"In high school I played in bands like everybody else," recalls Ben, "bought my first eight-track quarter-inch machine when I was 15 and started recording my friend's band in my parents' basement while I was a teenager. Going Down Southīut Ben's fortune, as you might have guessed, is the result of many years of hard work in the industry, steadily gaining experience, improving his skills and making the most of his opportunities. When he and writing partner Tony Reyes penned a track called 'Here To Stay', it was thrown onto a demo at the last second and posted off to Christina Aguilera, who selected it for her Back To Basics album. There was also the time Ben resigned from his job as Assistant Engineer at the Cutting Room Studios in New York without having anywhere else to go, only to find himself filling the empty Assistant Engineer's seat at Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records a mere two days later! He stayed on for two and a half years, graduating to engineer, and working on projects by the likes of Puff Daddy himself, Lil Kim, Mase and Carl Thomas.Įven Ben's demo tapes share his gift for timing. There was the time Ben resigned from his job as Assistant Engineer at the Cutting Room Studios in New York without having anywhere else to go, only to find himself filling the empty Assistant Engineer's seat at Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records a mere two days later! No-one could have predicted that the record would have been such a huge success, despite the reputations of those involved, but Ben was there from the start, primarily recording Cee Lo's vocals and instrumentation at his own Maze Studios in Atlanta, then mixing the album at Glenwood Place Studios in Burbank, together with Danger Mouse and his engineer Kentaro Tokohashi. The project, eventually named Gnarls Barkley, produced the worldwide hit single 'Crazy' and acclaimed album St Elsewhere. When rapper and singer Cee Lo Green began a casual collaboration with DJ and producer Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, Ben happened to be working as Green's engineer. You could say that Ben Allen has a habit of being in the right place at the right time. Their combination of Southern soul and hip-hop gave Gnarls Barkley one of the biggest hits of the year, 'Crazy', thanks in part to the mixing wizardry of Ben Allen.
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