Hillary, Oh Hillary is the third video to be released from Ben Sommers’ forthcoming album Avocado Chip – due for release in early 2011. Unlike the previous two videos this track is the first to be available as a full download release and tells the tale of Hillary – a half woman/lizard prostitute who has a nasty habit of abusing her clients as you’ll see…
The musical journey that is Avocado Chip is the brainchild of British singer/songwriter Ben Sommers and is set in the fictitious town of Starving Jane, whose inhabitants are a motley bunch of characters. During their daily fight for survival they uncover the corruption and evil that is inherent in their town and make a plan for a better way of life.
Sommers, (whose musical influences include Peter Gabriel; Tom Waits; Kate Bush and Syd Barrett) has created a maelstrom of music, animation and video that draws subtle influences from Gerorge Orwell’s masterpiece 1984 and also along the way manages to reveal some disturbing similarities that are prevalent in the modern world.
We caught up with Ben and asked a couple of questions about Starving Jane, the character of Hillary and more…
Give us a quick outline of Avocado Chip and Starving Jane please. Avocado Chip is the name of my new album. It’s also the umbrella name of a much larger vision which encompasses a story, stop motion animation videos and live shows. The story is set in a fictional town called Starving Jane and follows the lives of a handful of characters who live there – Old Tall Sam, Oculus, Dweeb, Lucy, Higgins, Mr Arthur Squire and Hillary Conlint.
Tell us about Hillary. Hillary is certainly one of the story’s more colourful characters. Through an unfortunate accident Hillary has been left a half woman half reptilian who works as an escort girl in Starving Jane. The other thing about Hillary is she eats her clients – well not all of them… (this will all be explained in the forthcoming story released on AvocadoChip.com on February 7th).
Is Hillary good or bad? It’s up to the listener/reader to decide. She’s a murderer – so that is bad. But she has her reasons and apart from the killing she is actually quite a nice girl. I’ll leave it to you to make that decision.
When can we see Ben Sommers live? Well I have a solo gig planned for January (18th at Underbelly, Hoxton Square). Avocado Chip the album will be released on February the 7th so I’ll be playing live all over the UK from then onwards. I spent most of 2010 with a wonderful band called Pandora’s Box playing the Avocado Chip material. We only intended to do a few shows together but have enjoyed the experience so much that we will be playing more this year so keep your eyes out for that. All my gigs are listed here.
What are your personal hopes for 2011? I’m working on my next few solo records which I hope to have out in 2011. The working titles are ‘Lavender Hill’ parts one and two. I’m also filming a five part animation sitcom called ‘JANE’. Along with all this I’m going to be working hard with my band Mozzy Green – we have a vinyl release out in April and will be playing live throughout the second half of the year.
In the meantime, you can download the first track off Avocado Chip, ‘A Town Called Starving Jane’ for free here, and catch Hillary’s first ever interview at Sourmash here.
