A Conversation with Stone Temple Pilot's Chester Bennington
Mike Ragogna: Chester! Cheers!
Chester Bennington: Mike, how are you?
MR: I'm fine, you?
CB: I'm fantastic, thank you.
MR: Nice. All right, let's dig in. Stone Temple Pilots meets Chester Bennington. Dear God, what's going on here, man?
CB: Madness, I tell you! Madness is happening! I know, it's crazy, but it's true, it is the way things are, that's for sure. We're having a lot of fun, we've been very, very productive creatively, we have a lot of great music that we're still working on and here to put out as fast as possible and we're playing shows and all of this is happening as Linkin Park is working on our next record.
MR: Nice. So it's all smoothy-smooth and both houses are happy?
CB: Yeah. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't get the blessing of my friends, you know? It's the respectful thing to do; those guys deserve an opinion in it. So I put it out there, the guys have been really, really cool about things as I knew they would. They were also very honest about how they felt with their conservatory and everybody walked out feeling good about it. It's been good.
MR: Chester, on STP's new EP High Rise, it's pretty obvious from the first couple of singles that you're not straying from the formula, yet on the other hand, you're leaving a mark. How is this merger creatively working?
CB: It's working great. I think High Rise has great songs on it, it has exactly the kind of responses that I hoped for before. I like to get five star reviews and then one star reviews--those are my favorite kind to get. It means that we're striking a chord of emotion in people on both ends of the spectrum, and it's great. The majority of people that I talk to are people at the shows that we're playing, they're people that are playing the music, that know the band, and we're getting a lot of support. There are the people that are going to need some time to catch up, so we just want to go out and play and we just want to release music. Let the music do the talking.
MR: Okay, so High Rise features "Out Of Time," which was already a number one record in certain outlets, and "Black Heart." Where do you see this new configuration heading? Is this a one-shot deal or is it more permanent?
CB: Definitely not a one-shot deal. I don't think these guys are in the business of screwing around and wasting our time, I think that they've done it long enough. For us, it's all about taking advantage of the time we have together and making it as productive as we can. I know that these guys are going to be writing songs in my absence, and same with me, and likewise with Linkin Park. When I'm off with STP, those guys are creating stuff as well. We have the same benefit, controlling everything and communicating and making sure that things aren't conflicting. So for me, it's more about my creative process, my creative journey, and all I want to do is sing songs and have fun and be a musician. Working with different people inspires different feelings and styles.
MR: It is a unique situation that you're in. I don't think it's ever been done like this before.
CB: You know, I never really thought of it that way, but that's cool.
MR: Is it hard to balance?
CB: I make music for a living, dude. It's as hard as I want it to be. I show up, I hear music that my friends make, I think of melodies and I write words down and I cross my fingers and I send it out there and see if people want to listen to it. It's a strange feeling knowing that even when you're an established band, you can either start just touring the catalog and having fun and writing or you've got to keep gambling and you've got to put it all on the line and keep trying to push yourself forward. It's kind of like fruit on the vine; you've got to keep plucking the fruit for the vine to be productive, otherwise, the fruit just kind of dies on the vine and rots away and the tree's not producing great fruit, you know? That's kind of like what happens with musicians, so I try to keep myself plugged into a lot of different things all the time.
MR: Chester, is this also sort of a dream come true for you because you grew up on the music of Stone Temple Pilots?
CB: I think the dream for me was really joining the band of a bunch of singers. I used to have dreams when I was in fourth grade about Depeche Mode landing a jet in my schoolyard and coming out and announcing to the school that I was going to be the fifth member. That would be equal to a lifelong dream coming true. But I definitely have to say that STP's music is up there on my list of music that defines big chunks of my life. After touring with these guys and knowing these guys and having a passion for what they do, I want people to hear their music the same way that I heard it growing up, with that same kind of swagger. So for these guys to make the choice to move forward was a very difficult decision, but I think they made the right choice and I think one by one, as fans come and see us and listen to what we're doing and watch what we're doing, they can make their minds up the same way all the other people have, which has been it's all good from where I'm standing. People I talk to every night after shows and take pictures with, I ask them what did they think about the show and they tell me. It's been awesome so far.
MR: With the live aspect, I imagine you're playing the STP catalog in addition to songs that are on the EP, so do you find that you're bringing something in that they didn't have in the mix before? How is it morphing on the stage?
CB: You know, from my point of view, I don't have any history with these guys other than that I know them on a personal level. I don't have any ties to the songs on an emotional level, I'm not sick of playing one song one way, another song doesn't remind me of all the times I performed it poorly and I just hate that song now. These older songs, they've been playing at every single show of their career. There was a period of time where I was like, "Hey guys, what are we going to be playing on our tour?" and everybody was like, "Oh, I don't know, we'll kind of figure it out." We were focusing on the EP, so I just started putting set lists together. I put them together coming from, "I like this song, I can sing this song really well, here are the four songs off the first three records each that I like the most, here are three or four songs off the other remaining albums that I like the most," and I just put them all in a list. With the exception of I think one or two songs either being added to the list or taken off the list that we're playing live now, it was like, "Okay, cool, we'll play those." So I'm singing the songs that I like and I'm singing the songs that I think fans are going to be stoked to hear.
MR: I also imagine your fans from both groups are going to be intrigued by this move. What message do you have for those fans?
CB: Talking about what people think is kind of a tricky thing, and trying to evaluate that at the same time is also kind of tricky. To a certain degree, I talk to kids on Twitter. I pay attention to what people say, comments on whatever video I see from shows, or if they listen to the songs on radio. It's always a mixed bag. You always get people who are like, "This is awesome, I can't wait to hear more," all the way to, "I hope Chester kills himself." It's so all over the place and you never know where people are coming from, either. There are reviews for High Rise on iTunes coming from people who haven't even listened to any of it. They just said, "I'll never listen to any of this," and they give it one star. When you change a member of a band that's established and has a legacy and songs that people like, people get defensive about it. I always find it interesting when you become successful as a musician, what people think about what you've done. Going back to making music, earlier, before anybody knows who you are and people like what you're making, you don't really think about what people who aren't going to like what you're doing are going to say about what it is that you've made. That's a good place to operate from. I smile at the good comments, I laugh at the bad comments, and I just let the performances and the music that we're making speak for themselves. People aren't stupid. If they see something in a song and they like it, they're going to like it. If they see a video on YouTube of a band crushing it live and then someone says, "This sucks," the proof is in the pudding. It sounds great. As long as we play live well and as long as we make good music I feel really comfortable about our fans' responses. Like I said, they're my favorite kind, they're all the way to one side or the other. But not a lot of two and a half star reviews.
MR: So Stone Temple Chester, what advice do you have for new artists?
CB: I think getting people to listen to your music is the most important part but before you get to that point, I think for young artists who are reading this article and happen to get to this part, it's really easy to trick yourself into thinking that just because you created it, it's good. I think the most valuable thing that I've learned in this business... When you're a painter, people either get it or they don't, and people can love it or hate it but for some reason, some art makes it and most of it doesn't. With musicians, it's different because you've got four or six or more people that are painting the canvas and you kind of need to know your place and what role you serve in the whole, and you need to act upon those strengths as much as possible. The trick is kind of letting your ego get away. It's good to take all criticism of what you've made as constructive criticism.
MR: Cool. All right, anything we need to know about this musical merger or even Chester Bennington?
CB: All the unclassified stuff has been talked about. The rest is above my pay grade.
MR: [laughs] Then let it be written, let it be done. Chester! I really appreciate the interview, as always, and let's talk again real soon.
CB: All right, sounds good. Thank you very much.
Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne
A Conversation with Boz Scaggs
Mike Ragogna: Boz, you have a new collection, an Essential collection that's coming out on Sony. What are your thoughts about the project? I guess we're not quite at five decades of music but we're in that zone.
Boz Scaggs: Seems about right. My thoughts about it? It's just a number. I'm not a very sentimental person, if that's what you're looking for. It's just a number, it's fifty years. That's what I've been doing. I feel very fortunate that I can be doing what I do. I am probably enjoying it more than I ever have and I hope I can keep doing it for a while.
MR: Around when did you decide that you needed to be making records?
BS: There was never a moment, I just put one foot in front of the other. It was probably late in my life that I actually came to the realization that I was a professional musician probably after having made a couple of albums. I've always loved music and I've tried to be around it. While I didn't study music and it wasn't my prime goal, it was what I enjoyed doing the most. One thing just lead to another and it got to be my life.
MR: What were some of your musical passions? What attracted you to it initially?
BS: Well, initially, I guess there was music on in my home. My parents played the popular music of the time and there was music around me, as with most people in my generation. My family moved around when I was a kid and at one point, I was able to take some classical cello lessons when I was about eight or nine years old. I took to it very strongly. I used to carry the cello home with me on the school bus every day and practice. I would move pretty quickly through my lessons. I'd never encountered anything like that. The only thing I can compare that feeling with is when I was a little kid and I loved to go out and play with other kids in the neighborhood. Like most kids I just wanted to play until they made me come in and have dinner. When I discovered the cello and music I had the same feeling, I just wanted to do it all the time and I was pretty good at it. Then we moved and I had to sort of forget about it. It was only later when I picked up the guitar when I was about thirteen that I was able to actually play an instrument and participate in that way. But I'm a child of rock 'n' roll and radio. I listened to the radio constantly, I listened to all sorts of music. I was exposed early on to not only popular Top Forty music but growing up in the area of the country that I did, I was introduced to a lot of black music, a lot of R&B, a lot of soul music out of Texas where I grew up, and out of New Orleans and the deep south, Memphis, Nashville, jazz out of Chicago. I was like a lot of musicians who just had the opportunity and absorbed everything.
MR: What's nice is that we got a nice peek at your passion for music of your youth with the Memphis album. It does show a lot of your devotion and admiration to some of those artists. Plus it's where the new Essential Boz Scaggs collection ends. But let's go back to the beginning when you first started making records.
BS: I made my first record in Sweden. I lived in Europe for about three years and when I was nineteen years old or twenty, I made my first solo album of folk songs and blues songs. That was my first record. Then I came back to the States and my friend Steve Miller had started a band called The Steve Miller Blues Band. I came back to California just after the Summer of 1967 and sort of helped him out with his band for about nine or ten months. During the course of that, I was with his band and we made a couple of albums. Both were produced by a very famous British producer named Glyn Johns who was a master in the studio. We worked in London on the first album with him and then a few months later, we went to LA and we worked in a very famous studio called Wally Heider's where Glyn produced and engineered. So I was gettting quite a lot of high-level studio experience and writing my first songs and that, in fact, led to my staying in San Francisco. My friend Jann [Wenner] lived across the street and we sort of shared a passion for music. It was through his connections in that first year of Rolling Stone magazine that he introduced me to record company official Jerry Wexler at Atlantic records who heard my demo tapes and encouraged Jann to take me to Muscle Shoals and produce my first album.
MR: That's a pretty auspicious launch.
BS: Yes, my first American solo studio album started very proudly with very good company and high-level musicians around me. Duane Allman sang and played on my very first record. Stuff like that. Muscle Shoals was a thrill. It was a strong beginning.
MR: Very strong. And then you went on to Columbia.
BS: Atlantic dropped me and I started a band and the band was playing a lot in the San Francisco area and we got discovered by the A&R people at Columbia and I moved over there.
MR: Eventually, you played with musicians like Jeff Porcaro, Dave Hungate and Dave Paich who ended up being part of the musical backbone on your landmark album, Silk Degrees. What are your thoughts on that album and how significant it was in the period?
BS: I think if it had been my first or second album, it would have blown my mind, but it was my seventh or eighth album and I was sort of ready for that record. I feel, of course, very lucky to have hit with that one, and it took off, but it didn't take off immediately. We just considered it another record and went out and worked shows. It took six or seven or eight months as I recall for it get a radio hit on R&B radio and then it started really moving. That was just sort of great because we got to keep playing shows and the audiences got larger and we got to buy some new amps and guitars and travel more comfortably. Things were really on the jump and of course that record really put me in front of a much larger audience, which is the goal in any trade. So then we were really on the map, and I was really on the map, and I was able to continue. "Lido Shuffle," of course, knocked me up into the new level. When you have those kinds of hits, that's what happens. I ran with that for a few years and it's really carried me through my whole career. People still want to hear those songs, I still enjoy playing them and I feel really lucky that I had that hit.
MR: Yeah and look at the songs that were on Silk Degrees--"It's Over," "Lowdown," "What Can I Say?" "Lido Shuffle," "We're All Alone," "Harbor Lights." That's a lot of music to have contributed to popular culture on one album. That's pretty impressive for anyone.
BS: Those musicians were very young. They were all around twenty years old and they were already top studio players. So they had a lot of backlog and stuff that they wanted to do and they used a lot of their expertise on those songs. It was really a lucky convergence for me.
MR: Then they became Toto after that, so now you've got Boz Scaggs and Toto music out there at the same time. Then you move down the line and you've got your next album which is another chart favorite, Down Two Then Left, followed by Middle Man with "Breakdown Dead Ahead," "Simone," and "Jojo," and the songwriting keeps amping up. Did you feel like some of the success from Silk Degrees helped really elevate your creativity?
BS: It sort of gave me access to other high-level players and arrangers and writers; I was offered to record a film theme. You know, you just gain a certain amount of confidence in your work, you realize that you've been there and you get the confidence to try some other things. I think it lends to you being able to continue with some momentum in what you do. I don't know if I became any more creative or more proficient in those next couple of records, but I had an audience and I had access to really good facilities.
MR: You mentioned the film. Your song and recording of "Look What You've Done To Me" was another hit, and it was featured in the movie Urban Cowboy, which a lot of people have so associated with the movie, they're forever merged. It's now considered a classic.
BS: I was very proud of my work with David Foster. It really opened doors, to work on that film. I would like to have continued that. It sort of opened my eyes to the possibility of just becoming a writer and staying and working out of LA but it wasn't to be. I ended up doing other things.
MR: You've been on a couple of other labels such as Virgin and the latest album was released on 429, and Boz Scaggs' musical adventures continue. So what is in the future? Do you have any goals for the future?
BS: I don't really have goals in music. At this point, I just sort of follow my instincts. I really enjoy my association with other players, and there are other people that I might want to collaborate with. I don't have any particular goals or know what exactly I'm going to do next, there are songs that I think about and want to complete, and I'll start collaborating with my producer and figure something out.
MR: I'm going there because Memphis was a themed album, so I was wondering if you had other similarly focused projects in mind.
BS: Not really. The idea is to find songs that I really enjoy singing and work with some musicians that I enjoy being with.
MR: What advice do you have for new artists?
BS: I say play live. Play in front of people as much as possible. I think that's where you really get some sense of what you enjoy doing. But performing it, not just recording it into Pro Tools or showing it to other people, but to play it. That's where it's at with me and I think that's where you really know what feels good and what might be touching people.
MR: Yeah, I think that's partly where the culture has moved. It's less about the recording and more about the experience of the artist himself or herself.
BS: I think you're right.
MR: When you look at the recordings you've made over the years, are there any that pop out that you feel are really some of your favorites?
BS: "Lowdown" comes to mind. I made an album in 2000, which didn't really see the light of day, it was actually released on 9/11/2001. It's called Dig and I think some of the best material I've ever recorded is on that record. Perhaps in time, that'll find its way around. Other than that, I'm really pleased with this current record. I enjoyed working with Steve Jordan, producer and drummer. I enjoy playing, I feel like I've come to a point where I think I'm singing better than ever. I feel good about it. My guitar playing is beginning to show up a little bit, too. I'm kind of happy with where I am now.
MR: Beautiful. Are there any plans to get together again with Donald Fagen and Michael McDonald?
BS: There are some plans. Nothing concrete that I can tell you about right now but of course, that's a great collaboration.
MR: Boz, thanks, great to talk with you again, I really appreciate your time.
BS: Thank you, I appreciate your time, too. Have a good one.
Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne
A Conversation with Gavin DeGraw
Mike Ragogna: Hey Gavin!
Gavin DeGraw: Hello Mike, how are you? It's nice to hear from you again, man.
MR: Same here. So you made your move on Make A Move. How was this move different than the last move?
GD: That's funny. I think this album is kind of a continuation in the direction of Sweeter but we took it even further. So Sweeter was my first attempt at co-writing for the album. There were three or four co-writes on that album where everything prior to that, I was the only writer. With the success of the album, especially with "Not Over You," the process was much more doable, working with other people. When it came time to make this album, I wanted to just continue that angle of writing with other people. It took a lot of the pressure off and it made it a lot more enjoyable for me. This album is really a full swing in that direction versus it kind of being a halfway. I think these songs are a lot more interesting because there are so many different personalities on the album as far as the writing is concerned. A couple of songs with Ryan Tedder, a couple of songs with Kevin Rudolf, Butch [Walker] produced some stuff; Benny Blanco, Busbee... There's really quite a collection of personalities on it and I think you can really hear it.
MR: Yeah. And one of the cool things about the album is you integrated everything without losing your own sound.
GD: Thank you, man. Hopefully, we're approaching enough different styles here. But with Martin Johnson, we kind of got together the way I first started with Ryan on the last project. I got together with Martin at Backwoods studio here in Nashville and we wrote a song called "Everything Will Change" that we were really happy with. We liked the direction of the song, we thought it was an inspiring song, we thought it was inspirational, and then we got together again in Los Angeles at a place called Conway studios. It's an interesting studio because it's such a collection of artists who come in and out of that place and there are so many big shots who are recording at all times in that structure. You're kind of walking around going, "Holy s**t, I can't believe they're here, too." It's just constantly happening while you're there. But while we were working together there, Martin had kind of a drum beat going and I strummed the guitar fast and he goes, "Sing something to this, sing something, anything, just whatever!" and I said, "Okay," and I started singing. I sang "Melt Antartica, savin' Africa, I failed algebra" and he goes, "And I miss you sometimes!" I said, "Hey, that's actually kind of funny." That gave us a direction for our stream of consciousness angle of sorting out information and then bringing it back to the personal, making it a little bit of a love story. There's sort of an erratic element to the lyrics but at the same time I think it keeps the song very interesting.
MR: What are you doing internally as you're writing these songs? Do you have a constant goal to get better? Is it an organic process or what?
GD: I think everybody's goal artistically is to hopefully improve and at the same time, continue to just broaden your horizons. It's hard to say if it's necessarily better or not, but personally, I feel this is a growth year happening and I feel really proud of the outcome. Personally, I'm happy with the fact that I was able to adapt to writing with other people, I think it really changed my life and changed my career. It really made the whole experience of being in this particular industry a lot more satisfying for me on a personal level. I was writing alone so much, I was feeling a bit like a hermit. I'm a social enough person but as far as my career was concerned, I was so isolated in my artistic process that I wasn't feeling the community element of the music business. Writing with those people really helped me enjoy it a whole lot more. I think that's it. I think that I'm feeling improvement not really because I'm writing and it's because of me, but that I'm feeling improvement because I'm writing with other people and because I'm with those other songwriters and artists and producers who I find to be inspiring. I feel them challenging me in the best possible way. It's sort of like when the magician is tugging on the endless rope of handkerchiefs. I really feel them pulling that stuff out while we're in the creative process and I find it to be a lot more rewarding because there's someone to say, "Yes, I like that idea now, better than the last one," or "You can do better than this one. I think you're halfway there, let's keep going." That barometer really helped.
MR: And in some respects, it's like you're mentoring each other.
GD: I think so. Realistically, the fact is that there are really, really gifted people in this game. Some are enjoying success right now, some have had success and they're about to have success again, we just haven't heard from them in a little while because that's the nature of the beast, but there are a lot of talented people here and it's just a matter of hopefully finding your niche in a timely manner and hopefully, it will fit into a slot if possible or maybe break new ground somewhere or find a market by the fluke of opportunity that happens. You never know when it's going to happen or if it's going to happen but I think one of the goals of this particular album was to make it very diverse and by making it diverse, hopefully, it will be a broad enough landscape artistically that by the time the album release came out, there'd be something that might work on the radio. That's just the nature of it. You're hoping to put enough entrees on the menu that everybody at the table can order something.
MR: [laughs] Nicely said. I also have to ask you the traditional question. What advice do you have for new artists?
GD: Oh wow. I'm not really much for advice because I don't necessarily feel much like I've figured it out. I'd say that being adaptable is just as important as having a style. It's a really funny balancing act between having certain things that are your trademark and that are your thing, and at the same time, being able to adapt with whatever the musical landscape might be. I think there's both. Hopefully, it doesn't sound like too much of a dichotomy, but I really think there are always those two things. One is adaptability and the other is making sure you have character.
MR: Hey, and speaking of Kevin Bacon--fine, we weren't--but I would like to point out that you are now in the first of Six Degrees of Ryan Tedder.
GD: [laughs] Ryan is definitely one of the common denominators in the music business. He's an incredibly talented guy, he's a very likeable guy, and he's someone who really encompasses what I just said about having adaptability and having trademarks. He really is one of the people who has a beautiful, musical mind. He's creative and at the same time, he understands each artist. He's really, really good at bringing all of that stuff together. It's a very unusual characteristic.
MR: Very nice. Gavin, I want to wish you all the best making your latest move.
GD: Thank you so much, man, and thank for mentioning Kevin Bacon because he's one of my favorite celebrities of all time.
MR: You've got it. Bye, buddy.
GD: See you later, bro.
Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne
PILLARS AND TONGUES' "POINTS OF LIGHT"
photo credit: Sarah Derer
This Pillars and Tongues film was shot in mid-2013 by Randy Sterling Hunter in Vienna, Austria, as well as Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, and Berlin, Germany. "Points of Light" is taken from P&T's October 2013 album, End-Dances, out on Empty Cellar Records.
According to Randy Sterling Hunter...
"Crowley was long interested in the creative potentials of humans--and how through magick, those potentials could be realized. in our contemporary situation, the prevalence of irony and mimicry has obscured this process. Often, people will make a film about magick. My aim is not to make films about magick, but to make magic films. There is a difference, and an important one at that. My generation seems quite interested in the psychedelic culture of the 1960s. This fascination makes it difficult to see that, beginning before the '60s but peaking towards the end of the decade, the psychedelic pioneers were not interested in psychedelia, they were psychedelic. They didn't do psychedelic things, they lived psychedelically.
"I choose my collaborations carefully, or rather I make the right collaborators appear in my life by conducting my affairs a certain way. For that reason, I'm not surprised that Mark Trecka and I crossed paths. That was inevitable because we share the same orbit on the same plane of existence. The film for 'Points of Light' is not a music video for that reason. It's a magick film. When I watch the film, I see my present, past, and future simultaneously. If that experience wasn't possible, then it wouldn't have been worth making. This is not a film for other people, nor are any of my other films. They are public and they exist in the world but they exist only because through making them, I am able to exist in the present, past, and future all at once.
"To make an analogy, if the film was Tarot, what you see in it is the result of a six-month long dealing of the cards. But the deck Trecka and I needed to use didn't exist, so we brought our own into being."
And Mark Trecka remembers...
"Randy Sterling Hunter and I were connected through our mutual friend and mutual connector, Angel Olsen. He and I connected in Vienna, talked briefly, went our separate ways, and met again some hours later, after a brief segue into sleep, starting work on the film more or less immediately.
"Just as immediately, an exchange of ideas--which would present themselves as potential themes for the film--began. Something that feels profound, in a very personal way, then seemed to happen while working: we rapidly developed ideas, committed to further exploring said ideas, and then discarded such commitments and ideas. This was not an intentional process, nor was it, at least it seems to me, a matter of ambivalence. Instead, I think our collective creative energies created a sort of overflow. Each idea, each concept served to provide a sort of guidance, as they do; but more than that, each concept seemed to collapse time and intention, more like a spread of cards would. These spreads seem to me to be concealed within the work, rather than having just informed it.
"My view of this film is obviously skewed by my intimate involvement in it, but I cannot shake the feeling that all of the themes and concepts which were 'discarded' have informed the work in such a way that a sort of spell is cast, paralleling in experience one of the primary themes, which has been concealed within the work."
SMILE DESIGN GALLERY'S REASON TO SMILE
photo credit: Jerritt Clark
A word or two from those in the Smile Design Gallery camp...
"Smile Design Gallery is a mission based business that uses art sales to fund charitable dentistry. To date they have sold roughly $200K in art and have provided well over $200K in free dental work for people that need care. The cool thing from an art standpoint is that the artwork is conceptually paired with the group of patients receiving dental care. In addition, artists like Swizz Beatz, Rick Ross, Angela Simmons, Meek Mill, Wale, Rohan Marley and many more support Smile Design Gallery by attending events, participating in auctions and donating artwork.
"Takashi Murakami, who designed for Luis Vuitton, was sold in order to provide dentistry for kids attending Fashion Industries High School. Iconic photos by New York legend photographer, Chi Modu, have provided care for people from the Bowery Mission. And Artwork made by Swizz Beatz was used to provide dental care for over 100 kids from Camden, NJ.
"The next show on November 4th at the Benrimon Contemporary Art Gallery in NYC pairs incredible works by Jewish artists, like Chigall, to provide care for some of the over 30,000 Holocaust Survivors living in the New York Metro Area. 100% of the value of each art sale will be matched in free dental work for patients as facilitated by the not for profit Self Help.
Smile Design Gallery was started by Lee Gause, one of NYC's top cosmetic and implant dentists, but has grown to involve corporate partners from Canali to Möet and Chandon. One theme runs true. The highest quality. From the art sourced to the healthcare delivered, Smile Design Gallery is committed to the very best."
For more info: http://www.smiledesigngallery.com/collections/survivors-