Ben Christo may be one the best musicians you’ve never heard of—until now. From an early age, Christo had a passion for music as well as a deep appreciation for the guitarwork that permeated the pop airwaves of his generation. After a thrilling performance at a Christmas talent show, Ben knew music—and the guitar—were his future. Inspired by legends like Steve Clark of Def Leppard as well as by live performances from AC/DC and Judas Priest, Christo dedicated his life to music and his dream of playing on the same stages his childhood heroes performed upon.
After a strange turn of events landed him a spot with The Sisters of Mercy, those childhood dreams became a reality, and he’s not looked back. In this interview, we dig into Ben Christo’s early days as a musician, his 16+ years with The Sisters of Mercy, as well as his new undertaking Diamond Black.
What are your earliest memories of music as a child?
I found that as a kid I always gravitated toward any pop music that had guitars in it. So you could imagine a lot of Michael Jackson or Tina Turner, or pop bands, that suddenly would have this bursting guitar solo in it. Even stuff like Belinda Carlisle. It was the pop music I’d hear on the radio and see on TV—and if there was a guitar solo in it, that would really draw me toward it. That was very early.
And then after that I started to get into a lot of the kind of classic rock bands such as Def Leppard, AC/DC, Judas Priest, Europe, and The Cult through an uncle who was eight years older than me. He was a bit like a big brother, but I didn’t actually have to live with him, so that was kind of cool. And then the first actual concerts I saw in very quick succession were Judas Priest and AC/DC, and that really cemented it for me. I knew I already loved music, but now I actually wanted to make it too.
Who were your biggest inspirations as a musician growing up?
Steve Clark from Def Leppard, who unfortunately passed away in 1991. He had such a good command of what I like to call gritty melody that really ignited my imagination when it came to music. There was a real cinematic quality to the way that he would write riffs. So, rather than it being almost sort of throw away licks and riffs, I felt there was real meaning behind what he did, and that connected with me in a way perhaps moreso than just how your average kind of fun rock song worked.
And the bits I love a lot about the Steve Clark songs is when there’s a solo section where he’ll often go off on something very musical, which really holds its own. The midsections of songs like “Die Hard The Hunter” or Def Leppard’s debut album On Through the Night really highlight his genius. Clark’s instrumental masterpiece “Switch 625” on High and Dry—that just made me so excited about guitar playing. And his playing isn’t necessarily very technical, but it was very melodic and very imaginative, and that really kind of laid the foundations for where I wanted to go.
At what point did you know that music would someday be your career?
Well, I had a bit of an existential crisis when I was 10 years old, because I was also pretty good at football—aka soccer. And I remember being torn even as a 10-year-old going, “I can only do one thing, I must choose my path.”
I think one thing that really cemented it for me was taking part in a Christmas talent show. I essentially tried to do what Marty McFly had done in Back to the Future at the “Enchantment Under The Sea Dance,” where he transformed into Chuck Berry blasting into his classic “Johnny B. Goode.” It was that performance where I went from being someone who was bullied quite a bit in school—because I had long hair and I liked rock music—to someone who was suddenly being cheered on by full a room full of people. While it was only 60 people or so, it seemed like 10,000 people to me, and it was awesome.
People who just the day before had bullied and mocked me suddenly made me realize that being good at something that you love means people have respect for you and people want to be associated with you. And for a couple of weeks at least I didn’t get bullied quite as much, and then they sort of forgot. But at that moment, I think the experience really defined who I was and that playing the guitar was something that I loved and that music could be a path for me.
Diamond Black recently released a new single and video entitled “Through the Misery.” What’s the backstory behind the track?
What tends to happen with my song and lyric writing is that they will be typically vague in general. However, let’s say that I’m going through something emotional in life like a relationship crisis or similar, the lyrics may be much more focused. “Through the Misery” was similar to that and written specifically about something important to me. Lyrically though, you might not know that without actually having the lyrics kind of taken apart a little bit.
Now the chorus’ message—“Only you can find your own way through the misery”—is the big message here and one that I think is very empowering. It’s one that I’m trying to apply to my own life—understanding as I only can see. However, it’s always important to have a good network around you with friends and family to assist through good and challenging times.
Ultimately though, you are the only person who can get you through whatever you’re going through. And when you finally realize that, it can actually be quite empowering, because on a daily basis we get to choose how we feel about anything and everything. There is no good or bad thinking, it’s all important. And that’s kind of what the chorus has, this very positive sense of empowerment. You have the strength inside yourself to overcome anything.
And as specifics for the verse part, this is where the misery is coming from. It relates to social media and how it effects life over the past 5 to 10 years. How many, including myself, started to measure achievements based on a “virtual validation”—based on how many people like or respond to a post. Internally, I’d compare myself to others, and if interaction was small, I’d immediately feel worthless with concerns that I was not doing enough and ultimately that I’d never be enough—that I’m a nobody.
And I can’t speak for everyone, but I do think that’s something that is permeating a lot of people’s lives, particularly younger generations who’ve never known anything else. So there are some very specific lyrics in the verses that refer to this sense of feeling worthless, feeling envious, and feeling useless—you get this virtual validation which is meaningless because it’s people seeing a post for half a second pressing “like” and forgetting it.
Do you foresee Diamond Black releasing an accompanying album and potentially touring in the near future?
Absolutely, that’s the goal. What you generally want with the band is to have a complete body of work ready to go, everything mixed, mastered, all the videos done, and then you start on your release strategy. But based on the unique situation we find ourselves in, and the events of the last few years, we are not quite there just yet. We have bits and pieces that are finished, but not everything needed to proceed. We want to keep the momentum up, but at the same time we want to know what we’ve got in our armory before we start putting things out.
So we’re in a bit of tricky situation at the moment. We want to get more music out there, we want to release an album, we want to tour internationally, and yes, the pieces are coming together. So I think what it may be with this first record, which may be the case with many bands’ first records, is that things are done in a bit of a back to front sort of way based on what we can do.
So I think what will probably happen is that we’ll do some more singles. We’ve been talking about the idea of releasing a full album in January 2024. So we’ll proceed with that, layer in some more touring where we can including festivals and support slots, and then really kind of knuckle down in 2024 when the album’s out and tour that as much as we can.
How did you get hooked up with Andrew Eldritch and The Sisters of Mercy back in 2006?
Okay, so it’s a bit of a long story, so I’m going to shorten it down for you. I’d just moved to London, and I was looking to join a band. One day, I received a random call from an unknown area code number who simply said, “I’m in a band, we need a guitar player, we’re going to tour America—will you come to an audition?” And I was like, “Sorry, who are you? What band?” And he said, “I’m not going to tell you the band, I’m not going to tell you my name, if you are interested, come to the audition.”
And I was skeptical. He claimed that this was an international touring band, and this was a professional unit. And so, never wanting to turn down any opportunity, I went along to an audition with a healthy degree of skepticism layered in with a degree of nervousness because I’m walking into some random place with some random people. And I’ve got a mate who works for the police, and I said, “Look, if you don’t hear back from me in half an hour, come looking…”
So, I went into this audition and there were three guys in a room. One had a laptop, one with a guitar, and one bloke sat on the sofa with a can of beer, some dark glasses, and a wooly hat. And again, no one was telling me who this was, what this was, it was all very mysterious. And the guy with the guitar starts playing some riffs. He looked over and said, “Can you play this?”I can’t read music, but I’m good at picking things up by ear, and I was quite good at being able to play stuff back. And I started to think, hang on… this sounds a bit like The Sisters of Mercy, because I was a fan. They weren’t in my top 10 bands, but I did love them nonetheless. But bear in mind, at that point, they hadn’t put an album out for 16 years.
Did you finally recognize the band?
It would have been hard recognize the band at that point, but I thought, “Yeah, it sounds a bit Sisters of Mercy-like.” So I played one of their famous riffs on my guitar to see if anybody would respond or react. Sure enough, the man with the can, the glasses and the hat goes, “That’s one of our songs.” And I vividly remember looking at my hands—they were shaking—and I couldn’t play anymore because I suddenly realized I was in the presence of a band that had been very important in my childhood, that I respected, and that I was in for a chance to be part of. What? It was surreal.
In hindsight, are you glad you didn’t know who the band actually was prior to the audition?
I’m actually very glad that I wasn’t told in advance who the band was. If I knew, it would have been a whole week of terror and internal thoughts like, “Oh my God, I’m going to The Sisters of Mercy audition.” Whereas with this one, I just went in there, blasé, not knowing who these guys were. I’ll play some riffs and see what happens, and I believe that ended up getting me the job. They called me a couple of days later and simply said, “Yeah, we want you to be in the band.” It was surreal. Spin forward a few weeks and I’m in a tour bus going from LAX to Vegas to play our first Sisters of Mercy show.
TSOM have not released new material since 1993, with their last album Vision Thing in stores in 1990. Can you provide some insight into reports of new music and your involvement in its development?
Well, in the last couple of years, since Dylan Smith has joined the band, we’ve been very prolific. We’ve written 15 to 20 new songs, most of which we’ve played at some point or another live over the last couple of years, particularly 2022. So, it’s been great. Even if you go back to the initial incarnation of the band, there were only 10 songs on the album First and Last and Always. Today, we are very galvanized as a unit now that we are writing this music together and are able to play it for a live audience.
As the new music is, to this point, unreleased, do fans recognize it during live shows?
What was surprising to me was seeing fans singing along to new, unreleased material. At one of the shows, I simply asked a fan, “How’d you know these songs?” He said, “Oh, I just make a YouTube playlist of the live shows, and that’s how I listen to it on my way to college.” And that’s how younger people will consume music now. It doesn’t necessarily matter that there’s not an album version, there’s a live version—which, given the fidelity of phones now, actually sounds good. So yeah, there’s been a lot of new music and it’s exciting for me because as a fan, I’m able to combine my love of the band with my love of music in general, and put my own stamp on things as well.
The band has not toured the US for nearly 15 years, although it has toured sparingly in Europe over the years. Why the long touring pause here in the States?
That is a good question. I think for a US tour to happen, there have to be a lot of things that all fall into place at exactly the right time. Many complications have to be sorted out including visas, transport, and the vast distances between the cities. It’s much more challenging than touring Europe where you have a few hours between the show and you are not far from the home. So I think the pause has those elements to it.
But I think things just weren’t necessarily in the right place to come back. There was never any conversation of, “we are never going back to the States.” It just seemed to be one of those situations where things didn’t fall into place.
What will it be like to take the stage at Sick New World festival in Las Vegas as one of your first “major” stateside shows?
I’m confident that our team around us will do everything they can to make it as good as possible for us. I’m also aware that it’s a major festival, so you have remember that things aren’t always necessarily going to be the way you want them to be. And you’ve got a short set, you’ve got a quick turnaround on and off the stage. It’s not necessarily your crowd. Maybe the first bunch of rows are, but then it’s not after that. So there might be an element of trepidation, but obviously we’ll bring everything we’ve got and we’ll rock it. I’m just very excited to be among such good company. I mean there’s some incredible bands on the bill in including Cold, a band that I grew up listening to. So attending Sick New World will be very, very special for me.
What should TSOM fans expect during your 18-city tour beginning late spring here in the US?
It’s going to be a really good combination of greatest hits along with deep cuts. There will be some songs on records where fans will be like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe they’re actually playing that song”—which is one of my favorite things for a band to do. We will also be playing some of the new songs we discussed, ones that we feel fit alongside the entire back catalog very nicely. Add in a very exciting visual show, something very sonically powerful, and our show will be a bit different from your average rock show. Fans are going to love it.
Vinyl as a medium is resurging all around the world. What are your thoughts on vinyl and its importance as an artist?
Vinyl was something that I initially missed out on because when I started collecting music, it was being phased out because of its practicality. Cassettes and CDs were the primary way of consuming music at that time. And it was only when I was a teenager that I began to have an interest in vinyl. And even then, I wasn’t listening to it—I didn’t have a record player. Instead, I loved the fact that vinyl had killer artwork and inserts included. As an example, The Cult had some amazing artwork on their vinyl singles that I love. It would extend the world of the album in a way that a CD or cassette wouldn’t. So, although it was never my primary medium to consume, vinyl was super cool. As an artifact, I find the medium fascinating, and certainly to be the most valuable.
What are your all-time favorite bands along with their best albums?
They were AC/DC, For Those About to Rock, Def Leppard, High and Dry, Judas Priest, Defenders of the Faith, The Cult, Love, and The Cure, Disintegration. And I think those five albums were really at the core of my musical roots. I expanded from there and went into all different sorts of industrial, electro, metal, hardcore, emo, new metal, everything. But those albums I find that I listen to almost on a daily basis in some way because they encompass what I love about music, which is essentially darkness, melody, grittiness, power, and good lyrics.
Your favorite TSOM song to play live?
I love to play “Dominion.” I think it’s just such a brilliant anthem, and I love to see the responses from the people when we play it. I like that there’s, what was originally a saxophone solo, I’ve managed to make into a guitar solo in a way that I think is quite faithful to the original while putting my own vibe on it. That’s a great one to play.
Who is performing at Sick New World you’re most excited to see live?
That would be Cold, because I’ve never seen them live and I grew up listening to them. I first heard them on one of those free cassettes you get on a music magazine and have followed them ever since. I’m very excited to see them, particularly because through The Sisters of Mercy I’ve been able to connect with the singer Scooter, who’s also a fan of ours. We’ve chatted a few times on email and stuff like that, and now I’m actually going to get to meet him. So that’s exciting for me.
Who’s an artist on your playlist that most would find “unexpected?”
Nik Kershaw was most famous for being a pop icon in the ’80s. He was unfortunately thrown in with many of the generic pop acts at the time. That said, his writing and his musicianship are just incredible. I dream that one day I might be able to get to write a song with him, but I probably wouldn’t understand what he was doing because he’s just so brilliant.
Any final thoughts for us?
I know you’ve already mentioned the new Diamond Black single and video, “Through the Misery,” so getting people to check that out and follow the band would be really, really helpful. And I just want people to know that we are really optimistic and excited about the upcoming The Sisters of Mercy show in the States. We’ll be bringing all the best stuff that we’ve done over the last couple of years, both in terms of the songwriting and the live show, in a way that I feel super excited about. And for me this hits on a whole new level because the last time I played the States with the band, I was very new and there was nothing I’d written in the setlist—not the case this time around.
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PHOTO: DIMITAR ALEXOV
