Rising star Benny G released his debut single ‘I Got A Feeling' in 2025 and he quickly found traction on social media.
Following up with ‘An Hour or So' and ‘Masterpiece', Benny has amassed a huge fanbase in a short amount of time thanks to his incredible voice and his guitar skills. Signed to Sony Music, Benny has a lot of buzz around him now and that's building after his appearances at C2C in London and Berlin.
I sat down with Benny while he was at C2C to find out more about his music, discuss using social media to launch his career, and to dig into his plans for the next few months…
Welcome back to the UK! I understand this isn't your first time visiting here?
I have been here before. I love it, it's so great. This is by far the biggest opportunity we've ever gotten here, and it's just really cool to be here.
How mind-blowing is it for you to be getting all this traction on social media and it allowing you to be here at our biggest country music festival?
Honestly, kind of crazy. I've been playing guitar my whole life and singing for a while too, but to put out a few songs and have people resonate with it, even like over here, is wild to me. I'm really grateful for all the support I've been getting though. It's just crazy to be over here and do this stuff.
You have a really interesting sound that is a mix of country, blues and soul. Your influences include James Taylor, Chris Stapleton and John Mayer. What have you taken from those artists while working on developing your own sound?
Honestly, I grew up listening to a lot of 'em especially James Taylor – he was a big one – and Billy Joel too. Willie Nelson, I grew to love as well… just these great songwriters that my parents shoved down my throat and I ended up loving 'em. They started to be my heroes. On my own I found Chris Stapleton, John Mayer and Ray LaMontagne, these great singer songwriters. I think just subconsciously took a bit of all of what they're doing and mixed the influences. I try to do my own thing but I'm just so inspired by so many different types of music whether it's country or soul or blues. I put them in a pod and see what happens, you know?
Your voice is incredible and it really sets you apart from everyone else. I was walking up from the car park earlier and I could hear you while you were performing on the Big Entrance Stage. Your voice is well beyond your years and you can hear those influences you mentioned in there. When did you realise that you could sing?
Thank you. I honestly didn't want to be a singer for a while. I was so focused on the guitar playing and I wanted to be a songwriter and play guitar in someone's band. I thought that would be my road. At some point my voice dropped. I always had a raspy voice, so I hated the way it sounded when it was super high pitched before I went through puberty as a kid. When I like fully went through it and listening to some of that music, and started writing more songs, I guess my voice showed up a little bit. I started singing more often and worked the machine a little bit and I guess here we are.
If I could sing like you Benny, I don't think I'd ever shut up…
(laughs) You're too kind!
In December you released your latest single ‘Masterpiece'. What's your longer term plan? Are you working on a full-length project?
We do have a lot of music coming on the way. We have a lot of touring coming on the way as well. I've been recording with Eddie Spear who has done all the latest Marcus King stuff, which I am such a big fan of, and Sierra Ferrell and Zach Bryan. We hit it off in the studio and recorded a bunch of songs and some of that music will be out shortly.
Would you like to collaborate with Marcus King? I feel there would be a good synergy there…
I love his guitar playing and his voice. He's a once in a generation talent for sure so that would be crazy. I grew up like listening to him and loving his music so yeah, a hundred percent.
Before you arrived in London for C2C, you played C2C in Berlin. What was that experience like for you?
It was really cool. It's a bit smaller I'd say but everybody's super tapped in, very much just listening to the music. Pretty quiet crowds and smaller venues, but everybody's just super locked in. It's really nice. It's like playing a listening room in Nashville or something. You could tell they just care about the songs.
You mentioned that you have new music on the way. A lot of artists now are focusing on singles and EPs rather than albums. What's your take on the album?
I don't really have a take on it. I feel like right now we're going through some little evolution and I think Spotify and TikTok and all these social media platforms are changing everything. You have people just putting out singles, not putting out albums, not putting out eps or projects. I feel like people were like defying the norm back then. The album should be held to a certain reverence over everything else. I'm also not against people just putting out songs or putting out like EPs. I think that's totally great too. It's a great way to blow up and do the thing. Maybe in 20 years from now, people are gonna be like, ‘did you listen to that EP?' like people were talking about ‘ Abbey Road' or people were talking about ‘ Shotgun Willie'. Maybe people will look at EPs like that someday? That's my take on it.
You're an artist that has harnessed the power of social media. When you first started putting your music out on there, did you ever think you'd end up signed to Sony Music and be doing this professionally?
As soon as I really started getting into singing and writing with no plan B, like I'm full sending this and I'm gonna die by the sword. It's the only thing I really can do. I'm not good at anything else besides writing songs and being a hang and hanging out and singing. I think it just probably would've been a way longer road if I hadn't met the folks at Sony or people just weren't connecting with the music. I grew up playing a lot of bars and stuff like that and, but I feel if the stars didn't align as much, it just probably be a way longer road.
You said earlier that you didn't think you'd be a singer at one point and hearing your voice, that's completely wild. Maybe you have talents you don't even know about?
Oh man. I play a little bit of keys and bass and drum, and I do sometimes do it on my record, but there's so many cats that could school me on it that are just like insanely gifted, you know?
I feel like next time I see you play a show, you're gonna be like a one man band…
That would be fun. There are certainly people that could do it better than me but that would definitely be a lot of fun.
What is the rest of your year looking like?
Next week we're actually gonna be announcing some really big stuff in terms of touring. I'm so pumped for the shows we're about to announce. A lot of opening shows are to a level that we've never done before, so that'll be really fun. That's gonna be most of our summer and fall and we're gonna start headlining some smaller shows as well. I just want to get on the road as much as possible 'cause that is where the people are and it's how I want to build my career, even though the social media's taking off. That's great. I love that. It's definitely a tool. I just feel like playing live is my favorite thing to do by far. A lot of things coming.
What about your plans for getting back here? Do you have a hope to get back to headline your own shows?
I am open to doing whatever. If there's a larger artist that wants to take me on the road over here, that would be incredible. Also, if we get to a point where we could start headlining things over here in the UK and Europe, that would be awesome too. It just feels kind of like square one and this is a great opportunity to play C2C. I just feel like the people are so great over here and obviously it's just a legendary place to be for music, and the history of London and the UK. I'm just gonna keep coming back in whatever capacity that is, if that's playing my own shows or opening for someone.
The buzz around you at C2C has been huge and people are predicting that you're going to be on the Main Stage in the future. Is that an ambition that you would like to fulfil?
Oh man, that would be really cool. Let's see. I'm just gonna keep putting my head down and working as hard as I can to get there. I'm just gonna keep doing it no matter what. That'd be crazy if we got there at some point in a few years.
Benny G's single ‘Masterpiece' is available now on streaming and digital download services.
