Ben Wright Smith Announces Album Tour; Shares Behind-The-Scenes Studio Diary

Melburnian troubadour Ben Wright Smith has just released his debut album, The Great Divorce, today announcing plans to hit the road for 20 shows in support of it.

Recorded in Nashville, produced by Holy Holy's Oscar Dawson and featuring Ali Barter, Tyler Millott (Husky) and Jesse Williams (Leah Senior), Smith says of the record, "As we keep performing I think new elements and sounds begin to take hold. These ones tell the story of how I was feeling at the time."

Having already been nominated for an APRA Award as well as receiving a grant from Australia Council, Smith's 2017 is off to a huge start when he gets the tour started on 20 April. 

Smith has offered up a handful of photos to theMusic.com.au that document his recording journey. Take a look below.

Here is an old photo of us in Nashville at an early recording session. While in Nashville, we began sketching what eventually became the record. On the right Mark Moffat offered to produce a handful of songs I had written and that's how it all got started. Mark had produced bands like The Saints, Yothu Yindi and The Divinyls so as far we were concerned we were dealing with Australian royalty. In the middle is Steve Bowman who was a mate of Mark's who played drums on those early sessions. Steve had been kicking around with bands like Counting Crows and Third Eye Blind and was such a sick drummer. I still have the sessions at my house and listen to them sometimes. It was a good time. 

Here is us playing in Nashville. Jesse is in the back there playing the 12-string Danelectro which he'd just bought for a bargain at the second hand vintage guitar store. It is such a cool little guitar and it's all over the record. That thing rings out '60s Euphoria but is a nightmare to tune. Over and over again. 

The Aviary Studios in Collingwood became my home for about a year where me and Oscar (Dawson) started recording these songs. Here we are with the whole gang. We recorded 99% of this record in this little room together. We recorded live with the drums in the mixing room and had our amps in closets and other places in the studio so the tracks wouldn't bleed too much.

Here I am with Ali Barter getting some air outside the Aviary. Ali was in and out of the studio a lot and she sings on a bunch of the record. I've known Ali for ages singing songs around town and she's become a great friend. I always loved singing with Ali and if I had my way she'd probably sing on all of my songs. Our good friend Ian Laidlaw is a photographer who lives in the area and he took this Polaroid photo of us outside the studio one day.  

Here is Oscar looking like he's deep in the zone. Oscar is a hell of a guitarist so he was shredding pretty hard that day. I'm not sure if he knows that I took this photo. 

This was taken during the deep winter of Melbourne when we recorded a lot of the record. Here's me at the helm tracking while Oscar laid down his guitar parts. It was nicer in the studio than outside so we became pretty productive at this point.

Here's me in my natural environment. Most of the time we spent on the record involved a lot of waiting and sitting around eating pizza and drinking beers. I think here I'm listening to the band tracking while I chow down on a sneaky slice. I'm probably reading some dumb Buzzfeed article off the computer.

Here's me trying to play Toxicity by System of A Down on Andy's Drums. Unfortunately I'm not a very good drummer. I bought a drum kit once when I was a teenager but it drove everyone crazy and I had to sell it.