Thanks for checking out our Pozible page!
We are Ben Wells And The Middle Names, an indie pop rock 5-piece band from Tasmania. 

This Sunday April 28th, we go to regional Queensland for a month to live in a studio retreat to record our debut album with multiple ARIA-Award winning producer Magoo. This is an important stage in our career working with a high calibre producer to create a body of work that presents our music completely and at a high quality standard.

Magoo has recorded with many of Australia's established artists including Regurgitator, Custard, Kate Miller-Heidke, and most recently The Jungle Giants, Sons Of Rico and Hey Geronimo.

Recording an album and the subsequent activity that surrounds its release is an expensive exercise to fund. We are an independent band and therefore will be paying for these expenses.

Already walking the tight rope of self-funding this album project, this week we had a disaster. A fire occurred at our house/studio while we were undertaking one of our final rehearsals and we lost between $7000 - $8000 worth of gear. Thankfully we are all in good health, and we were able to get our guitars out in time before the inferno became too great, burning half the house.

It is a crap situation, made even more significant since we are less than a week out from recording our debut album! But it is what it is, and we're faced with some unplanned expenses to purchase new gear. In particular a guitar amp and PA so we can continue to rehearse effectively and be prepared for touring over the coming months to promote our new album.

So here in lies our purpose for this funding campaign. We are providing you the chance now to pre-order our album as well as some other rewards that might take your fancy, to help us get through our current circumstances.

THE PROJECT: Ben Wells and the Middle Names seeks your support to manage the balance sheet a little so that we may push forward with our debut album project in full and replenish some of our music gear that will get us prepared to tour all over Australia and perform our new songs to you over the coming months.

Here is some info on what we're up to and the financials: 
THE BUDGET - Album
Recording - pre-production demos, album recording/mixing/mastering - $22,900**
Travel & Accommodation - $4600
Promotion, artwork, replication (physical album packages) & film clip media - $14,100

THE BUDGET - Equipment lost in fire - $8000 value

Call it Murphy's Law, call it Karma, or maybe its something else? But unfortunately we were between insurance policy renewals at the moment and therefore the gear wasn't covered.

THE BUDGET - Touring
We will be touring multiple times interstate and a tour of NZ from July onwards and incurring expenses.
$8000 minimum.

**At the beginning of this year Ben Wells And The Middle Names received grant funding support of $15,840 to go towards our album recording costs from the Minister for the Arts through Arts Tasmania's Assistance to Individuals funding allocation.

BIOGRAPHY
Ben Wells And The Middle Names have a dynamic sound that combines indie, rock, and pop sensibilities. The 5-piece band are based in Hobart and have built a strong following locally and interstate. An emerging band achieving national success, throughout 2012 Ben Wells and the Middle Names toured the Australian east coast four times and supported a stack of touring bands in Tasmania including Passenger, Ball Park Music, Art Vs Science, Snakadaktal, Husky, San Cisco, The Jungle Giants, Stonefield, and Darren Hanlon.

They became the first Tasmanian band to showcase at BIGSOUND, Australia’s premier music showcase event held in Brisbane, and have performed on the main stages of the Falls Festival (twice), Festival of the Sun, The Soundscape Festival, and MS Fest. They have received radio play on Triple J (and were unearthed in 2011), ABC and community stations across the country. Their song ‘Lullaby’ was placed in MTV series ‘The Real World’ that aired in the USA late 2012.

Balcony TV – performing ‘My Brother & I’: http://bit.ly/16yTiUM
Robin Hood clip - http://bit.ly/XoNFHn
Bear In A Birdcage film clip - http://bit.ly/YliQ1d
My Dear Summer film clip - http://bit.ly/Z7ddmM

Media reviews: http://www.sonicbids.com/2/EPK/?epk_id=367604#press

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