That’s when Benjamin knew he
needed help.
“There’s only so much dope you
can shoot before it just becomes
background noise … It was
medicine to get me through the
day … When I went to rehab, I
didn’t think it was going to work.
But I’m grateful I made the deci-
sion to go that day.”
In the intro to one of his songs,
“Liquid Fentanyl”, Benjamin
admits, “When I first went to re-
hab, I was afraid I wasn’t going to
be able to make music anymore
‘cause I made music about doin’
drugs for so long, I didn’t know
if I’d be able to do it without get-
ting high. It took getting clean for
me to realize that expression and
creativity is the drug I’ve been
searching for all along. I’m still a
junkie. I just get high off of music
now”
“I don’t just make music, I come face to
face with who I am as a person … I used
to write songs that I thought would get
me musical clout, that people would like,
and that people would listen to. I wasn’t
writing music for me, I was writing it
for other people to listen to. And then
I stopped doing that. I started writing
music purely as an expression of what
was going on inside of me …And re-
gardless of any reaction I got from it,
regardless of anything anyone told me, I
felt better. I felt lighter. Because just like
I did with the song that I wrote when I
was 16 - the classical song - I had put a
piece of my soul on paper and out into
the universe. And regardless of how
many views it got, how many people re-
blogged it, I was in it for me.
And then I started writing my
piano-raps. I never thought I’d be able to
integrate piano and hip hop together. I
always had two separate sides. But, then
it just came together in this organic fash-
ion … And then I came up to Vermont
- and through a pure act of serendipity
- a friend that I had from my years in
coming up to visit the property my dad
built, comes out of the blue to visit me
on the last night I’m up there in early
November last year. I played a piano-rap
for him, and he’s, like, ‘This is really cool,
you ought to meet my friend.’ I [went]
to the studio and through no push or
willpower or act of my own, I found
myself telling my story in a gorgeous
studio with an incredibly beautiful
piano and a microphone. I’m not
trying to be cool, embellishing,
whatever, I’m just telling it how it is.
I do personally believe in God, but
regardless of any of that, what got
me back into music was using mu-
sic as a tool to communicate my pas-
sion and the feelings on the inside of
my head. Because when I was using
music as a tool to become popular,
to get clout as you know the kids are
calling it these days, to get
SoundCloud
followers,
to
get views, to get girls, to get
whatever … That was corny - because
people could hear that the only
intention in my voice was advancing
my own materialistic agenda. The
second that I made it real … about
the struggle I’ve been through, about
the real negative and positive things
I was experiencing, my music started
to take a different tone. It started to be
something that I was proud of on a
visceral level, and that’s how I got to
the place I’m at right now: CLEAN.”
For more about Benjamin Lerner,
his music, and his journey:
OldMillRoadRecording.com
Lily
Then one day, my friend and I were
broke, and we only had enough for
half a gram of heroin, and he’s like,
‘Skinny, the only way we’re both
going to get high is if I hit you’.
So I looked away, and he did it -
and from there, I started smoking
crack, I started forging bad checks,
[I was] on and off Suboxone, lying
to my family, spending dozens of
thousands of their money, I was
smoking crack off of dirty tin foil
… and shooting black tar heroin
in collapsed veins with abscesses
with dirty needles, and all of that
stuff. … I got to the point that I,
literally, didn’t get high anymore.”
Benjamin’s
great-grandfather
created a vision of hope in the
20th century through his music.
Similarly, Benjamin hopes that
by sharing his personal journey
through this new hybrid of rap and
classical music, he can bring hope
to others who are struggling.
45 VTMAG.com
VTMAG.com
41