Ben & Vesper

This funky, DIY duo tackles everything from creating art, clothes, and books — all while staying committed to their values and making altruism look easy

By Lisa Murphy
Published: April 20th, 2007 | 9:08am

Did you ever listen to music so melodious and lovely you just knew the people behind it were wonderful? Or at least you hoped they were. Hanging out with Ben and Vesper Stamper at their peaceful New Jersey home turned that hunch into reality.

I met up with the couple on a sunny day in late March 2007 at their quiet and cozy four-room house, which is situated on a calm street, nestled in between a small garden in the front yard and a work-in-progress back yard, accented by trees and bird feeders. I found the extremely soft-spoken duo — whose stage moniker is Ben + Vesper — just as sweet and relaxing as their music.

They made tea while their two small children napped, served a delicious blueberry cobbler, and even sponsored a ride to and from the train station while they chatted about everything from life’s natural progression to the shantytowns of Brazil. It was such a pleasant experience that it felt like hanging out with old friends, not the incredibly busy duo and eclectic artists newly met.

The couple have been married for eight years and recently took a break from raising two toddlers and from various creative projects to record their first full-length album, All This Could Kill You (Sounds Familyre; May 22, 2007), shortly after releasing their EP, More Questions, in early 2007. But that’s not all they’ve got going on — both are formally trained artists, Ben in fine arts and Vesper in illustration.

“When we met, we developed a mutual respect for each other’s music, and we were really interested in what the other was doing and responding to each other’s art. That was what really started a dialogue between us,” Ben recalled of their encounter 10 years ago.

Since then they’ve been working on a superhuman number of projects, some independent and some as a team. Vesper is putting the finishing touches on a children’s book in between taking care of their kids, and working on various restoration projects around the house — sewing, knitting, drawing, and preparing to start a midwifery apprenticeship.

She also teaches a childbirth class three nights a week — something that she was recently inspired to begin after giving birth at home with her own midwife. “It’s a pretty huge calling,” she said. “I’ve always been an artist and a musician and thought that’s what I would do for the rest of my life. And of course I will. But after I had my son at home, it was such an eye-opening experience. I want more for women [in prenatal care] than they get.”

In addition to working on his artwork and being a full-time art handler in Manhattan, Ben hand-paints used clothes with a friend under the label Creature Apparel. “It was mostly out of frustration from our own wardrobes and the desire to wear clothes both unique and classy,” he said. “Our goal is to produce clothes we’d wear ourselves.” Today he is wearing a pair of light-gray slacks he painted with red and white blossoms bursting from long stems. Vesper is elegantly dressed in a black shirt and skirt.

There’s also a spiritual growth aspect to the couple: Ben is an elder in their church and leads the music at services every Sunday, and they both feel very passionately about helping the less fortunate, especially people in need in Brazil. During their last visit, they taught art to children and adults at centers, schools, and orphanages.

Ben described the couple’s experiences working there by saying, “It’s just a magical place with magical people. We have a very strong connection that I think we’ll always have. We’ll always go down there as much as we can.” For the band, the trips to Brazil are similar to a calling “when you find yourself completely in your element and you say, ‘This is why I was created, to be doing this right here, right now.’ It feels like it’s really significant.”

Balancing all of their different projects can be hard, and they admit that they are each at a negotiation period right now — trying to decide what to do and what to put on hold so that they can have more time for each other.

Come June, they’ll be hitting the road for a two-week tour — not too extensive, but considering their multiple projects and budding family it’s a nice start. “Ultimately doing what makes sense for our family is most important,” Vesper said.

Playing music together and the new album, however, are priorities, for now. While they collaborated on melodies and songs in the past, this is their first official joint endeavor. And despite being so engaged with all of life’s obligations, the music isn’t compromised: dreamlike, orchestral harmonies seem to float along and mesh perfectly with Vesper’s sweet voice and Ben’s baritone.

Added to the CDs mixture are a few featured musicians, including siblings from the Danielson Famile (David Smith on drums, Elin Smith on vocals), and various adopted Danielson kin, like Sufian Stevens, who sang and played banjo, piano, woodwind and other instruments. Daniel Smith produced and helped Ben with the recording.

“We’re really excited, because the initial idea of this album began when I sent Dan the demos of just Vesper and I, and one guitar, and we were just singing in unison,” Ben remembered. “Everything was very bare bones, and Dan was really interested in getting us to play with musicians we felt extremely comfortable around — that we could really collaborate well with. So it was a really fun time.”

Ben noted that lyrically the songs are not really meant to be confessional. They are bits and pieces of what he overhears during the usual, everyday course of life. “It’s funny how you can sort of piece people’s lives together,” he said. “One-way dialogue is so interesting — people’s mannerisms, and the way that they speak to each other — that’s a good beginning point for a lot of my lyrics.”

Much of All This Could Kill You is about things that go wrong in life, but that the despair people may feel shouldn’t get in the way, because we’re all in the same boat. “Of course it’s different with everybody and every situation — [but] there’s a unity that we share in life that’s positive. There’s also [the] negative — just the idea of embracing that, and holding somebody’s hand, and walking alongside them, and saying, ‘I legitimize your suffering,’” Ben explained. “That’s also where the album art came from.”

For the CD art, Ben made drawings of characters in pathetic situations (some more sobering than others), and Vesper painted on top of them. Yet, there’s also a definite effort on their parts to leave room for humor and lightheartedness on the CD. “That’s really important to me. It’s essential that there is humor involved in the situation, otherwise it’s a downer,” he said.

Both agreed that the initial inspiration to make a record together in the first place was the impending birth of their daughter. “Right before our daughter was born two years ago, [there] was this feeling of, ‘OK we have one kid.’ We had a routine. But when we were getting ready to have two kids, [there] was a push to do one more creative thing before the baby came,” Ben said. He admitted to writing most of the songs within a few days of the baby’s birth, saying it was inspired by that frantic feeling, and recalled thinking at the time, “I have to make this happen. I had to get [the songs] out.” Ben recorded them at home, and then sent them to Daniel Smith to see if he was interested in doing something with them. He was. He told Ben to write more songs. “The whole thing felt really natural,” Ben said.

Just as natural as the way this serene couple balances each other out in every way, or the tranquil feelings their music offers — kind of like a good cup of tea, conversation, or dessert.