Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben Green.
Hi Ben, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I got started in music early, playing in garage bands with my friends through middle school, and eventually ended up starting a band with my best friend during my senior year of high school called Fairweather. We somehow ended up recording a demo that got us signed to a record label we loved and started recording records and touring.
It was through this that I really got into recording music. The recording process always seemed to be the most wide open in terms of possibilities. You could make an entire world with just a few instruments. I learned a lot about recording through those sessions where I was the artist and started recording bands in my spare time. Eventually, I was part of a few different studios opening throughout the DC area, and in 2017 opened Ivakota, a big studio in Capitol Hill, DC, and have been operating ever since.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
NO. Lots of setbacks, delays, and ego-checks. While playing music regularly when I was younger, I was lucky to be in a band with super levelheaded and wonderful people, so I never struggled interpersonally at all within that group, but we faced our fair share of difficulties, many of our own design, trying to do things exactly as we saw fit. As a producer and recordist, I’ve been fortunate – just one real extreme learning process that never ends. I can’t explain it exactly, but careers like this, artists and producers, they often play into the “self-made” trope of the super smart and talented people making their own way against the odds. I’ve never ever felt like that – I always feel hyper-aware of the luck of the context anyone who does this kind of work exists in. Where there are people who just happen to like your work, or there is a musical infrastructure or community who can support someone who does what I do, who is willing to put trust into someone like me. No one makes it by willpower really, they make it because of the things and people that surround them.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
I’ve been recording musicians for nearly 20 years around DC, Maryland and Virginia. In 2017, I opened up a beautiful recording space in Capitol Hill called Ivakota which is a really unique and comfortable studio. Lots of recording studios are dauntingly uncomfortable and sterile for musicians to record in – and this space is very relaxed and open. People say it feels more like a lodge than a studio – a lodge filled with all kinds of fun recording gear. We do audio production, host workshops, teach engineering classes, and it’s also a great spot for video recording. I’d say one of the things I’m most proud of is watching people I’ve worked with for years, sometimes as children, grow to be super successful artists with vibrant and exciting careers of their own. I can’t quite describe it.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
Persistence. Make what you do as a practice a thread that connects most of your life, and make decisions that have nothing to do with money. The best things I ever did had nothing to do with trying to do “business”.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ivakota.com
- Instagram: ivakotarecording
Image Credits
Marissa Long Cassandra Marie
