#65: David Benjamin Blower - Writing Narrative Music, Processing Hope and Grief Through Art, and Leaving the Creative Process Open to Chaos

David Benjamin Blower is a prolific musician, a writer of theological books, a podcaster, and an activist from Birmingham, UK. His writing, like his music, is characterized by its political and religious vision and by its apocalyptic imagination. His new book, The Messianic Commons: Images of the Messiah After Modernity, is out now through SCM Press and his most recent album, Kindness is Solid Stone Violence is a Heavy Loan to Pay is available on all platforms.In this episode, David and I talk about writing narrative-driven music which is something that, in my humble opinion, he’s really, really proficient at. Back in 2017, he released a concept album about the biblical story of Jonah that combined a folky-acoustic sound with sea shanties and narration from legendary theologian and writer N.T. Wright (who wrote a biography of the apostle Paul that was my favorite read of the year). David explains the backstory of the album and what he did when the whole thing got deleted from his hard drive before he was able to release it. We also talk about how his songs form, the tension between grief and hope that undergirds his music, and the way that he goes about expanding his sonic palette when he wants to change his sound. And of course, it wouldn’t be an episode of Always Choose Orange without some sort of astounding story or detail — at one point, David talks about a five-star review he received that said he sounded drunk throughout the entire album and he also shares the fascinating story about how the sound of his keys jingling made it onto the outro of his song “No Debts, No Masters”. Website: https://davidbenjaminblower.comSubstack: https://davidbenjaminblower.substack.com/Bandcamp: https://benjaminblower.bandcamp.com/music FOR EXCLUSIVE CREATIVITY TIPS, MUSINGS, AND EXERCISES, SUBSCRIBE TO THE ALWAYS CHOOSE ORANGE NEWSLETTER: https://www.alwayschooseorange.com