Karl Benjamin Looks at ‘Deep Rooted Insecurities’ on Upcoming EP

Produced by Courage (Joseph Carson), British singer Karl Benjamin’s new single “Friends” suggests a throwback to the soul sounds of yesteryear while simultaneously sounding contemporary.

“I wrote ‘Friends’ so I could talk about one of my biggest fears,” says Benjamin in a press release. “[It’s] losing the people I treasure. It’s a tribute to my late brother, Leon, and to making sure that I don’t take the people I still have around me for granted. I can be a little antisocial sometimes, so I feel like I might not appreciate their presence in my life enough. I know I do, even though I don’t show it all the time. So I hope this song lets my loved ones know, they are truly appreciated. I’m just a bit of an introvert I guess.”

“Friends’, will appear on Benjamin’s forthcoming debut EP DRIST. The title is an abbreviation for “Deep Rooted Insecurities and Shy Tendencies.”

“Being trapped in the house with my own thoughts for so long has really shown me how much this word means to me,” says Benjamin. “I’m an antisocial extrovert that’s had the time to analyse their own DRIST, and in doing so, I’m slowly understanding myself & my cerebellum more each day. I wrote this Ep with my DRIST in mind. I hope it reaches those with similar thought patterns to mine.”

Music has been part of Benjamin’s life for as long as he can remember. 

“My sister was the person that actually inspired me,” he says. “She was doing her piano and I was doing my football, which I was terrible at anyway.”

But when he was young, his older sister was always “belting Alicia Keys,” and it encouraged him to give it a go for himself. After gaining the confidence to explore his own voice, Karl entered a singing competition and won. From there, he worked with one of his teachers on a four-track EP. When he relocated to Brighton for university, he began singing lead in a seven-piece band he describes as “an alternative funk kind of R&B soul… thing.”

Scouted by an agent while at Secret Garden Party for a gig with the ensemble, he modeled for the likes of Vivienne Westwood, Nicholas Daley and Converse. After moving to London, he decided to pursue music seriously.