Despite spending most of his adult life in the music business, Ben Lee tells DOUG WALLEN he’s never been so unsure of himself as an artist – and that’s the way he likes it.

Having grown from a cute teen prodigy into a committed music lifer, Ben Lee knows plenty about evolving. And on his meditative eighth album Deeper into Dream, he’s never been more fixated on permanence and flux. Based around a longtime fascination with dreaming, the record follows several years of work with dream therapist Jan Lloyd, who died last year. It’s also influenced by the birth of a daughter with his wife, actress Ione Skye, whose father is none other than ’60s folk icon Donovan.

Lee and his family live in LA’s storied Laurel Canyon, once home to the likes of The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. All of this may just feed into Deeper into Dream, which swims as much with tidal ambience as with intuitive pop hooks. It’s a low-key grower that goes its own way, just like Lee. After nearly two decades in the music business, he’s settled into the long middle stretch of his career with a peace that’s relatively newfound. Warmly and at length, he discusses this very pivotal time in his life.

I know the last time you did something for Mess+Noise it was with Muscles.
That was fun. I don’t know why someone got the impression I didn’t like it. I enjoyed it. He’s a real character. I haven’t heard from him in a while.

Were you keeping in touch with him?
A little bit. We actually did a little song together, just via email back and forth.

Did that come out somehow?
No, no. It’s on my hard drive. [Laughs] It’s pretty cool, actually.

He’s a really interesting guy. I’m looking forward to another album from him.
Yeah, I like people who are unique. He’s unique.

How long’s it been now that you’ve lived in America?
For 15 years? Like since I was 18.

So it’s home.
Yeah, I mean, my whole adult life has been here. Which is pretty funny because when I go home [to Australia] I obviously still have a huge emotional attachment to family and friends, but I really just had a childhood in Australia. So that is pretty wild to realise. In another few years I’ll have been here the same amount of time I was there. It’s a trip.

How long have you been in Laurel Canyon?
About five years.

Obviously it has this rich musical history, but why did you settle there?
Well, really, my wife already lived here. When we got married, we were gonna buy another place – our own place – but everything we looked at was not as great. So we just ended up renovating this house and staying here. It’s not a very sexy reason, but basically the real estate markets determined it. [Laughs]

And you were able to make a home studio there.
Yeah, exactly. And that’s been amazing. I’ve gotten to work on so many fun projects. And also just the confidence-building of producing my own stuff. It’s funny how some artists just have that from day one. I guess because I came out of lo-fi: it comes with a whole insecurity about actually making things sound good. It’s definitely something I had to build my way up to.

I read a few things online about this being a “Laurel Canyon-inspired” record, which I didn’t think it was at all.
I don’t know who said that. There’s a bunch of people involved that maybe said that. [Laughs]

Did any of that seep in, though? That knowledge that these famous records had been made nearby?
It’s funny. I went to see Steve Earle the other night and this older guy I was chatting to said, “Where do you live?” I said Laurel Canyon and he’s like, “You’re 40 years too late!” Well, I’m too late for your experience, but I’m having my own experience I think I was right on time for. [Laughs] I think [what] drew people here is that you’re kind of in nature while still really close to the city. So if you’re a person that values being part of society, which I do, but at the same time want a peaceful existence, it’s a sanctuary. But y’know, it’s become much more homogenised since the ’60s and ’70s.

But it’s funny in LA. The fact that Family Ties was shot here probably had a bigger influence on me. Because when you’re growing up, you’re like, “All this stuff happened in America.” It’s almost like an indoctrination. Pop culture brainwashing is probably part of what initially brought me to America. Just thinking: “You’ve got to go America. You’ve got to go America.”

Y’know, I’m familiar with your wife from her acting, but I read that her dad is actually Donovan. Is it sort of bizarre having Donovan as your father-in-law?
Yeah, it’s really weird, especially because she didn’t grow up with him. She didn’t meet him until she was 16. Y’know, these wild ’60s men sowing their seeds all over the place. So she’s still discovering what their relationship is. It’s not like a normal family, because there’s still this thing where they’re learning about each other.

That gives your daughter double the music DNA.
I’m sure there’s DNA, but it’s also growing up with the assumed nature that you can make art. “Sing songs and people will hear them!” We have musicians in and out of here all the time, especially now I have the studio. My daughter and my stepdaughter just totally take it for granted, which is cool. That’s my approach with a lot of things, like India and spirituality: I want them to feel like all this stuff is normal, and they can make their mind up without there being taboos around them. Just have their own experience.

Your wife and daughter sing on the record as well.
Yeah, just some backing vocals.

Was that interesting, getting your daughter to sing for you?
Well, the way I work is very integrated in my family life. It’s not like a big event. It’s yelling across the house: “Hey, can you come in here?” The mic’s already set up. [Laughs] Whenever I need extra voices, they’re always willing to jump in.

How long have dreams and dreaming been a fascination for you?
It’s been a long time. When I was 19, I did some courses at The New School in New York on different approaches to dreams. I was really interested in which herbs and diets made you dream more. I’d always been fascinated by it. Then four years ago, I met this guy [dream therapist] Jan Lloyd. He just blew my mind with his approach to it. I’d always been scared of dream analysis, as an idea there’s a right or a wrong. “Oh, you dreamt about a carrot: that’s a penis.” That it would all be very academic. But his approach was much more that dreams present questions for you. And they’re not questions you have to find the answer to. They’re questions that challenge your assumptions about who you are and what your life is.

So I just opened up to that idea. And I think as a result, as a person and as an artist, I’m more vulnerable now in that I really did used to believe I had to have all the answers. That’s just a survival technique I came up with somewhere, and I didn’t even question that until I started doing this dream work and realising, “Oh, I’m a lot less confident than I put across to people.” And I thought, “Wow, I should start revealing that.” I mean, that’s what I’m discovering. That’s what art is meant to be: you show where you’re at.

I think being a father is a good way to realise you don’t have all the answers.
Oh my god. Yeah. For me, a huge thing I wanna teach the kids is to follow their own inner-guidance and not worry about society or what is generally approved of or not approved of by whatever tribe they’re in. Just to go with what feels right to them. And as you start teaching these things to kids, you realise how much you fail at these very things every day, and how affected am I by what the tribe’s consensus is. I think having to confront that has made me want to be a better artist. I’m like, “What the fuck, man? I’ve been compromising way too much.” Not even with people who are asking me to compromise: I’m compromising to guess that it will make them happy.

So this record particularly feels like a step forward in my career. It’s my time to just get weirder and weirder, and more personal. And those that can handle it can come along and those that don’t get it … the reality is, no one says they don’t get it. People just say it sucks. [Laughs] With things we don’t understand, we just say they suck. So I’m ready for that and that’s all fine.

Ben Lee - Get Used To It by lojinx

Well, you’ve done so many records that I’m sure you’ve built up a following of fans who will go with you to these more personal places.
There are some. But the reality of buying music is: I don’t know how many artists there are that I buy every album of. I call myself a very big fan of, like, Jonathan Richman, but I don’t buy every new album he has out. At a certain point you just feel like you have enough of their albums. So I don’t think you rest on that [as an artist]. For me, I look at it like each album has its own purpose in my life. And it probably has its own fans, in a way, that I have to open it up to. The question for me is: how do I make them aware of it? Because I can’t just market my music [like everyone else]. The way labels work is, Sub Pop just goes, “This is what worked for The Shins. Let’s do it for Avi Buffalo.” You have these models that you work from. But, and I don’t say this to boast, I just don’t think there’s a lot of artists [I can do that with]. Because I’m just doing my own thing after this many years. So I’m in a constant question of “How do I actually communicate to people that might find this interesting that this work exists?”

Have you been using all the online portals for that?
Yeah, I use Twitter and Facebook. But I get the feeling … I went down to Occupy Wall Street and I went down to Occupy LA I felt like there were all these normal people that aren’t [necessarily] music fans. But I think they’d like my music. [Laughs] Because my music is about wanting to change. If you don’t have multi-national corporations behind you shoving you down people’s throats and you don’t fit into a predetermined demographic, how do you get music to people? That’s an interesting question.

I guess it’s old-fashioned word of mouth.
Exactly. And for that you just have to make music that’s as personal and unique as you can.

That inspires people to tell other people about it.
Exactly. So it’s an interesting time in my career.

On the album you have these three montages of different people’s dreams. What were the logistics of collecting those and deciding how to put them together?
For the most part, it was just people that visited the house or the studio. Some of them were emailed to me by friends long-distance. As far as cutting them up, it was very much a random and intuitive experience. I’d listen and if a sentence jumped out, I’d cut it up and create little sub-clips of it. Then it was a matter of throwing them all together and shuffling them around. That’s why I called them ‘My First Dream’, ‘My Second Dream’, ‘My Third Dream’: because I’m actually using those symbols to express something from my unconscious that I don’t understand. I’m still exploring what these little pieces are.

Well, that’s what dreams are: symbols and images in this sort of jigsaw order.
Yeah, exactly. But then you do sense truths, somehow, that are very amorphous and hard to pin down. It’s quite beautiful to consider them.

Do you know when you’ll be touring Australia next?
I’m talking about February.

“It’s funny in LA. The fact that *Family Ties* was shot here probably had a bigger influence on me.”

I was wondering how you found the documentary made about you, Catch My Disease. Obviously it’s such a personal thing and was eight years in the making.
I found it, just in principle, mortifying. Just that it exists. [Laughs] But I’m also psyched, because I know [director] Amiel [Courtin-Wilson] did a beautiful job. It’s like Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment: “I’m still here.” Just as a human being, not even as an artist, there are things we have to get through in life and survive. I feel proud that I’m standing here feeling good about my life. I love my family and friends and I still have my desire to create intact. But the idea that people were watching that and maybe judging … by nature, it’s asking people to consider you. Consider your life and what it means to them. All of that is quite scary. So we’ll just see what happens with it. I know it’s been submitted to festivals, and we’ll see whether it hopefully gets into those. Or maybe it’s a thing just for fans. I don’t know.

Because you got such an early start at music, do you ever feel like people expect you to retire early or maybe change streams mid-life?
It’s interesting. I just did an interview with a radio station and they asked me, “What was your career highlight?” And I think they were really thinking when I played some big crowd or found out about some chart placing, whereas those kind of things are like abnormal blips in my life in music. I think of moments of creation where I felt like, “Wow, that came out of me? That’s cool!” Very private moments. So I think it’s more that other people expect you to try to have more and more success and follow a capitalist, greedy way of approaching it. Whereas for me, I want to keep on the journey and work out what’s next. Because I don’t know.

It’s a different yardstick.
Yeah, exactly. It’s definitely not like commercial success defines a happy, long career. It’s an ongoing unfolding, I guess.

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‘Deeper into Dream’ is out now on Dew Process.