Benefits – Constant Noise

Interview with Kingsley Hall & Robbie Major
Words: Jimi Arundell

Teesside noise outfit Benefits made an explosive debut with Nails — a furious collision of abrasive electronica and aggro spoken word, tearing into the rising tide of toxic nationalism in Brexit Britain.

Led by Kingsley Hall and Robbie Major, the ever-shifting collective now returns with Constant Noise, a bold dive into ’90s beats, indie sleaze, and ambient electronica. The album features collaborations with Zera Tønin of Arch Femmesis on lead single “Land of the Tyrants” and Peter Doherty on “Relentless.”

We caught up with Kingsley and Robbie to discuss their new direction, recording process, and why you should never write songs for Zane Lowe.

Q: Has it streamlined the sound at all?

Robbie:
I think in some ways it has, because the recordings we did for the last album were done remotely. I would send ideas between me and Kingsley, so it was sort of a progression of that.

On Constant Noise, everything that’s on the album that I’ve recorded has been done in this room.

Whereas when I get to a studio, I just shit myself. You just think, “Everything I'm doing is costing money, and everything I'm doing is shit.” When you're just in your house, it's free. The only time wasted is Kingsley’s time when he's got to listen to ten minutes of unlistenable noise — but he's quite happy doing that.

Kingsley:
I don't think we're musicians. Robbie, obviously, is very good at playing synthesisers and making noise and playing the violin, but we're not proper musicians — and I think we use that to our advantage where we can. I know that’ll piss off people who make “real” music, because we don't do that.

We’ve done the whole sitting in grotty practice rooms, smoking endless amounts of cigarettes, listening to the same fucking song for two hours, then loading everything back into the car and going home. We just haven't got the patience anymore to do that.

Now Robbie will send me an email on a Thursday afternoon and I’ll go, “That’s pretty good,” write some lyrics to it, and it’ll be done by Friday. And if I think it’s shit, I just delete it.

Q: It sounds like you’ve had the opposite experience to the ‘difficult second album’ trap. Removing the things that cause imposter syndrome — the stress, the financial pressure — and just saying, “This is us.” Has that helped you focus?

Robbie:
The imposter syndrome is still very much there. But I think that's there with everyone, isn’t it? If you haven't got that, then you’re probably a deluded maniac.

Financially, we’ve still spent all the money, even though we don’t have big studio costs. Everything's still very expensive, even with a no-frills way of doing it.

Kingsley:
James Welsh and James Brown have been invaluable to creating this as well. They understand our way of working. They’ve become collaborators — and we’ve never even been in the same room together. They’re virtual collaborators in that sense.

With the second album thing, you’ve got to understand that, as successful as the first record was — with critical acclaim in certain circles (because I know in other circles it was derided) — we’re still not a massive band. We’re not a big deal.

So we haven’t got to appease a huge audience expecting a certain product.

Q: Benefits have now been whittled down to just two members. What prompted this move, and how has it affected the band’s dynamic?

Kingsley:
It’s not by design. It’s not some Machiavellian plan. Benefits, essentially, is just me and Robbie — and looking back, it always has been.

When the pandemic hit, we weren’t allowed to leave the house other than for one walk a day or to go to the shops — whatever the fuck it was. We didn’t have the outlet to get together anymore. So we had to find our own solution for a psychological release.

Despite the fact you’re sitting in your loft eating baked beans and thinking vodka was a cure for COVID — which wasn’t clever.

Eventually, we started sending each other electronic music and spoken word ideas. That’s kind of the embryo of what we wanted it to be.

So in a way, what we’ve become now is just us going back to the original idea.