and had more chops than a butcher's shop, but now I can find the same amount of enjoyment playing one or two notes per bar. In general, the more you get older and the less you have to say, the fewer notes you need. Besides, I've done it all before! I just wanted to be careful not to repeat myself. That's really important for an artist. You don't want to reinvent the wheel with every album, but you want to get rid of your old baggage and take on new ideas."

Achievements

  • The musician has signed a publishing deal with global independent Embassy Music, part of Wise Music Group.
  • He has been involved in many collaborations, including with Mac DeMarco on his 2019 US tour, where the latter performed in front of 20,000 people at European festivals such as Pohoda in Slovakia, and presented the headliner in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Seattle, Vancouver and Toronto in March 2020.
  • His latest album Mr Experience, which debuted at number 26 on the ARIA Albums Chart, also received a worldwide release in May 2020 via Dot Dash / Remote Control.
  • The single "Konichiwa" was also included on The Weeknd's playlist of 24 songs that inspired the R&B superstar's After Hours album.

  • Embassy account manager Larry Heath discovered Bene when he played bass in Jack Ladder's Dreamlanders band, and accompanied him on his solo works Don't Hold Back and The Don in 2018.
  • Jane English, managing director of Wise Music Australia, said when she first heard his music she fell in love with the smooth disco tunes of 80s...

"I saw a mixture of Tom Jones and Sean Tillman (Har Mar Superstar)," said English. "Then I listened to his songs more closely and realised what a unique and talented songwriter he is."

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