Between The Frames – The First Time | Anthemically Uplifting

Between The Frames (aka Ben Jones) is an Alternative Pop and Pop Rock act based in North Yorkshire, UK. Ben has a love for commercial pop music and knows his way about it. He cites influences from the likes of Taylor Swift, The 1975, Picture This, and The Killers. His love for storytelling using anthemic and infectious melodies and rhythms is quite evident in the music he creates. He describes his sound as incorporating the traditional 80’s sound with an Indie Pop / Alternative twist.

His debut single, The First Time, is a brilliant way to encapsulate this. The song starts off like a typical Starship or Europe track, with ethereal, airy tones that lighten the atmosphere. Once the beat kicks in, the vocals break out too. With harmonies that sound angelic and anthemic energy, Between The Frames has a nostalgic feeling about the sound. Moreover, Ben has quite a talent for storytelling. The First Time is a beautiful track that recounts how there really is nothing like the first time when you feel butterflies. The guitar, rhythm and instrumental as a whole are simply sublime. This is the kind of track that you could listen to when you’re in any mood and it will just uplift you.

Between The Frames is slowly building and with time, there will be so much more music to enjoy. However, for the time being, you can listen to The First Time and hear from Ben Jones himself in the interview down below.

When did you decide that you would pursue a career in music and what was the most integral part of it?
So I don’t currently see music as a career just yet, more so just a very fun hobby to wind down from my day job. Music has always been a way for me to escape the real world and relieve myself of any stress, or when there’s something I’m dealing with then I will write a song about it. I’ve been playing guitar and singing since I was really young and I’ve always been a lover of guitar-driven music ever since I watched Greenday’s Bullet in a Bible DVD at the age of 10. Something about watching that DVD sparked something inside of me and I wanted to try and be like Billie Joe and write songs that are catchy but also tell stories in my writing too. There’s something very cathartic about writing a song and sharing it with the world and seeing people enjoy it.

With a love for Pop music, and a great ear for it too, how do you go about creating a track?
The songwriting process for me can go one of two ways, it’s either very simple where I can come up with an entire song concept with a song structure, melodies and lyrics in 20 minutes, then on the flip side, it can be extremely frustrating and I can spend a whole day with nothing because I’m not happy with what’s coming out. That’s when I know I need to take a timeout and do something else.
However, my typical process is either play around on my guitar or midi keyboard, find a chord structure or take a sample I’ve found from Splice, or a loop that sounds interesting and then base the song around that idea. The second, and I have learnt this from watching Charlie Puth write songs, by using voice notes and developing a song around that voice note. I have hundreds of them on my phone of weird noises, melodies, and lyrics and it’s quite a fun and interesting way to write songs.

Now that you’ve released your debut single, The First Time, what do you expect from yourself from this point on?
I don’t expect too much of myself, I’m an unsigned artist, not many people know about me yet so I am hoping to just push the song out to as many people as possible and build my following and fans up. Once I hit the 5000 streams mark on Spotify, I will be releasing my next single and taking it one step at a time.

Is there anything that you’d like to share specifically about The First Time?
The First Time was made during the lockdown and was a very quick writing process, I think the general concept and ideas came within the space of days and I worked with a producer in LA called Samael Orozco who is an incredible producer. This is the first single released from an upcoming EP that tells a mini-story of two characters and the feelings and emotions you get when you meet a new love interest. It’s one of my favourite songs I’ve written so far.

How easy/difficult is it for someone, in your experience, to break out into the industry?

Personally, I think it’s pretty tough to break out in the music industry, you have to work extremely hard, especially when you’re unsigned to market yourself properly and get your music out there and heard. Sometimes you can be incredibly lucky when a song may blow up and I think that apps like Tik Tok, Instagram and Facebook when used properly can definitely help an artist get themselves out there.

Where do you see yourself going from here?

Gideon Foster writes a melody to his own “Prophecy”, his debut album release

I will be releasing a couple more singles this year, whilst finishing the EP, I will then release the EP (Date TBA), build up my fan base then try to get a band together and go and play some shows :).

Be sure to stream The First Time and add it to your playlists today!