Ben Kessler on "Cruise Control" — TWENTY MINUTES LATER

Ben Kessler’s “Cruise Control” is the perfect driving themed song to add to all of your “drivers license” inspired playlists. Kessler’s voice shines on this track as the singer discusses his feelings of uncertainty and hopes for the future. I got the chance to ask Ben a few questions about his latest release. Read our interview below. If you’re driving, make sure to pull over!

HOW ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO PREPARE FOR THE RELEASE OF “CRUISE CONTROL?”

I’m doing well. Can't complain. The song is mostly out of my hands now. Right now, I’m chopping up the music video into 10,000 different parts. I want to make sure everyone has it for press and also that people are excited about it. But it’s also a lot of waiting.

WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR HEAD WHEN YOU FIRST GOT THE IDEA FOR THE SONG?

I had the concept for “Cruise Control” written down in my phone for a while. I would bring it up in sessions with different people, but no one really wanted to touch it. Then, I was in a zoom session with my friend Jonah Shy, who’s a super talented writer and producer based in New York. Jonah is really good at distilling my ideas down into something simpler and more musical. He thought it was a cool concept and so we wrote the song together in April. It was my last day of classes. After that, I didn't really touch it for a while. I liked the lyrics, but I hated the production. Then, when I was starting on stuff for my upcoming EP, I just started over with the production and finished the song in October.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN PRODUCING YOUR OWN MUSIC?

Good question. I used to not like to call myself a producer. I guess I started saying that over the past couple years because that’s when I really dug into producing for myself. Before then, I was competent, but not really good enough to do anything more than a demo. I’ve always loved producing. I still have the same set up now as I did when I first started making music. I just never called myself a producer.

WALK ME THROUGH YOUR STUDIO SET UP.

My setup is in the exact same room where I was making music in high school and middle school. I still have the same speakers I've had for five or six years. I just upgraded my interface, so that's a little nicer. But the rest is the same. It's not fancy at all. I literally just have a mic, interface, and computer.

BACK TO WHEN YOU WERE PITCHING THE SONG TO JONAH, WHAT DID YOU SAY TO HIM WHEN YOU WERE EXPLAINING THE CONCEPT OF “CRUISE CONTROL?”

It really just started as an idea. I didn't have the emotion behind it. I was about to graduate school and it was right when the pandemic was starting. Everything was falling apart and I was super anxious about everything. I was entering the real world when there was no world to enter into. I thought it would be cool to write about that. “Cruise Control'' is about feeling like you're on autopilot. When I wrote the song, I felt like I had no idea where I was going. As a student doing music, I was going through a lot of extremes. I was going out on the weekend, then being a student Monday through Wednesday, and then making music on Thursday and Friday. I had this desire to find some sort of balance. So that was the very complicated pitch I made. Jonah helped me make it make sense.

THE SONG DEFINITELY HAS THAT FEELING OF UNCERTAINTY, BUT THERE IS ALSO SOME SENSE OF CERTAINTY AT THE SAME TIME—LIKE YOU KNOW THAT EVERYTHING IS GOING TO WORK OUT EVENTUALLY. DO YOU HAVE ANY GOALS OR THINGS YOU WANT TO FIGURE OUT THIS YEAR?

What’s funny is that I feel like the song is so much more relatable now. I just moved home. I was planning to stay in Nashville and then my lease was up, so now I’m home and waiting to leave. It's going to have to happen at some point this year. The thought of getting out and being a real human in a very real and slowly opening world is becoming way more top of mind. Musically, I've never released a full project, and that is certainly going to happen this year.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE LYRIC FROM “CRUISE CONTROL?”

The line where this song really clicked for me was, “I want fame, but I don't want to show my face.” Until then, the song was very much about other parts of my life. That line is what made “Cruise Control” make sense for me. For whatever reason, it just grounded it in something that was very present for me, which is my music. I didn’t really realize how much I was trying to find balance in that part of my life. I began to think a lot about how I’m not a different person in my songs that I am in real life, but who I am isn’t fully captured by my music all the time. I think it takes time to fill that gap, but I was feeling really anxious about building a world for listeners. Maybe it was a little bit of impostor syndrome.

DO YOU THINK YOU’LL FEEL RELIEVED WHEN THE SONG IS RELEASED?

I hope so! I always hate release days because I have these ideas of what I want a song to do. I think maybe it’s because I'm not performing them that makes it feel like there’s a missing piece. I've tried to quantify success, but that’s a slippery slope. I just hope people like it. I’m excited to get it out because I'm proud of it and I hope people will enjoy it.

IS THERE AN OVERALL MESSAGE YOU WANT LISTENERS TO TAKE AWAY FROM THE SONG?

I hope there’s a feeling of relief that comes through. I wrote it as an affirmation for myself when I was feeling lost and directionless as a way to tell myself that I’d make it home. I hope that if listeners are feeling lost, that there’s some affirmation for them too.

YOU CAN LISTEN TO “CRUISE CONTROL” ON STREAMING SERVICES LIKE SPOTIFY AND APPLE MUSIC. MAKE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE TO TWENTY MINUTES LATER AND FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM TO STAY UPDATED ON FUTURE POSTS.