Ben Allred was raised near Baltimore, MD. After playing in several bands in high school he moved on to study jazz at Towson University which disenfranchised him from many of his early ideas of what music is and could be. This change managed to alienate him from the “Baltimore band culture”, and Ben soon found a previously untapped outlet in working solo. He quickly discovered, however, that his convoluted past in music rendered him incompatible with other local singer/songwriters. To escape this catch 22, he moved to Boulder, CO.

Deprived of musical collaborators, Ben has spent the last few years developing a sound all his own. His influences, which include Too Much Joy and Ben Folds [Five], can be heard clearly in much of what he does. What keeps him unique is that he has developed a playing style designed to fill in the gaps of his limited instrumentation. To Ben no topic is taboo, and with a guitar, two hands, and a raspy voice he isn’t too shy to tell people about it.