What happens when the unstoppable force of our dreams meets the immovable object of reality? It’s unclear… but Ben de la Cour is hell-bent on finding out.

Raised in Brooklyn, Ben was playing New York City dive bars with his brother a full decade before he could legally drink. A high-school dropout and former amateur boxer, he received his education by listening to his parent’s record collection – full of everything from Bob Dylan and The Everly Brothers to Black Sabbath and Lynyrd Skynyrd. At the tender age of nineteen he spent a year in Havana training with members of the Cuban national boxing team before moving to London with his brother to revive their doom metal band, Dead Man’s Root. They lived in a van and toured around Europe until 2008 when de la Cour returned to the states with a head full of softer, bruised, but no less intense acoustic songs later described by No Depression as “brimming with urgent authenticity”.

Following a short stint in Los Angeles, Ben passed through New Orleans on tour and decided to stay. He released Ghost Light in 2011 but was soon on the move again, this time winding up in Nashville where he crashed on friends’ couches and worked as a doorman until finding his footing.

De la Cour’s second album Midnight in Havana came out in 2016 on Flour Sack Cape Records and was met with critical acclaim from outlets like The Huffington Post, No Depression, and The Nashville Scene, with one journalist dubbing him “a vitriolic Leonard Cohen”. That same year he won the prestigious New Folk Competition at the 2016 Kerrville Folk Festival.

“I like stories that are specific and I don’t like them to be preachy” Ben continues. “If I think I’m being preached to or if there’s an agenda at play – I’m out of there. I think a lot of people feel that way. When I say I think this album is about dissolution, I mean it on a personal level. How do we cope with this feeling of being lost and unmoored? What happens to relationships when they fall apart? What happens when the unstoppable force of our dreams meets the immovable object of reality? Well, what usually happens is that it turns out our dreams aren’t quite as unstoppable as we once thought!”

In 2018 Ben de la Cour released The High Cost of Living Strange, eight tracks of his self-proclaimed Americanoir style – weaving what Maverick describes as “rich and uncompromising narratives of lyrical fierceness and rough beauty” with a unique blend of instrumental backing and the occasional glimpse of gallows humor. Along with his unique perspective towards songwriting and his lyrical attention to detail, de la Cour has a veracious studio ideology; live tracking, minimal overdubs, no headphones, one room, and just a couple of days. “I’m like a bargain basement Cowboy Jack Clement!” he jokes.

The High Cost of Living Strange debuted at #22 on the Euro Americana Charts and received high praise from American Songwriter, No Depression, NPR and Daytrotter amongst others as well as fellow songwriters and sometimes touring partners such as Adam Carroll, Jon Dee Graham and Rod Picott. Ben de la Cour currently spends over a hundred days a year on the road touring the U.S, Canada and Europe.

RICHARD INMAN is quickly becoming a staple of Winnipeg’s folk and country scene. With a rich baritone voice and delicate musical touch, he crafts mature songs that feel at once deeply familiar and bracingly fresh.