When necessary, which is actually quite frequent, you can find Ben over at Black Metal & Brews where he talks about metal and beer. And, is there anything better than those two activities combined? No. His reviews are insightful, well-written and pretty inspirational for many of the writers here.

If you like what Ben does, and you should, you can drop by Patreon and toss him $1 a month (or more) since he, you know, volunteers all his time to bring everyone such great writing and such visionary videos. So without further ado, here’s a profile on one of the great people of metal writing.

How did you first get into writing and reporting and have you achieved all your wildest dreams?

I got into writing mostly by accident. When I was a kid, I was fascinated with words and stories. My dad likes to tell me that I read the dictionary for fun when I was little, but I think he’s making that up. Still, he called me “Web” (short for Webster) when I was a smaller guy than I am now and I guess that love never left me. I wrote short fiction when I was a kid, some poetry of varying quality in high school, and found my way into public radio around the age of sixteen. I think that my time with a small broadcasting station where my whole purpose was to tell stories about my life or about current events helped me realize that non-fiction and commentary were of great value and could be just as interesting as the actual creative side.

Writing about music, however, began when I was 25 and unemployed. I was bummed out and bored and decided to write about some tapes I had so that I could one day maybe send my work in to a magazine and get a job. Very unrealistic goal there, but it sounded nice at the time.

Have I achieved my wildest dreams? Hardly. I used to have humble goals, most of which I surpassed a while ago. Now I realize that it’s cute and nice to be humble about one’s aspirations but that things get out of hand when you set the bar too low. Now I’m shooting for the impossible in hopes that I can get close to it. When you see me making a living off of my music writing and buying a home, maybe then I’ll have achieved my wildest dreams, but I can’t say that it sounds too believable from where I’m standing today.

What’s the most you have ever debased yourself to get a promo, guest list or interview that you really cared about?

Absolutely not. I’m weak enough at navigating basic social situations, so I’m definitely not ready to try and throw my weight around. I rarely even get guest listed on my friends’ shows and I have too many promos in my inbox already. I can’t imagine shirking the many blessings I’ve already received just so I can get something else. I’ve definitely contacted labels about getting put on press lists, but they’ve never replied. I think I’m big enough to matter to small artists and labels and small enough to go under the radar for real money makers. With that in mind, I feel it’s my duty to raise up the smaller labels that take note of what I do and not worry too much about the next big thing.

You are world renowned for your ability to pair different beers with different metal albums. Is there a trick to it? What kind of thought process goes into such a pairing?

I grab a tape off the shelf and open my fridge. Sometimes there’s a good fit. Sometimes there isn’t. I know far more about music than I do about beer and it would be expensive and unhealthy to drink enough beer to find the “right” beer for every tape. Instead, I try to find loose threads as I go and weave something together in the moment. Sometimes it works nicely and other times it’s a bit of a mish-mash. I figured the gimmick would die out fast but people seem to take serious interest in it so I’ve actually been trying to step it up lately. I’m currently dealing with a dying phone (which is what I film on) so videos are a bit slow now. My big hope is that I’ll have a new phone or an actual real camera soon so that I can step up the quality and frequency of my videos. Maybe at that point I’ll be able to focus more on what I’m filming and less on how I’m filming it.

What are some of the most important issues (social/political/humorous/etc.) for you and how do you insert those issues into your writing/videos?

Man, this is a question that could go on for far too long. I’ll be as brief as I can be in responding here, but I hope you know I’ve got way too much to say. I guess we’ll start with topics that are relevant to metal and beer. The big evil that I’m working to fight is elitism and gatekeeping. Whether it’s judging people on their taste or deciding that certain people (women, POC, non-binary/trans folks, etc) have less validity to their position in a community, I feel that the things I love often have very exclusive communities which bums me out immensely. I try to use my position as a relatively visible person to remind people to be better to each other and be more cognizant of these issues, but it’s not always easy to put it in there. I’ve got a few topical videos I’ve been thinking of making but I’m waiting until I have better gear to film them, as I really want to do these concepts justice instead of just rambling in front of my phone for five to ten minutes while praying that its battery doesn’t die mid-rant.

What, or who, got you into metal and how old were you? Was your family supportive?

I don’t know if I grew up in a world where that mattered as much. I can’t say if my family cared much about my music, although they definitely were concerned about me bringing home CDs with the parental advisory sticker. I started to get past the nu-metal thing that was all the rage in my adolescence when I was maybe 14 or 15. A friend gave me a copy of Opeth’s Blackwater Park and around the same time I bought samples from Roadrunner and Century Media that helped me explore a bit more of what was happening. Nobody in my life was really that into metal, so I was left to figure it out on my own with a dialup internet connection and whatever magazines I could grab at the mall. I remember not knowing genres worth a damn and just grabbing whatever sounded good. In a way, I kinda miss that purer experience. I just checked it all out and kept what I liked, whether it would’ve fit my normal criteria or not.

What’s the stickiest you have ever been?

Halloween of 2005. I was eighteen and wandering around dressed as a Ghost Buster. Some kind folks egged me from the safety of a passing car. I always thought egging was for buildings but apparently humans have a great wealth of kindness and compassion in them and they decided to help me experience what it’s like to be covered in the ooze of six to eight raw eggs. I didn’t have the foresight then, but these strangers knew that this question would be presented to me one day and they wanted to make it interesting.

What advice do you have for aspiring music critics out there?

Do what feels right to you, but be sure you’re offering something unique. Are you one of hundreds of folks joining the cheerleading squad on a big new release or are you turning people onto something exciting? That’s not to discourage folks from covering big releases, but until you’ve established yourself as someone with an opinion worth hearing, it’s unlikely people will take much note. Find your niche and make it entirely your own. There are a million critics out there since the internet makes it so easy. Consistently strive for improvement or understand that you’re going to be a hobbyist for life.

What are some of your all-time favorite beers? What are some brews that you can no longer get that you really miss?

 I used to be able to answer this question easily, but I’m becoming more excited about what I’ll drink next. I really miss being able to get Russian River’s Salvation more easily, as it was one of the first beers I ever sampled that showed me beer could be complex and diverse. Others I can’t find anymore that I’ve enjoyed are Cigar City’s Tocobaga Red Ale and a lot of the Dogfish Head beers that were more accessible on the east coast. Still, as with metal, the more I learn the less I can pick favorites and the more I just lose myself in how awesome it is to try to explore the options I have at my disposal. I could drink every beer that catches my eye once and still not have enough time to try them all.

Finally, what are some of your favorite not-metal listening favorites?

I feel like this question will be obvious for all thirty or so folks who follow what I do, but I’m really passionate about electronic music, post-punk, krautrock, and new wave. For classics that are always in rotation, I’m really into Talking Heads, Coil, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Amon Duul II, Duran Duran, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Echo and the Bunnymen, Skinny Puppy, Kraftwerk, Solid Space, William Basinski, Sisters of Mercy, Christian Death, and tons of other obvious selections based on what I’ve already indicated. In recent years, I’ve started exploring noise, house, minimal synth, and other genres of that ilk, but I can’t pretend I’m wholly knowledgeable yet. Some newer artists that are really getting me excited are Captive, Body of Light, Foie Gras, Crown of Cerberus, Tanner Garza, E-Sagilla, TALSounds, V. Sinclair, Oil Thief, Drab Majesty, and Moss Harvest. I could let this list go on endlessly, but I’m sure that even this small handful is more than most readers will bother to research. Ask me tomorrow and you’ll get an entirely different response. Keeping up with music is a burden and I love it.

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Thanks to Ben for spending so much of his valuable time on these answers!