Ben Smethurst

Ben is a multi instrumentalist and veteran writer producer & remixer on the global house, soul and dance scene for over 20 years.  His productions are musically dense featuring live instrumentation and orchestral arrangements.

His musical influences are vast and span many genres. His mother is a classically trained pianist and harpist and comes from a long line of musicians. He grew up in a sonically rich and eclectic house, with music ranging from early Stax and Motown artists such as Otis Redding and Stevie Wonder, Carole King, through to prog rock bands such as Pink Floyd, Genesis, Black Sabbath, Rush and 70’s electronica such as Tangerine Dream. There were many instruments around the house pianos, organs, mono synths and he finally settled on guitar as a main instrument.

He started playing as a lead guitarist in rock bands at a very young age in the North West & Midlands in the mid 80’s early 90’s and had recorded his first studio sessions by the age of 16 in Cavalier studios with legendary Island Studios engineer Phil Ault (Bob Marley. 10CC, John Martyn). Soon after he moved to Derby to join a young rock band called ‘Panic In Detroit’ to pursue music full time.

They recorded a number of sessions at Rich Bitch Studios in Birmingham with Engineer Paul Talbot (Steel Pulse, Ruby Turner, Black Sabbath, ELO) and started driving towards a major deal, having radio play on the BBC Radio 1 and supporting heritage rock acts such as UFO and new touring acts over from the US such as Driving and Cryin’. In the early 90’s Nirvana and the grunge wave hit MTV and melodic rock was no longer in vogue. Ben left the band to study Computing Science at the University of Derby.

It was while at Uni in 93 he met a circle of great friends who loved music and was exposed to the early sounds of US House and Garage from DJs such as Frankie Knuckles, David Morales, Tony Humphries as well as early Balearic & Progressive House sound being championed Sasha, David Seaman & Ian Ossia. Derby was at the epicentre of the emerging club scene with nights such as Progress at the Wherehouse, Renaissance, The Dial along with the free party scene DIY / Smokescreen. Influenced by these new sounds he started to build a basic DIY home studio experimenting with synths, drum machines and sampling using an Amiga, learning how to program and arrange electronic music .

In early 2000 he secured his first productions on MN2S, Kingstreet, BMG and several other UK indie house labels and has continued to release on his own label Expressive Records / PO3Music. Releasing under many alias’s and working with leading artists within the genre such as Vanessa Freeman, Mike Lindup, Mike Patto, Toni Economides, Heidi Levo, Kaidi Tatham, Atjazz, Jessie Wagner, Barbara Tucker, Michael Watford, Roland Clark, Shena Winchester, Jon Cutler, David Morales, Larry Gold, Usher.