Ben Wright of the Henhouse Prowlers Returns Home and Joins X101

John Harrison: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome back to X 1 0 1. It’s John Harrison in the studio right now with a very special interview. I’ve got the lead singer and head banjo player of the Henhouse Prowler, Ben Wright on the line with me. Ben, thanks so much for calling into X 1 0 1.

Ben Wright: Dude. It’s, it’s, it’s such a pleasure. I’m, you know, I, Homer and Cortland, both are hugely near and dear to my heart and, I’m super excited to be playing.

The Center for the Arts on Friday.

John Harrison: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, definitely, playing the Center for the Arts, later today when the, when this interview’s up. And that’s gotta feel so amazing, for you. For, for listeners at home who may not know, Ben grew up here in Homer and then, you know, later in his life, moved over to, to Cortland and has since moved, moved on and played in over.

30 countries across the world, but you know, is finding his way back here to his hometown. You wanna talk a little bit about, your upbringing? I know you shared a fun fact about exactly where you, you grew up those first 15 years.

Ben Wright: Yeah, so I, I grew, I was born in [00:01:00] 77 and my parents, about six months after I was born, bought the house right behind the building You’re in right there.

The brown and white house on the green. And that was, that was where I grew up. I went to Homer Elementary and then Homer High School. And the green was my stomping ground. And and you know, I moved away when I was in my early twenties, moved to Chicago. But because of that, like I now look back and recognize what an incredible place, Homer.

Was to grow up in, it’s such a beautiful, idyllic little town and, and so I, I, whenever I come home, I always walk through Homer just to kind of relive that time and it just hasn’t changed all that much and that’s beautiful. What’s beautiful about.

John Harrison: Yeah, still such a beautiful town. I think I could get a, a recording of you saying how awesome Homer is so I can play it for my girlfriend.

I keep trying to convince her it’s better than Ithaca.

Ben Wright: Yeah. I mean, I agree. I agree a hundred percent. It’s better than Ithaca because Ithaca’s still 20 minutes away, like 25 [00:02:00] minutes away.

John Harrison: Yeah,

Ben Wright: so you get to go to Ithaca, but then you live in Homer, which is. You know, I think just this purely beautiful American town, that, holds up to this day.

John Harrison: Yeah, for sure. And, a, you know, it’s what the building’s called. It’s also a, a bit of a Center for Arts, center for the Arts of Homers. Always doing some awesome stuff. And of course you’re gonna be playing there later with the Henhouse Prowler. You wanna give, our folks listening a, a rundown on, on the, on the Prowler, what kind of music you guys are gonna be doing, what they can expect from the show.

Ben Wright: Yeah, so we are a, we’re a bluegrass band. And you know, that’s, I, I moved to Chicago in 99 and bought a banjo there not realizing what a beautiful cult center for music and arts Central New York is. It’s funny how it took me leaving to discover that, but, you know, I started a, this bluegrass band,

and now 22 years later, we’ve been fortunate to, you know, we write all of our own ma material, that the whole band as [00:03:00] songwriters and, and we really, perform our own music pretty proudly. But, and when we started we were very much a traditional band, and kind of our experience as touring musicians.

Has, as you said, taken us around the world and that’s helped shape our sound and what we write about. And so, you know, we, we’ve been, connected with the State Department now for over 11, 12 years, something like that. And that’s why we’ve been to 30 countries. We’ve been cultural diplomats with the, the foreign service.

And we just kind of almost accidentally fell into that. And then fell in love with it. And you know, just last year we were in both Kazakhstan and Mexico kind of using music as, the tool that it naturally is to connect people. You can. You can make music with people and not share a spoken language with them.

But music itself is this really powerful language that allows us to connect with people and it’s really what [00:04:00] motivates us and pushes us forward these days as a band.

John Harrison: Yeah, it’s one of those, those great connectors where no matter what country, no matter what people, civilization, time, period, anything, there’s always been music for forever and ever.

So something that you can definitely use to connect, I’m interested to hear, you know, which country? Or, or, or, has there been a country that you visited where maybe the, the reception at first was a little bit icy, a little bit frigid, where it, it took a little bit of warming up, but by the time you were leaving, you just wish you could stay for, for longer and longer.

’cause you know, everyone’s come around to the bluegrass sound and you came around to the sound that this, you know, whichever country it was had and, you know, got a jam band maybe going.

Ben Wright: Yeah. Great. Great question. It’s a hard one to answer, but I can, I can pick one. You know, we’ve spent a lot of time in Central Asia.

Mm-hmm. Which is not a part of the world I knew a whole lot about until we went there, but that’s where Uzbekistan, Kirstan, Kazakhstan is. And we’ve been to all three of those countries. [00:05:00] And, the culture there is fascinating and it used to be. Across that entire region, this kind of nomadic population, and there’s a lot of cultural connections between people there and Native Americans in the US and.

Some historians would say that some of that culture came over on that land bridge into Alaska. Mm-hmm. And populated the Americas thousands of years ago. But, the people there are just so warm and welcoming. And I’ll tell you one of the things we learned early on when we started doing that work was that if we showed up and actually had taken some time to learn music that people might be familiar with.

That the doors just opened for us. And, for Uzbekistan in particular, we learned this, Uzbek old Uzbek folk song from the 1930s. And we learned to sing in that in the language it was originally sung in.

John Harrison: Wow.

Ben Wright: And We made a video before we went and the State Department shared it on the embassy’s [00:06:00] social media.

And by the time we got there we were kind of celebrities. And so I remember, I remember eating dinner in a restaurant. I actually went a couple days early to explore and I was eating dinner in a restaurant and I heard my, heard the band. Behind me because someone was watching the video on their phone.

And it just went massively viral. And, and just everywhere we went, everybody was like, oh my God, it’s the Americans that learned to sing the Uzbek. And it really kind of colored the whole tour for us, and we felt. Rock stars in Uzbekistan.

John Harrison: Yeah. Wow. That’s amazing. It was really cool. Yeah. That, that had to have been such an amazing experience.

And I can, I can, you know, feel just, just how incredible that that must have been and then now, you know. Tonight returning to your, your hometown and, coming back here to, to play the streets where you grew up. Yeah. I wanna ask just a, you know, quick rundown on your, your musical history. I know you bought that first banjo in Chicago.

But, [00:07:00] you know, what was your relationship with music like before then? You know, were you a guitarist or were you just someone who liked to listen? All of a sudden you, you buy the banjo, you spend hours practicing, kind of where, where are your roots?

Ben Wright: Yeah. So, you know, I, in that house behind where we’re, you’re, you’re sitting right now. My, my mom, was a flute player.

John Harrison: Mm-hmm.

Ben Wright: And I was resistant to music, if I’m being honest. I played clarinet in junior high and hated it. And my, but, and so my mom was, you know, encouraging of me, but she said, okay, you don’t have to play an instrument, but you’re gonna be in choir. And I’m so glad she did because that vocals is such a huge part of our band and that made me comfortable with singing.

I, but I never imagined myself as a musician. The only reason I bought a banjo when I moved to Chicago was ’cause I found myself as a early 20, like 22 year olds surrounded by other people playing music. And I was like, I need to. [00:08:00] I need to join these people like it looks like so much fun. And I was like, well, everybody’s playing the guitar.

I’m gonna find an instrument that isn’t the guitar. And it was just happenstance. Like I walked into a music store and they had a banjo on sale. That was $200 and that’s exactly the amount of cash I had on me.

John Harrison: Wow.

Ben Wright: And so I walked out of the Old Town School of Folk music in Chicago with a banjo, and I, I definitely have this moment where I took it home and put it on the couch and looked at it and I was like.

This is gonna be my thing. Like, it just, I just kind of knew it. And I became obsessed with it and I practiced just an insane amount those first few years. So many people who learned to play bluegrass music often do it from a very young age, like from seven or eight years old. And I knew I had some catching up to do.

And so I just. Worked really hard and Chicago has a great music scene and before long I was playing music with [00:09:00] people even though I was terrible. And, and it just became a part, huge part of my life. I never could have predicted that I would’ve. Joined a band that would take me around the world, but I was dumb enough to hope for that kind of thing, I think.

Yeah. And, and it kind of happened, so I feel very fortunate.

John Harrison: Yeah. I mean, and that’s, you know, the, the great part about life is that sometimes you just stumble onto something that you think, oh, this is, you know, maybe this is just gonna be a, a quick thing that I do. Or I’m just doing this for fun. All of a sudden it turns into.

This opportunity to go and be a rock star in Uzbekistan, where, you know, you can never predict something like that, when you’re, when you’re that young. But it’s a great lesson for people, you know, it’s, it’s never too late to pick up something new and, and start and learn.

Ben Wright: A hundred percent. I, I love that. Take on it.

John Harrison: Yeah. Well, well, hey Ben, thanks so much for, for joining me on the phone today. I run it a little short on time. Really quick though. For the, the people listening who are gonna be at the show tonight. Are you bringing anything home from, from any of these many countries that you visited, that you’re gonna be bringing into the [00:10:00] show?

Maybe you’re gonna be singing in a different language or you got a, a traditional song from a different country People can look forward to. Any little hints you can give us for the show.

Ben Wright: Absolutely. We, that is part of what we do. I mean, we do write most of our material, but we play at least one or two songs from our travels and give some historical context about why we’re singing in a language people might not have heard before.

It is, you will absolutely, we probably, I can say pretty confidently, we’ll do the song from Kazakhstan, which is really cool and has its own story behind it, so.

John Harrison: Awesome. Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s, awesome, Ben. Looking, looking forward to the show tonight. Again, folks, that’s the henhouse Prowler. They’re gonna be playing tonight at the Center for the Arts of Homer at 8:00 PM so make sure you’re there.

Ben, thanks so much for joining me on the phone today.

Ben Wright: My, my pleasure, man. It was good talking to you, Harrison.

John Harrison: Yeah, great talking with you. And, you know, good luck tomorrow night.

Ben Wright: Thanks, man. See you.

John Harrison: And for folks listening at home, it’s been John Harrison on X 1 0 1.