Riddle and the Stars

Riddle & The Stars is a collaborative project between Australian singer/ songwriter Ben Riddle and The Fallen Stars, an Americana duo from Southern California.

The band is now out with the album “New Coastline”, 10 songs and a great follow up to their previously album “This Is Happening.

We met on tour last summer in Germany, where we shared a flat and about half our tour dates and we really hit it off, both musically and personally. At the end of the tour Heiko from Songs & Whispers said “We really like The Fallen Stars and we really like Ben Riddle but we REALLY love what you do together.  We think you should do an album and we’ll put it out and then come back and tour again.”  After the meeting we were driving away and we all looked at each other and Ben said “So, This is Happening!”  And an album name was born.

In the fall Ben flew from Australia to California to start recording the album. Ben had some songs, we had some songs, we wrote some new songs together…  All told, we tracked about seventeen songs in fifteen days.

Somewhere between Ben discovering the tenor guitar, Bobbo exploring the pedal steel, and Tracy layering in harmonies – we found our sound.  Call it Indie/Americana/Alt.Folk if you want.  A friend heard what we were doing and said “You all sound like Fleetwood Mac meets The Waterboys!”  

Many friends helped us along the way. Each and every one contributed something special, whether woven through the texture of the entire album, like Matt Froehlich on his cajon kit or Geo Hennessy on violin, or by adding the perfect accent on one or two songs, like Matt Tonge’s mandolin, Danny Ott’s dobro, Peter Linnane’s accordion or Sue Paine’s backing vocals. 

This album came together in such a natural and spontaneous way – and to know that Songs & Whispers were behind whatever we did ~ that made it easy to be creative.  We wanted to capture what was happening with us, musically, personally, and make a great album that makes for great listening all way through.  

We’re really proud of it and hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed making it.

Words from their official website.