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You pull into the venue, check into the cheap hotel you can afford, eat whatever is there, sleep, wake up, and repeat. You’re not really participating in the community.

Ben Sollee

Related Topics

The reason I make art is because I get to make a choice about who I am, what I do, and what I put out into the world, the footsteps I leave behind.
BEN SOLLEE

Choices Footstep
The idea of “making art for art’s sake” makes no sense for me. Each area of my life, all the roles I play, influences the others.

BEN SOLLEE

The idea of “making art for art’s sake” makes no sense for me. Each area of my life, all the roles I play, influences the others.
BEN SOLLEE
I’m in a position I never imagined I’d be in as a musician. Bob Dylan built an audience through recording and live shows. The opportunities for an artist today are totally different.
BEN SOLLEE

Musician
Cities like Portland, Seattle, and Long Beach, which have made these investments in their infrastructure, are seeing not only health advantages, but also a lot more exchange in the community, which leads to better policy-making and stronger communities.

BEN SOLLEE

Cities like Portland, Seattle, and Long Beach, which have made these investments in their infrastructure, are seeing not only health advantages, but also a lot more exchange in the community, which leads to better policy-making and stronger communities.
BEN SOLLEE

Cities Making
You pull into the venue, check into the cheap hotel you can afford, eat whatever is there, sleep, wake up, and repeat. You’re not really participating in the community.
BEN SOLLEE

Cheap Participating Wake
New York is the culture capital of the world because people are running into each other on the street all the time. They are forced to engage in creativity and problem-solving.
BEN SOLLEE

Creativity Culture
There are not a lot of paths through the woods for someone who sings, plays the cello, and wants to tour on a human scale and create change in the world. I’m on my own path. It’s pretty awesome.
BEN SOLLEE

Own Scale Tour
For every show that we do, anyone that rides public transit, bikes, or walk, we offer them a $5 voucher at the merch table. It gets people using the infrastructure in the area.
BEN SOLLEE

Cities
Hopefully, the venues where we play will lobby city council and say, we need bike paths, sidewalk repair. That stuff affects so many people’s lives.
BEN SOLLEE

Council Hopefully Lobby
I’m a husband and a dad. Two thirds of my day is spent being that character. It’s a huge part of my identity and why I pursue things I do. I’m interested in questions my son asks me, like, “Why do animals fight? Why do you have to leave us to go on the road?”

BEN SOLLEE

I’m a husband and a dad. Two thirds of my day is spent being that character. It’s a huge part of my identity and why I pursue things I do. I’m interested in questions my son asks me, like, “Why do animals fight? Why do you have to leave us to go on the road?”
BEN SOLLEE

Dad Pursue
I have a lot of intention behind what I put out there. The reason all this stuff I do works together, the environmental and social, collaborating with ballet companies to score a show, the bike tour – all of that stuff comes together through community building with music.
BEN SOLLEE

Ballet Bike Community Together Tour Working
I’m definitely musician and storyteller. But I always like to take an active role in things I care about socially and environmentally.
BEN SOLLEE

Musician Roles
Everything he asks gets me thinking. If I’m going to do this, sacrifice time with family and friends, sacrifice resources, I need to think carefully about what I going to say and how I’m going to say it.
BEN SOLLEE

Carefully Everything
Art is consumed in so many different ways. You could say people don’t stop to appreciate art. On the other hand, people can consume art more quickly.
BEN SOLLEE
I feel really passionately about safe, comfortable roads, crosswalks, and sidewalks. Everyone of all economic backgrounds should be able to get to school or the grocery store safely and efficiently so they can live better lives.
BEN SOLLEE

Able Background
I’m a husband and a dad. Two thirds of my day is spent being that character. It’s a huge part of my identity and why I pursue things I do.

BEN SOLLEE

I’m a husband and a dad. Two thirds of my day is spent being that character. It’s a huge part of my identity and why I pursue things I do.
BEN SOLLEE

Dad