aaamusic | On 29, Jun 2011

To write the songs that would become ‘Be Ready’, the second album by Dennis Hopper Choppers (DHC), Ben Nicholls holed up in a house in the desert just outside Tabernas in the South of Spain. There, on a previous visit during an evening of Ducados smoke and Brandy, a family member told Ben the story of a friend of hers who had been murdered by her own son, leaving an empty house whose ownership was in limbo (as it had been left jointly to the daughter and the son, who was now in a mental hospital prison). It was in this house, a stones throw from where the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns such as ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ were filmed, that ‘Be Ready’ took shape; and it was from the quiet of this desert hideout that Ben’s vision for something larger than the one-man-band scene which had embraced the previous DHC incarnation, evolved.

The 12 track album was produced by Ben Hillier (Depeche Mode, Blur) after hearing some dictaphone demos of Ben’s tracks.

No longer riding solo, ‘Be Ready’ sees Ben enlisting a host of musicians including full-time members Nat Woodcock on Vox organ and John Greswell (one of Ben‟s fellow band members from the London gypsy-punk scenesters Menlo Park) on viola and mandolin. A large cast of musicians gathered in a South London studio to cut the bulk of the record live in a two day, non-stop marathon session – only working out what they had got as they went through the tapes over the subsequent days.

Those who got the call included the skronk baritone sax of Pete Wareham from Acoustic Ladyland, Brian Eno sidekick Leo Abraham’s guitar atmospherics, Anthony Rossomandos’ (Dirty Pretty Things/Libertines) trumpet (valves seized from years of abuse) signalling a bedraggled retreat and members of the Bach Choir, recreating the fairytale magic of lost Disney soundtracks.

Playing his first gig between rounds at a boxing match in Bethnal Green’s York Hall, Ben made a name for himself as one of the main characters on the one-man-band circuit, starring in the documentary ‘One Man In The Band’ (directed by BAFTA award nominee Adam Clitheroe). He also created the soundtrack for the Raindance award winning documentary ‘The Ballad Of AJ Weberman’ (directed by Oly Ralfe of the Ralfe Band), about the life of obsessive Bob Dylan fan and ‘garbology’ inventor Weberman.