Leslie Irene Benson
Leslie Irene Benson, singer-songwriter, Irene & Reed. Photo by Nikki Arnold.
Leslie Irene Benson
[Read her blog here.]
NEW FROM IRENE:
Spring 2011: Irene Salvages Original 4-Track Cassette Recordings into MP3s
Winter 2011: Irene Emerges with Original Book of Poetry
BIO:
A father and mother once asked their 10-year-old daughter whether she wanted to start dance lessons or learn a musical instrument. “I want to be in a band!” she exclaimed. Her enthusiasm for music stuck.
In 1991, Dayton, Ohio-native Leslie Benson began taking lessons on flute, the instrument that would teach her how to read and compose music, how to perform in a live symphonic band and how to march in choreographed patterns across a football field. The flute also introduced her to classical music, rock, pop, folk, doo-wop, blues and jazz, and by the time she entered high school, composing music became a full-time passion.
“I wrote my first song, ‘Xavier,’ an electric guitar-based hardcore rock song sometime around 1997,” Benson says. “My first guitar was a vintage Van Halen-esque black and white striped monster — distorted and totally metal.” Influenced by bands like Bauhaus, Switchblade Symphony, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails, she and her friends formed their first band, Mr. Eyetooth and the Majestic Moose. Though short-lived, the experience introduced her to songwriting and had her begging her parents for an acoustic Gibson Epiphone guitar by Christmas.
“Widening my musical influences, I began collecting as much music as I could,” Benson says.
She listened to everything from her parents’ classic rock and folk records; to Broadway show tunes; to grunge and rock; to punk rock; to EBM and industrial; to glam, pop and disco; to poetic singer-songwriters; to rockabilly, to alt-country and more. With such a wide penchant for music, it was no surprise her interests in music and poetry would blossom into songwriting throughout her teens and into adulthood. Other short-term musical projects Benson formed included The Little Black Box (1998-1999) and The Rainy Parade (1999), formed for her senior talent show, during which time she sang “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane.
Other than playing flute for seven years in school-based bands and joining church choir groups as a teen, Benson did not form her first “real” music project until March 2001, when she founded Burning Veda, a rock band with folk and blues influences, which debuted in a concert at Wright State University’s Rathskeller dive bar. The group eventually performed live for Wright State’s Battle of the Bands at the Ervin J. Nutter Center, on a stage once graced by Cher, Lynyrd Skynyrd and others.
“While Burning Veda’s sound draws to mind the contemporary sounds of 10,000 Maniacs, Lucinda Williams and The Cowboy Junkies, there’s a lot of old-time wisdom in it as well,” wrote Dayton’s Impact Weekly writer Melissa Fowler, in 2002, after the band released its debut album, The Campfire EP. “It’s an emphatic departure from the nouveau garage-rock ‘flavor of the moment.’”
Other than Benson on vocals, guitar and bass, Burning Veda featured Michael St. Christopher McLain on lead guitar, Zach Hohenstein on rhythm guitar and Tim Amrhein, formerly of The Crotch Rockets, on drums. Various guest musicians stood in on bass. Burning Veda played its final show together during the 2002 Dayton Band Playoffs at the Canal Street Tavern. That same year, Benson won the Mudrock student writer’s competition for her original song, “Love in the Same Way,” about embracing diversity. She then took a seven-year hiatus from music to focus on her career in journalism, eventually receiving a bachelor’s degree in 2004 in English from Wright State University, and a master’s degree in journalism from Ball State University, in 2006.
Benson’s tastes in various musical genres and her background in journalism landed her the music editor job at Nuvo Newsweekly from 2006-2007. Steady freelance jobs and assistant editor positions at a Chicago beauty business magazine and other Midwest publications followed. In June 2009, after joining forces with Jason Reed Milner, Benson let go of past demons, forfeited her musical “silence” and jumped headfirst into the musical collaboration Irene & Reed.
