Don’t Blink, Because You Don’t Want To Miss Lennon Wells

Lennon Wells

Lennon Wells have been at it for a while, playing to audiences around the country and in their home state of Tasmania for years, but their debut album Blink (and you’ll miss it), released on November 26th this year, has captivated listeners far reaching beyond the isles of the south. 

The band hit number 45 with the LP on the ARIA album charts, in an enormous achievement for a group from Southern Tasmania. But it’s in that very state that they have been wowing crowds, receiving a nomination for best live act in Tasmania in 2023 and playing marquee festivals such as Party In The Paddock and The Great Escape.

With a nationwide tour carved out for January and February next year to celebrate the album release, and having just supported Wolfmother and Kingswood in their home city, it seems the band are at a threshold of recognition. 

And yet despite catching the attention of the ARIA charts, and the support of their high energy performances, the process of receiving praise from fans and respected peers, people in the music industry has meant more for frontman Benjamin Wells. 

“Without putting too much focus on that kind of recognition,” says Wells, “what goes along with that is hearing from people who've taken the time to send us a message or reach out in whatever kind of way and be like, ‘Oh I really connected with this song or you know I'm loving this thing as a whole piece of music’.

“That feedback has been really good and when you start to hear that from not just your friends but from people outside that circle it feels really good,” he adds. “It fills you with confidence. 

“Those bursts of good news when you're a musician battling away at trying to build your audience, getting a little pat on the back like that feels really good and acts as another motivating factor in the process of creating.”

This experience feels especially good for the band following on from the time and energy they put into making the record, a process that involved honouring a sense of pride and integrity.

“We did this album purely for us,” proclaims Wells. “We all went down to Bruny Island for three days and we wrote the whole thing together, recording as we went. Every morning, we would get up and just play for 14 hours. We were so locked in by the motivation of wanting to make a record that we were really proud of. 

“It’s been two years in the making and that pride is probably part of the reason why it took that long. We'd regularly go over and re-record songs and then add one other bit, sometimes changing all of this other thing. We remained committed to making a great record.”

Centring themselves in the conviction of making the best album they could is made evident in the depth and resonance of it, but one of the most evocative and relatable aspects of the album is the truth of the human experience that is woven into the lyricism.

Wells has particularly harnessed this in the song Hey Michael that speaks to the epidemic of suicide in men in Australia.

The song came about through the shock and grief of losing three friends to such a means in a single year, and yet the track speaks to a broader experience of moving through challenging moments in one’s life. 

“When we were down on Burnie,” he says. “I was reflecting on where I'm at in life, acknowledging that I hadn't really suffered much tragedy. So, I had an idea of a song that depicted tragedy around me, but at the time I just left it as that.  

“We built the song, but I hadn't finished the lyrics and then pretty much three months after that, I lost a friend. And then over the course of the year I lost two more. 

“I wasn’t particularly tight with them at the time, but they were all really good friends from different periods of my life,” he continues. “One was my best childhood friend, another one of my best mates from my early 20s and the other one of my best mates from my teen years.”

In a way tragedy or grief is a part of the human experience, and yet the most tragic reality of that is that many men, particularly in Australia, experience that at the hands of losing a peer or another man they know to suicide. 

Wells acknowledges this and so beautifully moulds the pain of that into an opportunity for creative expression and subsequent dialogue.

“It’s inevitable right? Tragedy strikes everyone,” he explains. “And suicide affects so many males, but in Australia there’s not much separation to everyone who's lost someone to suicide. I finished Hey Michael at the tail end of that year and it hit hard to recognise I had called these people good friends at some point in life, but recently I hadn't been talking to.

“But I kept reflecting and thinking I should have, I could have easily messaged any of them to check up and just be like ‘Hey man, what's going on? What have you been up to? It's been a while, how about that time?’ I could have just started a conversation. 

“But I didn't and so Hey Michael acts as that conversation with your friends when you should message a friend, because who knows how it could spark something,” he adds.

And it’s the power of hindsight that allows such a reflection, but for Wells and the band to be able to eternalise the message threaded into the track and perform it live, allowing audiences to connect with it in a more visceral way has the potential to permeate throughout community inciting positive change. 

Blink (and you’ll miss it) elucidates the honesty and rawness of the contemporary human condition, covering a broad spectrum of experience with the upcoming tour for the band allowing for an opportunity to connect with the energy that coincides with sonic territory they explore. It’s going to be a run of shows you wouldn’t want to miss.

Tickets to Lennon Wells’ upcoming tour dates are on sale now.

Lennon Wells – Blink (and you’ll miss it) Album Tour

Friday, January 2nd – Taste Festival, Hobart, TAS

Friday, January 16th – Lowlife Basement Bar, Adelaide, SA

Saturday, January 17th – Shotkickers, Melbourne, VIC

Friday, February 27th – La La La’s, Wollongong, NSW

Saturday, February 28th – The Trocadero Room, Sydney, NSW

Saturday, March 21st – Berried Alive Festival, Turners Beach, TAS

This article discusses mental health issues and suicide. If you or someone you know is suffering from depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts or other mental-related illness, we implore you to get in contact with Beyondblue or Lifeline:

Beyondblue: 1300 224 636

Lifeline: 13 11 14

Suicide Call-Back Service: 1300 659 467

Beyondblue and Lifeline both offer online chat and counselling. Please check their respective websites for operational hours and additional details. 

This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body