Thoughts:
"I'm very lucky to be a playing
great songs with such a
talented bunch of musicians".
Ben M.

BEN MATTHEWS BIOG
Essex born Ben first was inspired to play the
drums at the tender age of nine:
"I saw Roger Taylor from Queen playing in one of
their videos and desperately wanted to play".
For two years Ben was self taught until he started
having lessons with local teacher Peter Thompson
(who had played with the likes of Cher and Robert
Plant). At sixteen, Ben was progressing quickly and
attended the London Music School playing in a
range of bands including jazz, rock, drum and bass,
and covers bands.

After graduating, Ben, having forsaken a football
career with Arsenal Youth team in order to pursue
his main passion, music, started having lessons
with legendary drum teacher, Bob Armstrong:
"Bob is one of the most influential people I have
met in music, he's got a great reputation, and has
worked on so many of the West End shows as
well as having done loads of work for the BBC as
a session drummer. He has had a huge impact on
my playing and has shown me how to play the
drums properly".

After becoming a drum teacher himself, Ben met
Rob in September 2005 when Rob started working
as a cello teacher for Brighton and Hove City
Council. Going with his gut instinct and fully aware
of the fact that the fledgling Two Spot Gobi was
currently drummer less (a session drummer had
been used for the recording), Rob gave Ben a copy
of the freshly pressed Melodious Star EP with a
view to enticing him into the band. Within 20
minutes of hearing the demo, Ben had called back
and asked when the first rehearsal was:
"Rob gave me the demo and I stuck it on in the car
on my way home... I think it's just over 15 minutes
long and so after 16 minutes I had listened to the
tracks and had called him back, I knew I wanted
to be part of the band".