BEN FAUSCH
Photo Credit: Drew Carlson Photography
+ Brass and Gold Society When did you first get you into music? I don’t know if I know of a “first”, it’s always been there. My ma is a singer and retired music teacher. Her dad was a concert violinist and violist that played in the symphonies in Milwaukee and Minneapolis, and also played with the Oxford string quartet on the BBC a lot during WWII. His ma was a ragtime pianist that played piano in a ton of Midwestern silent theaters. You could say music is literally in my blood.
We got a lot of musician’s “real talk” about the life, and he opened up a world of music; introducing me to Mingus, Dirty Dozen, Rebirth, and about 1000 other groups that high school band directors didn’t really show their kids at the time. Especially tubists. Hearing bands do awesome nola covers of hip hop charts, hearing that sousa WOOF from rebirth, those bands showed me the tuba had more to offer than I had ever been shown before. All I wanted to be was a tuba rock star after that.
The first thing I did musically as far as I can remember: I took piano lessons at 6, and do remember the first song I wrote actually. It was called “thunderstorm” and it was just me mashing the low keys on the piano. Foreshadowing for my propensity for low instruments I think!
How would you describe the music that you create? I’ll steal a term my bandleader Tung Pham used for the music we created in his band Gora Gora Orkestar for our collaboration with the Flobots for its NOENEMIES movement.
What instruments do you play? Which do you prefer most? I play tuba first. It’s my 10,000 hour instrument. Got me a full ride in college, and is what I try to get gigs with these days. I also play bari sax, piano, bass, trumpet, guitar, ukulele, bass clarinet, and can rock a Hammond B3 or Rhodes if I have to!
“Brass Hop”
Who inspired you to pursue a career in music? Most likely my high school band director Mike Smith. He was a local jazz drummer originally from south side Chicago who’s now teaching one of the best marching bands in the country out in Ohio. He’s a seriously talented musician and teacher.
That wasn’t the first time I wanted to play the music I write, but the musicians I met through Gora and the music I wrote for them fueled my desire to write stripped down, gutsy, raw hip hop that could be played anywhere. It’s the feeling of grooving with a live marching band, surrounded by people as an MC gets the crowd going, all for a noble cause for the people. In the words of my MC, Illse7en: “It’s magic.”
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