The way he got his beginning sounds a lot like a country song all by itself -- no radio on his truck, so he started singing, picked up a guitar and fast forward you've got the Ben Smith of the Ben Smith Band.
"I was 18 when I bought this truck, a senior in high school, and it didn't have a radio. So I would drive around and have no tunes at all," said Smith. "So one day I just remembered, we were watching Garth Brooks on Austin City Limits, I just happen to remember some of the words to his songs and started singing them in my truck. And I was like, 'Man I'm not that bad of a singer, I should get a guitar.'"
Smith asked for a guitar for his birthday and that's where it all started for him. Since then the singer, songwriter has been making a name for himself around North Texas. In fact we found out about the band when a viewer sent us an email to check him out, so we did and this is what we found.
Smith is graduate of Texas A&M University, who majored in Forestry. Now his day job of running a tree trimming business doesn't exactly jive with the night one but Smith makes it all work.
Smith originally started playing music as a hobby of sorts but he has developed a steady fan base and its become his passion and priority.
"It's definitely got a lot of just me in it. I'm from a small town, a country guy from Texas," said Smith. "I would still call it country music but it's got this real, pop rock thing infused into it.."
"All the songs have different rhythms slow songs fast songs, you can jitterbug you can slow dance, all two stepping," said Regina, Ben Smith Band fan.
Smith he is doing it his way and on his terms. "I've thought about moving up to Nashville and doing that whole thing.... but down here we are able to really build our fan base and sing our own songs and be independent," said Smith.
But this isn't just about the music, it's also about the food. We caught up with Smith at Adairs in Deep Ellum. "The burgers are pretty awesome. They've got a little jalapeno tooth-picked to the top of them. Good stuff."
"Adairs, the best burgers around. We come all the way from McKinney for the burgers here" said Wendolin Mercado, eating lunch.
