“Becoming” is both Eddy Benz’s Instagram bio and also an apt descriptor of his artist’s journey over the last eight years. Starting out in the facetiously-named rap duo Boofboys, the Eddy Benz persona (alongside his similarly automotive counterpart Lil Nissan) was able to develop out of late 2010s emo rap, substance use, and meme culture. Beyond music, Benz has always released videos as part of his performance, like the “BOOFBOX Infomercial” that sells a “Kush Kit”—a Lunchable containing a battery, a half-used cart, a brownie game, a lighter, a guard splitter, and a quarter gram of wax. A true son of the Westbank, Benz’s videos often feature pieces of New Orleans from shots under the Crescent City Connection to Big Shot sodas and Chee Wees.
Using irony as a shield, Benz’s voice took shape. His music videos and skits would become more elaborate while his music began dipping into other genres from hyperpop to ’80s-inspired new wave. His alternative rock album Spectacle, released in 2024, saw him become more sincere in his lyrics and mostly shed his roots as a SoundCloud rapper. I met with Benz at Congregation Coffee in Algiers Point to discuss his upcoming album The Charlatan and the person he seeks to become.
Can you tell me a little bit about your story with the Westbank?
My entire dad’s side of the family is here. I remember visiting my great-grandma. She lived in a shotgun house a couple blocks away and it’s just a total bygone era. I don’t know how much of this I’m fabricating in my memory, but it’s like a hazy vignette, you know? It has a certain color grade in my mind. I remember she would eat those circus peanut candies and was a feisty old woman. I remember she shot a hole through one of the doors in her house because she thought an intruder was in there and she fired this big revolver. Another memory I have here is we were little BMX riders as kids and we would ride our bikes to the ferry and take it to the Quarter. That was our first taste of freedom, I guess. It was sort of the synthesis to my experience on the Westbank being that it wouldn’t exist without the other side. It was kind of cool that we got this suburban Sandlot style upbringing, but could also explore the Quarter.
Has growing up on the Westbank shaped your music taste or the kind of stuff you’re into?
I think that it shaped my personality and what music I gravitated toward, because I think naturally we have a chip on our shoulder. We’re the perpetual underdogs, like the little brother or the weird cousin or something. So I listened to a lot of angsty music as a kid, that sort of emo or nu-metal stuff. And then as a teenager it was all rap music. I gravitated towards it for the same reasons I like punk rock now. The rebellious ethos was still there, like it could actually carry a movement. Whereas I feel like rock at that time was fully played out and had been exploited by the industry and commercialized. But this new internet rap carried a spirit that I related to as a teenager.
By internet rap do you mean SoundCloud type stuff?
Yeah, that’s why I started making music. I mean seriously. It’s wild to admit because I actually feel like I’ve hidden from my past a bit.
You were in a group called Boofboys, that was your first act, right?
Yeah. I don’t talk about that publicly but I still leave that paper trail there because I want people to find it eventually. But yeah, me and a friend that grew up down the street, I would walk down to his house with a backpack, my laptop, and my little USB Snowball mic and we would sit there and look for tight beats on YouTube. Whichever one spoke to us, we would steal it, essentially. Rip it, drag it into GarageBand, and then start our stream-of-consciousness, drug-induced freestyling. I was able to make music then behind the guise of irony. I could sort of show off my talents in a low-stakes way because if it was bad or if it fell flat, I could say, “Ah, well, we’re just fooling around.” But my desire the whole time was to become more sincere and more myself. So I had to shed that at a certain point.
Did you ever feel weird being a white person making rap?
Yeah, I think that’s partially why there had to be that element of irony in there too. I’ve always battled with my self-awareness and being perceived. I would like to think that I’m very deft and tactful in my social maneuvering. [Boofboys] does seem off-color and ridiculous. I was trying to push back against my socialization as a kid, like this repression. I wanted to be the loud, rambunctious kid for once. I had the Catholic upbringing all the way, from K to 12, and I always wanted my opinion to be heard, but I let fear stifle that. I wasn’t in an environment where I felt like I could give my two cents.
Who were you listening to that got you into hip-hop then?
I guess that would’ve been between backpack, blog era [hip-hop], and the beginnings of SoundCloud… which would be like A$AP Rocky, Lil B were the big ones, and then Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick at least had this overtly revolutionary spirit, invoking Malcolm X and these sorts of things. And then Lil B was this weirdo, stream-of-consciousness guy. And Rocky was very fashion forward. I dove into it right away, this obsession with pop culture. And rap culture was pop culture at the time, or at least it was to me. A lot of people get criticized when they say that they grew out of that but I still fully appreciate it.
You have wandered a lot with the genres of music you play. You used to play more trap or emo rap before you took an alternative rock direction. What made you want to explore those different styles?
See, this is almost what I hate about myself because some of my favorite musicians have such a distinguishable sound and it’s all very consistent. They release an album that is all the same plugins, the same amps, the same players. And I’ve always done it in a way that was inorganic, done with plugins and all sorts of synthetic equipment.
Do you still pull beats like you used to?
No, now I do everything at least from the start. I play the bass line and come up with the lyrics and then record that and relay it. That’s the foundation for the new songs. I come up with the cadence of the song and all the interplay between my lyrics and the bass. And then I go to my drummer James [Goodreau of the band Bad Misters] and then he’ll record the drums based upon that. And then once we have the drum and bass track, I email Evan [Eiserloh], my guitarist. It’s a very impersonal approach.
I think that’s become more common nowadays, artists making songs entirely remote, stem by stem.
I think something is lost in that process, but that’s a maneuver I did to avoid recording in front of a bunch of people. I like recording by myself. It’s how I can be the most sincere. I tend to mold to my environment a little bit. If two of my players are in the studio and they’re chuckling over the way that I delivered this, then I kind of freeze up. So the music and the approach reflects that. It’s very individualistic and solipsistic. It is a bit heart-on-your-sleeve but I don’t know how else to make music. I would call my own past projects a buffet of my vague discontentments.
When did the shift in songwriting really start for you?
It was within the last five years. I think Sailor Mouth may have been the first time that I actually sat down with the producer of the song or somebody said, “Oh, I play guitar. Let me send you these loops.” We had all these different instruments to manipulate and form in that moment to fit the emotion I wanted to convey. But there were also, on that project, beats that I bought as well. I don’t know if there were any beats that I ripped on that one, but that’s still a big issue too. It’s the reason I cash out my streaming bank account because I’m afraid that my past will haunt me… I’ve never made money from anything. I don’t have a mercantile bone in my body. I don’t know how to make money. I don’t know how to become profitable. It’s my self-expression so it’s kind of weird to put a price tag on it.
Who’s your producer?
Lately, I’ve been working with two guys, Lou [Ciarrocchi]—he goes by Louie Shades—and then Evan, who goes by Undefined [also Benz’s guitarist]. These are two guys that came up in the same world as me, sort of, in SoundCloud rap. And so we’re all pivoting together, essentially. Like Lou just produced a song on the last Playboi Carti album, MUSIC. And then Evan, maybe six years ago, there was this Detroit wave of rap and he produced like every song in the Detroit underground at 18 years old or so [for artists like Baby Smoove, Rio Da Yung OG, Teejayx6]. I think he was in high school at the time. And he was just this white kid from Covington. He became disillusioned by that world. “If you join our producer clique then I’ll give you this email list with all these rappers’ emails on it” and stuff.
It seems like you have this big pack of creatives around you, especially through your music videos. You work with ShotbyMatt right?
Yeah, I work with my brother Connor [Lauman] as well so on the visual side of things, it’s Matt and Connor. And then on the sonic side of things, I have Evan and Lou. I think the visual side is an extension of the music.
Clockwise from top left: Eddy Benz, friend and recurring actor Will Blount, brother and co-director Connor Lauman, and cinematographer and editor Matt Jones/@shotbymattx. (Photo by Matt Jones)
I don’t know how much of this you’re involved in, but how do you find your actors?
It’s a DIY approach all around. We find a lot of our character actors on Craigslist. So it’s either a couple of my friends or just Craigslist actors.
Are there some recurring Craigslist actors in your videos?
Yeah, there are ones that just kind of stick and they’re awesome because you see your future self in them, like being this eccentric that just wants to be involved in a creative process. And these people have something to say and they also want to be a part of a movement too. They like that we’re out there, boots on the ground making it happen, despite not having a single dollar going into it. We’ve met so many. My buddy Rex [Puckett], he’s the guy that looks like Santa Claus.
He’s the guy in the “Landline” music video, right?
Yeah. We actually shot that right around here.
Does he like your music?
He does, yeah. And he tells me all the time, “I got a club in Bay St. Louis. They don’t like the punk stuff so much, but if you could do some softer stuff, they’ll be glad to have you.” So he even tries to book me at places and he’s given me equipment too. It just goes to show you that you can find people and mutually benefit. And they want to see me win too. It’s so heartwarming.
How do you come up with ideas for your music videos?
That’s sort of my brother Connor’s doing. He doesn’t have any technical skills but he’s the ideas guy. He comes up with these concepts and then it’s our job to see them from point A to Z and all the frustrating things that come along with production, especially with no money. It’s cool we have this relationship. He’s some sort of conduit to God or something. He comes up with these concepts and then I create a list of priorities and do the production, booking locations and actors and prop buying and things. And then we take it to Matt and then he’s the one who turns it into a tangible product.
What are some of the films or movies that inspire you?
The ones that relate a lot to this project are like DIY ones. There’s the documentary American Movie and then there’s another DIY director named Giuseppe Andrews. He lived in a trailer park and he had a VHS camera. And he would similarly find his actors, they lived in the trailer park and he would feed them the lines. Nothing was premeditated. He would feed the lines and do a take. I feel like that’s my process of punching in bar for bar. It’s essentially the Giuseppe Andrews approach where you scream the line to someone and then they perform it and then you give ’em the next one. It’s like a mosaic where you’re stringing these little pieces together and the brain is weird but it wants to make sense of it.
It looks like a lot of effort goes into details like sets, costumes, and props. Like in the “Self Destruct” music video, you have this dynamite chain around your neck. How’d you get that?
We actually bought that prefab, self-timed dynamite pack and then we bought a chain and got a lock to chain it to myself somehow. My friend Lou was playing an angel in that and we made the wings out of paper. It was super tedious. Then we had the devil costume.
Who played the devil?
The devil was this guy, Justin [Mekdessie], he’s a stand-up comic and that’s another story. He was my personal trainer at the gym. I started going to the gym when I was 10 years old because my dad was a power lifter and he wanted me and my brother to start working out. And so we would go every summer. And this guy, Justin, was my personal trainer. I ended up working at that gym for many years. He was actually in prison. He somehow got on a work release program to work at the gym. So the Parish would bring him in a van every day from prison, drop him off at the gym, and he was my manager. So I think when we filmed “Self Destruct,” he was probably on parole at the time. He had this grow house operation in Westwego or something. He’s good now. He did a short stint, got out, and then he played the devil in that music video. And I think he killed it. But yeah, we painted him red and formed the horns, bought the wardrobe. His horns kept falling off his head. It was just sweaty and slippery. And that’s part of it too, trying to piece this together. What you don’t see is in between takes we’re having to re-glue the horn to his head.
Still from the “Self Destruct” video, directed by Matt Jones/@shotbymattx
I get this sense that you’re a more reserved person. I don’t want to say shy but you do have to do a lot of crazy stuff in your music videos. Is that a performance you feel you have to wear or put on?
Yeah, my mom would always say, “Oh, they’re shy.” Like hiding behind her legs and kind of peeking at people. It always felt like a way of justifying our weirdness. I think there’s even these diagnoses for psychological problems in kids but if they persist into adulthood, [people treat you] like, “Oh, now you’re just a psychopath.” If you don’t [grow out of it] you will become some sort of weird, antisocial pervert. But it’s that invertedness and antisocial aspect that shaped the way I think and the way I interact with the world… I kept kicking the can down the road and then eventually all that repression just blew up. And I pushed back against it by doing all the crazy rambunctious SoundCloud rap and performing at college venues and throwing chicken nuggets at people on the stage. Just doing things that were uncharacteristic because I was trying to destroy the identity that I felt like was imposed on me.
How has your quest to be more sincere or outgoing influenced your direction musically? We talked about how you’ve been a genre wanderer. Are there certain artists that influenced you to change course?
I think lately The Replacements. They’ve been the main influence lately. If you listen to their album Let It Be, it is sort of sonically all over the place. You have piano ballads. You have some songs that sound just like good old punk records. You have other ones that feel like this ‘80s glitzy sort of thing. So I like the fact that their sound is all over the place and it’s scratching all the parts of my brain that I would want music to. And I was driving to work yesterday and listening to their song called “We’re Comin’ Out,” and I was tearing up and screaming this refrain, “One more time to get it all wrong.” Their guitar player [Bob Stinson] is way too loud in the mix. And he’s just spamming the guitar in his nuts way. He’s drunk as hell, absolutely drunk. But yet there’s this poetic element to it. The lyrics are incredibly profound too. I’ve always been jealous of people who can write good lyrics.
I haven’t heard anything from the new album yet so what direction does this record go from your perspective?
This one is all organically produced. I’m still making a bass line and sending it to one of my friends but we’re not doing loops on the new album, which is called The Charlatan, by the way. The manifesto is: You have to play the song all the way through. We’re not punching in on this one because I think this one more than ever is meant to be played live.
I think it’s funny that this new album’s called The Charlatan. It implies you’re some kind of imposter.
Yeah, it’s an attempt to reclaim the things I’m insecure about. I feel like an outsider in the music world and that might be my own fault because I’m antisocial while still being social. But it’s a way to reclaim my feelings of being an imposter, because I’m not a classically trained musician. I don’t feel like my lyrics are the most profound. I always look at people who are in their element performing, playing their instrument, being one with their instrument and feeling like, wow, I’m not that. I feel like more of a performance artist. The Charlatan is me, but then also it’s sort of pointing out the imposter syndrome that we all feel in this world. Because even the people that we vote for and we look to for knowledge or for reassurance, those people are charlatans. They have a false prescription and some sort of ulterior agenda. And I think that by some downstream effect, we feel that too. We feel like the state of labor is precarious and feels meaningless at times. So I think that we are devoid of meaning in many ways and we try to find meaning. So it’s sort of a self-aware thing saying, “Yeah, I’m a charlatan and I’m accepting it now,” but at the same time I want everybody to recognize the imposter or acknowledge those feelings instead of repressing them. What am I gonna do about it? If I don’t feel like a musician then I’m gonna drop another album and then I’m gonna drop another one after that and then see how I feel. But I think that putting labels on myself ultimately makes me feel like more of a charlatan.
Was there anything else you wanted to add about the new album?
I did want to mention my experience with the book Paradise Lost. Just because it had an impact on me [while making the album]. It’s just a retelling of Genesis, essentially—creation and the fall of man. I was stuck with a feeling that Adam and Eve were subjected upon by this sovereign that was some sort of unchecked power; whereas Lucifer was the underdog who was the born loser, essentially, who’s going to keep fighting against him no matter what. And I felt myself relating to him more in feeling of indignation, in regards to authority and my empathy for the underdog. I think that the book itself was written in the late 1600s and was very provocative at that time.
How I remember Genesis is that God created the garden for Adam and Eve as a paradise but then they ruined it because they ate the forbidden apple that was placed there by God to be a temptation.
In the Bible as well as in Paradise Lost there are these crazy misogynist sort of overtones too.
Right! It was Eve who ate it and Adam had to give his rib to make her and now we have to deal with her mistake.
And she was punished with the pain of childbirth and menstruation, right? I’m so serious that in Paradise Lost it feels that way where it’s almost like Adam and God are having this moment like, “Yeah, Eve, she’s such an idiot.” I feel like I had no choice but to align myself with Lucifer. In this political climate where everybody is made to be antagonistic, everyone is made to be a troll and is trying to get cheap points by creating a straw man of the other person in bad faith and then destroying it. I feel like so much of today’s politics is this relation to someone based upon affectation and everything that goes beyond politics—like more personal alliances. It all feels very antagonistic. I know that Malcolm X had an experience with Paradise Lost when he was in prison and I could totally see why revolutionary people would gravitate towards Satan in a way.
You’ve worked with New Orleans musicians like Pell when y’all made a music video for Animal Rescue New Orleans on the Westbank.
That was awesome. That was my first time ever doing anything like that and I wouldn’t want to do, like, commercials, but the fact that it was for a local no-kill shelter, I said OK. I felt totally fine with doing that. I would rather subject myself to working like I am right now than to ever take commission money for music. Once you do [go commercial], it’s like a Faustian bargain because then you’re sort of tied to the corporate teat. So I’d rather just keep shoveling shit for a living.
You’re in a unique position as a white artist in a predominantly Black city who started with hip-hop music and is moving towards alternative rock.
Most of my supporters are from [the hip-hop] world. I’ve had the most difficult time infiltrating the underground rock scene in New Orleans because I feel like it’s a lot of out-of-towners and it’s a tight-knit culture. I feel like I can sense them constantly trying to sniff out imposters. Maybe that plays into The Charlatan.
Like to see if you are a poser or something?
It’s like that in all underground cultures—just trying to distinguish who’s a purist and who’s a poser. I feel like I’ve had a hard time integrating with that scene. And on top of that, I think a lot of the people aren’t from here and there is an invisible boundary between the people that I came up with in this one artistic scene and then this new one that I’d like to be a part of.
There’s definitely a lot of potential there. Hip-hop and rock have always had some kind of kinship.
Yeah, and it’s like what I was saying earlier, they express the same motivations. It’s always anti-establishment, anti-repression. It’s always pushing back against some powers-that-be. And that’s what drew me to both of them. The same things that I like about Young Thug, for instance, are the same things that I like about Lou Reed. It’s like the swagger and the delivery and this sort of creativity in this flow state experience. So beyond all the surface level things, I’m drawn to the rebellious spirit of it.
Eddy Benz’s new album The Charlatan releases on November 12 and will be available on streaming services. For more information and to follow along for information on the album release show planned for late November, follow Eddy Benz on Instagram at @eddybenzbb.
Eddy Benz photos in Algiers Point by Dalton Spangler
