Ben Howard stopped by the American Songwriter office for a session performance while on a recent trip across the pond from his native United Kingdom. Ben talked to us about his distinctive lap/slap style of playing and his writing inspirations, and played a few songs from his self-released EP These Waters. We look forward to hearing more from this talented young songwriter.

What was the song “London” about?

About London… [Laughter] I think it’s like London from a country standpoint.

It seemed like that…

I used to have a girlfriend up there and I’d travel up there on the train and it’s kind of about the whole place –it just reminds me of that…. it’s just life, I’m not a big fan of the city. So it’s just like the strain of the city on me.

Do you live in London now?

No, I still live down in the South. So many people have tried to get me to move to London but I’m staying at home, I’m staying in the country. It’s just more country compared to here. London’s supposedly miles away but it’s like three hours, four hours on a train, which is like “up the road” here, isn’t it? [Laughter]

What do you think of Nashville?

Great. We’ve had a really cool few days actually. It’s just quite chilled down here, and I haven’t been to America too much and it just seems nice, you know. The people are friendly and it’s quite relaxed.

It’s kind of a good mix. It’s not as big as like London or New York…

Yeah, exactly, there’s still stuff going on…

It’s the country in the city.

Yeah, it’s a cool place. You’ve definitely got something going on down here.

Cool, so it sounds like you might be coming back?

Yeah, yeah, at some point hopefully, yeah. Definitely, we’ll have to see, yeah!

How did you learn to play guitar like that?

I saw a guy do it at a gig once and I just wanted to learn.

And you just started writing songs, playing like that?

Yeah, it’s quite simple, you know. You can start off just going [plays a rhythm]…

Can you give us a lesson?

[Plays a complex rhythm] It’s like you just get some beats and, I tend to drop in to drum and bass a little bit, where it’s like: ‘umm-umm-keh-umm-umm-keh’ [Ben plays a fast drum and bass rhythm while sounding the beat]

Do you play drums at all?

No, I think I just used to be a hyperactive kid. [Laughter, as Ben plays a drum beat on his guitar]. I was always getting told to stop playing with things.

Good that you found the guitar!

Yeah, exactly!

It’s an even better find…

No, no that’s true.

Do you get calluses on your fingers?

I sort of grow little lumps here and there, yeah. But it’s all right. It’s nothing too deformed. I’ve got slightly bent fingers anyway. [Shows interviewer]

Yeah, little bit… No big deal.

Now, I’m wearing the rings on the wrong hand though I should though, like, I might start changing over so I put some sort of padding there or otherwise I’ll just have this massive lump on thumb…

It seems like your rhythm hand, you’re kinda going like this (interviewer makes shape with his hand) holding that in and…

It’s like a ‘boom-boom-kah’…

Yeah and when you’re strumming, it’s like this hand is flicking like that and most people use these fingers to pick and you’re really using…

I’m a big fan of the whole ‘slap back’ sort of sound when you strum and slap.

How did this start? I mean, like did you go through different phases of like, ‘Oh maybe I’ll put it flat’ or did it evolve? Was it just one day you got up and it was like, ‘This is cool, I’m having fun doing this!’ and it was as good as it is right now?

Yeah, well obviously it’s developed, umm… when I started I was shit. [Laughter] It’s just one of those things, like, I kind of, the rhythm sorta felt natural and sort of, I started mixing it up a bit more so I’ve got different rhythms going on.

What about those bends? That’s like what a steel player does.

It’s mostly just bass lines, probably if you watch the video it’s like [plays three chords]

Right…

So drop tuning’s really helped and then you just fill in the bits and kind of a natural progression. You get used to playing it like that rather than like that… just ridiculous really but my thing is not to get too tech on the guitar stuff and write songs out of it, you know, like, make it functional rather than showy, and then I do the odd little crazy instrumental bit… just for the craic.

A little Van Halen… [Laughter]

But most of the time you can keep it really stripped back and it’s just about sitting down and writing a tune on your own going, ‘Right, I’ve a guitar, I haven’t got a bass player, I haven’t got a drummer… So if I do (plays three chords) ‘that, that, that’ then you’ve got like a little drum machine going. No it’s good fun though, people seem to like it and I enjoy it. People always come up to me in America so far and just go: (suspected American accent) ‘Oh my God, have you seen August Rush?’ Because there was the film, August Rush, where a little kid going (plays the guitar)

Oh, he’s doing the…

And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I was doing it first.’ [Laughter] But they’re still, ‘Is that where you learnt it?’

‘The film’s about me…’

[Laughter] Yeah! That was actually me!

Stay tuned for the video from this session.