Ben as played and toured around the world with Gringos Locos, Leningrad Cowboys and Guitar Slingers in the 80’s-90’s. But is probably more known for his solo work, lead playing with Los Bastardos Finlandeses and 4 years with Wishbone Ash (2001-2004).
His 3 first CDs were all instrumental and mirrored his admiration of Jeff Beck, Steve Morse, Gary Moore and Joe Satriani. Without copying you can hear the influence on the instrumental songs ranging from driving rock to melodic epic ballads and even some progrock.
In -95 he recorded the signature tune SlapShot for the World Ice Hockey Championship which was held in Finland that year. It got him a lot of airplay and many of his other faster instrumental songs were used on different sport shows as far away as Japan.
Always putting songs and melody first he calls himself a “feel player”. “If I can’t feel what I’m playing no matter what style it is it’s not worth playing, solos are cool but the song and melody always comes first”
In -97 he released his first album with vocals E.G.O (Electric Guitar Oriented) which featured the hit song “Home” which still remains in the live set today and was rerecorded on the 2013 Handmade CD.
The next album All I want to Be proved that he could right very catchy melodic rock songs aimed for radio and also hard grooving rock songs that really could rock a live crowd. He toured around Europe and the US supporting Lynyrd Skynyrd, Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple and Wishbone Ash (he was later asked to join WA in 2001 by Andy Powell who was very impressed with his playing).
CD nr 3 consists of live performances going back to -95 all the way to 2003. This was released as “The Live Experience” in 2004 but like the other material hasn’t been available for many years.
This really is a triple feast for any fan of excellent guitar driven rock!
