In this in depth and revealing interview, Mercury Prize-winning artist Benjamin Clementine speaks with Australian Musician editor Greg Phillips ahead of his first-ever Australian tour in October 2026. In this wide-ranging interview, Clementine discusses his ‘Back to Basics’ tour, performing with just piano and voice, the power of silence in music, his unconventional approach to songwriting and performance, his Paris street-busking years, connecting with audiences, embracing mistakes and the inspiration behind his forthcoming music, including an Australian-influenced song. Clementine also reflects on his evolving relationship with his audience and why, after years of artistic experimentation, he has chosen to return to the simplicity of one voice, one piano and the songs themselves. Benjamin Clementine performs at Dunstan Playhouse in Adelaide, The Forum (as part of Melbourne International Jazz Festival), Enmore Theatre in Sydney and Fremantle Arts Centre in Perth in October 2026.
MORE ABOUT THE INTERVIEW
Clementine says he is approaching his first Australian visit with a simple sense of curiosity. He is looking forward to warmth, beautiful landscapes, the beach and meeting people who, despite being strangers, may feel familiar. That openness extends to his approach to audiences: he views every audience equally, describing them as knowledgeable, kind and curious, and as a reflection of himself.
The ‘Back to Basics’ concept represents a deliberate return to the foundations of his music, Clementine, a piano and his voice. He says the stripped-back format is simultaneously liberating and exposing, but ultimately considers it his “biggest weapon”. After performing with a band in Brazil and Switzerland, a logistical problem forced him to perform alone at a subsequent show. The response was so powerful that it prompted a realisation … perhaps he had been doing too much. The experience convinced him that audiences could connect more deeply with the simple combination of a performer, his songs and his words.
That philosophy is central to Clementine’s understanding of live performance. He rarely uses a setlist when performing solo, preferring to respond instinctively to the room. He says he can sense what kind of audience he is facing as soon as his foot touches the stage, and will sometimes allow the audience’s energy to determine what song comes next. Even when performing with a band, he leaves room for spontaneity, insisting that musicians are human rather than machines.
Silence is equally important. Clementine traces his appreciation of silence back to his early years in Paris, when he was homeless and sleeping wherever he could find shelter. He recalls being given a place to sleep on a basement floor, an experience that gave him, for the first time, a sense of warmth and solitude away from the noise of the streets. His subsequent years of loneliness became formative, teaching him the value of being alone and of listening inwardly.
That relationship with silence has become fundamental to his music. Clementine sees pauses not as empty spaces but as active parts of a performance. On stage, he can allow silence to stretch because the audience remains attentive, creating a tension that cannot necessarily be reproduced on a recording. Asked what he would tell an extraterrestrial what he believes music is, he initially answers simply, “Music is silence.” He later expands the idea, describing music as non-judgmental and almost all-accepting, something that can embrace people regardless of who they are, what language they speak or where they come from.
Clementine’s music similarly resists categorisation. Classical music, jazz, chanson, soul, folk and theatre emerge naturally from his instincts rather than being consciously combined. He attributes this instinctive approach to his multicultural upbringing, born in London to Ghanaian parents and shaped artistically by six years in France, he absorbed influences from English, African and French cultures. Paris was particularly significant because it was where, away from his strict Christian upbringing, he discovered much of the secular music that would influence him, from chanson to Nina Simone and Jimi Hendrix.
His distinctive voice and phrasing are also deliberately organic. Clementine says he has avoided formally learning certain musical techniques because he fears that doing so could interfere with the qualities that make his style his own. His theatrical shifts between intimacy and intensity developed naturally through his experiences performing in public, including singing on trains without amplification. For Clementine, the public itself became a classroom … performing, making mistakes and continuing regardless of them allowed those mistakes to become part of his identity.
This idea of embracing imperfection reflects a broader philosophy of artistic independence. Clementine argues that mistakes can become uniquely personal because no one else can replicate them in exactly the same way. Rather than trying to eliminate every imperfection, he believes artists should allow their individual experiences and peculiarities to become part of their artistic language.
His relationship with his audience has also evolved. Clementine openly recalls having a much larger ego when he was younger, including an infamous incident while opening for Cat Power at Brighton Dome, when he became frustrated with people talking as they entered the venue, even though he was not the headline act. With age, children and life experience, his perspective has changed. He now feels more comfortable interacting with audiences and recognises the significance of people choosing to spend money and time listening to him. Music, he says, is a gift, but it is not more important than fundamental human needs such as having enough to eat.
That growing humility informs the ‘Back to Basics’ tour. Clementine describes himself as coming full circle, after exploring increasingly elaborate artistic ideas, he is returning to the simplicity that first connected him with audiences. His humorous “Lamborghini piano” analogy captures the idea, he wanted to prove to himself that he could reinvent the form, but ultimately recognised that audiences simply wanted the piano and the songs they had already connected with.
The same sense of renewal informs his forthcoming album. Clementine is experimenting with how he releases music, choosing to issue individual songs over time before eventually compiling them into a complete body of work. He wants each track to have space to breathe and believes listeners now tend to move between individual songs and artists rather than consuming albums in the traditional way. He says the new record is also his most literal album lyrically, reflecting the considerable time he has invested in the words.
Among the forthcoming material is an Australian-inspired song rooted in a youthful memory of a woman he knew in London who was Australian. Clementine once considered travelling to Sydney instead of Paris but could not afford the trip, choosing Paris instead. Now, finally travelling to Australia, he sees the song as a playful and somewhat naive reflection on that earlier period of his life and a fitting expression of his excitement about finally making the journey.
Clementine’s conversation with Australian Musician reveals an artist deliberately stripping away excess in order to reconnect with what matters most … voice, piano, words, silence and human connection. His ‘Back to Basics’ tour is not simply a minimalist performance format, but a reflection of where Clementine finds himself creatively and personally, older, more self-aware, more accepting of imperfection and increasingly interested in the direct connection between performer and audience.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE — ‘BACK TO BASICS’ AUSTRALIA TOUR 2026
Presented by Act 3 Presents
Thursday, October 15th
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide SA
Tuesday, October 20th
The Forum, Melbourne VIC
(Melbourne International Jazz Festival concert)
Wednesday, October 21st
Enmore Theatre, Sydney NSW
Saturday, October 24th
Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth WA
Adelaide, Sydney Perth Ticketing information: https://www.act3presents.com/
Melbourne International Jazz Festival information : https://www.melbournejazz.com/
Benjamin Clementine official website: https://www.benjaminclementine.com