Ben was inspired to pick up a guitar as a young teenager after watching his Uncle Mick play songs at family get togethers. He very quickly started performing with Uncle Mick in a band called The Yogs playing mostly traditional irish songs. The Yogs performed regularly and following a family members diagnosis of cancer they turned their mission towards raising money for cancer research and raised over £20,000 through their events.

At 16 Ben joined a rock n roll covers band called The Meanwood Valley rockers where he a lot more live experience and expanded his repertoire or popular songs. In 2018 alongside drummer Steve “Wee-Man” Nixon and bassist Andy “The Cake” Johnson” Ben would form The Blind Dead McJones Band. Originally intended as a Blues-Rock band they quickly developed an original sound and reputation as an exciting live act. They toured extenisvely, released 2 E.Ps and 2 albums of orignal material and recieved widespread acclaim including a nomination for “Best Original Song” at the 2012 British Blues Awards. The Blind Dead McJones Band still perform together but nowhere near as regularly as they used to.

In 2013 Ben started delivering community music projects which became his main occupation. His first project was helping a group of yound offenders work towards Arts Award qualifications. After this project a charity that knew Ben through the band invited him to help with a music project they were developing in Wetherby Young Offenders Institute, Ben ended up leading this group for 2 years. Ben was then recruited for a project delivering music in Adult prisons across the country, a project he is still proud to be a part of. Alongside these projects Ben delivered community songwriting courses and a lot of work with mental health groups both in the community and in secure units.

In 2015 one of the mental health projects Ben worked on commissioned him to create his own piece of work about mental health. This resulted in his first solo album “Miserabelia” in 2016, an album all about depression. It was around this time Ben also met Siobhan Donnelly when they worked together on a mental health project. They found they had similar influences and shared a fondness for murder ballads so started writing together and in 2017 they released the album “Shallow Roots”.

In 2017 Ben also began work on The Swan Song Project. After the death of his Grandma, Ben had regretted not writing a song with her. At this point he had significant experience of writing songs with people in difficult circumstances so decided to see if peole facing the end of their lives might like the chance to write their own song. The idea quicly look off, In 2018 it became a registered charity and it has only grown since then. Ben has now personally writted over 100 Swan Songs with people across the country and leads a team of songwriters delivering this work on a regular basis. To find out more visit The Swan Song Project’s website – www.swansongproject.co.uk.

Ben is incredibly proud of the work of The Swan Song Project. He did find it hard to continue writing his own material when the project was taking so much of his creative energy so decided to put his own writing on hold. Earlier in 2023 Ben got started writing again and is about to release his first collection of new songs in 6 years. The new album is called “You Will See The Light” and will showcase Bens development as a songwriter. It will be available late 2023 and he is very excited to share it with you all.

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Below are some links to Interviews with Ben as well as some of his awards over the years:

https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/theredbulletin/ben-buddy-slack-swan-song-project

https://inews.co.uk/author/ben-buddy-slack

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/people/i-have-learnt-so-much-about-life-and-death-really-3306534

https://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/good-causes/swan-song-project-one-last-track