In this week's 10 Questions we get to know Benjamin Laplace, a guitarist and composer from Paris.

Their song 'For the LuV at Guitars-Obsession for Silence' is currently featured on the NAS Spotify playlists

You can follow Benjamin Laplace on YouTube,

1. Tell us a little about where you are from.

I live in Paris. I do things on my own with a lot of featured artists. I've played loud and rock since 2016, but classical music always takes me back to my childhood - Mozart to Bach, Gustav Mahler to Sergueï Rachmaninov etc. So I decided to combine the two: An album where I mixed my delay, chorus on my guitars with a cello! That was the album “SOMBRES ILLUMINÉS We’re all Black Stars” It was dedicated to David Bowie who died while I was composing the album tracks. So on each tracks there’s a detail which make think of him.

2. What inspired Benjamin Laplace to start playing and making music?

Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page really! I was obsessed by his playing, and most of all his compositions! He was so inspiring and John Paul Jones did such brillant arrangements!

I also get obsessed by the other Jimi. The Henrix one!

But at the age of 15 while I spent my days with my friends trying to sound like them and also Prog music like King Crimson (Robert Fripp) Yes, etc,

I thougt to myself "I’ll never be as good as one of the two Jimmys, neither Steve Howe (Yes guitarist)". I said to myself: Carry on playing the riffs, play the ones people like. Get these better and write some new ones! And that is what I did.

3. Who are Benjamin Laplace's biggest musical influences?

Blues / Classical / Rock. That’s the 3 styles I’m exploring in my music, with many variations. Blues goes to soul and funky music, which is a groove and the mood in which I guess I play.

4. What are your goals in the music industry or as an artist?

I’d like to be listened to! I don't want to be a superstar. I don't want to be Michael Jackson etc. I want to be known as an original French fantasy guitarist and singer who creates his own garden.

5. Tell us about your creative process.

I am an artist who created his own garden where he cultivates his music, his texts, his essays. He takes bits and pieces from each to fuel his passion: Making songs from instrumentals. Depending on the needs of each, he calls on the musicians he needs.

6. What is your all-time favorite song by another artist and why?

Hard to say just one ! “SEA SONG” by Robert Wyatt Because it has everything I love in it! 1) The melody 2) The harmony. Which is not A / D / E a 1/4/5 format of the blues, or any Jazz format or other harmonic song recipes. No, there are harmonic "accidents", there is everything I love expressed there: Love, joy, pain, anger, rage, intoxication. It's baroque, it's heartbreaking, it's beautiful, it's sad: It's rock!

7. What is the best advice you have either given or received in terms of music?

I think the most helpful I had, and would give to someone, is: If you’re gifted and talented that’s an advantage! But you have to take care of it every day, and every day you have to show and prove that you’re good. So there is only one thing to do - work, and work more. Today more than ever! Spend hours on your music, on the instrument you play, practice your acting, practice your recording. Practice, work, and when you’re too tired, think deeply how you want to be heard, then what you have to do for that.

Because that will assure your living: So go back to work!

8. What is your proudest accomplishment?

For sure it will be what I will do next!

 I'm never been really satisfied. Or there are short moments when I am. After a great gig, for exemple, when I have a great review on press about an album for exemple.

9. What's been your most embarrassing moment so far?

My nightmare: Being out of tune on stage! I start what i think is gonna be a nice arpeggio on guitar, and the big E of my guitar is D#! So you feel the audience thinking "what will he do?" But not in the good way! An awful feeling.

10. Tell us about your lowest and highest points in music so far.

We navigate a lot between highs and lows. With streaming it's worse. You're in a good mood because the recording of the day was cool, but then you receive alerts saying that your video of a live on TikTok and X are the subject of abject and degrading remarks, insults, etc. etc.

Digital has many good aspects. But what I say is part of everyday life. So above all, you must not feed it by responding. Fortunately I have so many sources of fulfillment that all of that is nothing.

What would life be without music?

I kiss you all!