Five people standing in front of a stage might not sound like much when you’ve spent years pouring everything you’ve got into your music.
For an independent band, the travelling, financial investment, missed moments and uncertainty can make those smaller shows feel like another reminder of how difficult it is to build something meaningful in this industry.
But what if those five people have just experienced the best night of their lives?
It’s a perspective that came up during my recent conversation with SOURCE founder, vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Benjamin Gleason, and one that says a hell of a lot about the journey his band have been on.
The Colorado progressive rock and metal trio are preparing to release their fifth studio album, Resurgence, independently on 15 January 2027. The twelve-track record concludes a story spanning three albums, beginning with Ethereal Self in 2021 and continuing through Emergence in 2023.
Across those records, SOURCE have explored consciousness, identity, conditioning, personal transformation and the sometimes difficult relationship between hope and despair. Musically, they’ve brought those ideas to life through crushing progressive riffs, psychedelic atmospheres, intricate rhythms, electronic experimentation and some genuinely beautiful moments of acoustic restraint.
Joining Benjamin are drummer and percussionist Justin Mirarck and bassist Pascal Faurie, two musicians whose contributions are central to the increasingly expansive SOURCE sound.
I’d been spending plenty of time with Resurgence before our conversation and actually had the album blaring through my headphones when Benjamin joined the call. After a bit of a laugh about that, and both of us admitting that our cats apparently consider us their personal doormen, we got down to talking about the music.
What followed was a fascinating conversation about the band’s evolution, the hidden connections running through the trilogy, the financial realities of independent touring and why Benjamin has become increasingly interested in making listeners experience the emotions behind his compositions rather than simply hearing songs about them.
There were also a few unexpected revelations involving Dune, the Spice Girls and some bloody clever rhythmic connections.
From The Beatles to Opeth, Tool and the Beginnings of SOURCE
I always love taking musicians back to their earliest core musical memories. Sometimes those first experiences reveal connections that stretch right through everything they go on to create.
For Benjamin, it all began at around three years old, drumming on pots and pans with wooden spoons. Apparently, he was hitting them so hard that he kept breaking the bloody spoons.
Music was already becoming an important part of his life, with his father introducing him to The Beach Boys and The Beatles. Benjamin enjoyed both, but there was something about The Beatles that immediately connected with him on a deeper level.
With supportive parents encouraging that interest, he began taking music lessons at around five years old and eventually experimented with practically every instrument he could get his hands on.
Interestingly, his early musical world was far from exclusively heavy.
NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Limp Bizkit and plenty of other artists helped develop his understanding of melody and songwriting. Benjamin laughed about occasionally recognising something in his own compositions that reminded him of Justin Timberlake.
Those early influences have a habit of sticking around, whether musicians want them to or not.
The heavier side of his journey arrived during high school, when friends introduced him to Opeth and Between The Buried And Me.
It was a period when records such as Blackwater Park, Deliverance, Damnation and Ghost Reveries were opening his ears to a different kind of composition. The combination of intricate arrangements, powerful melodies and musical exploration immediately grabbed him.
Between The Buried And Me’s Alaska became another important discovery, particularly “Selkies: The Endless Obsession”. Benjamin was primarily playing keyboards at the time rather than guitar, and the synthesizer work and unusual rhythmic ideas made a lasting impression.
Then came Tool.
At nineteen, Benjamin attended Bonnaroo and experienced the band live for the first time. He laughed about that performance effectively changing his life forever.
Looking at SOURCE today, it’s easy to understand how those influences eventually came together. The progressive structures, melodic sensibilities, electronic textures and willingness to move between heaviness and atmosphere have all become important parts of the band’s identity.
But discovering exactly what SOURCE should sound like took considerably longer.
Learning What Belongs in the SOURCE Sound
SOURCE’s debut album, Return To Nothing, arrived in 2016, establishing much of the progressive ambition that would shape the band’s future.
There were lengthy compositions, heavy riffs, complex instrumental passages and introspective lyrics exploring forgiveness, identity and understanding ourselves.
Looking back, though, Benjamin can recognise elements of that early sound that didn’t necessarily represent the musician he wanted to become.
One of those was his use of harsh vocals.
He understands why they worked within the music, but eventually began questioning whether growling was really an honest expression of himself. Singing, he explained, was where he felt most comfortable communicating something genuine.
That search for authenticity extended into the songwriting itself.
When Totality arrived in 2019, SOURCE had moved towards shorter, more focused compositions. The band were experimenting with making their progressive music more accessible without losing the elements that made it interesting.
Benjamin still considers Totality one of his favourite SOURCE records and believes some of the band’s strongest songwriting emerged from those sessions.
By the time Ethereal Self arrived in 2021, the challenge had become finding a balance between the expansive progressive arrangements of Return To Nothing and the more direct approach explored on Totality.
But something else was developing beneath the music.
The beginnings of a much larger story.
Benjamin explained that the transformation imagery connecting the final compositions of Ethereal Self with the beginning of Emergence was entirely intentional.
“Larva” and “Pupa” explore the stages of metamorphosis, leading into “Crack In The Shell” and “Emergence” on the following record.
The imagery of a chrysalis opening and something new emerging was more than a lyrical connection. SOURCE were beginning to build a continuous musical narrative.
Benjamin already understood that Emergence would form part of a larger story, although the full direction continued developing as the band worked through the material.
By the time Resurgence began taking shape, connecting the albums had become an important part of the compositions themselves.
Dune, The Cure and the Hidden Connections Between Albums
One of the details that really grabbed my attention while listening to Resurgence was the way its opening track carries sounds directly from the ending of Emergence.
Rather than beginning from an entirely new musical starting point, SOURCE took material from the previous album, processed it and used it to introduce the final chapter.
When I brought this up with Benjamin, he explained that the band had already established that approach.
“Crack In The Shell” begins with sounds from “Pupa”, connecting the first two albums in much the same way. SOURCE wanted to continue that musical tradition with Resurgence.
Then Benjamin revealed an influence I hadn’t expected.
Dune.
Specifically, the opening sequences of Denis Villeneuve’s first two films and the way they establish a recognisable connection through their unusual vocal sounds.
Benjamin was fascinated by the idea of separate chapters sharing a familiar opening identity while still developing into something different. It became another influence on the way SOURCE approached the transition into Resurgence.
What made me laugh was Benjamin admitting that the band sometimes includes these little details assuming nobody will ever notice them.
Then somebody does.
As someone who loves sitting down with a complete album and discovering all those connections, it’s exactly the sort of thing that makes revisiting music so rewarding.
We even managed to get sidetracked talking about Dune itself, something Benjamin and I clearly share a bit of an obsession with.
The conversation also moved into the expanded use of synthesizers across Resurgence.
Although electronic elements have always been part of SOURCE’s music, Benjamin found himself increasingly drawn towards the darker textures of late eighties and early nineties recordings.
Two albums became particularly influential: The Cure’s Disintegration and Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine, both released in 1989.
Benjamin had previously gravitated towards older analogue synthesizer sounds, but those records helped him appreciate the character of sampling and electronic production from that later period.
He wanted to bring some of that atmosphere into SOURCE without sacrificing the band’s progressive foundations.
The gospel and blues influences came from somewhere different again.
Benjamin spoke enthusiastically about Puscifer’s “No Angel”, released as part of the Sessanta E.P.P.P., and the way Maynard James Keenan uses gospel and blues inspired music to communicate ideas.
For Benjamin, there’s something powerful about drawing from the musical traditions that helped shape rock and roll in the first place.
Rather than treating gospel harmonies as an unusual addition to progressive metal, he sees them as part of the musical lineage that SOURCE are connected to.
Those influences also serve a specific purpose within Resurgence, particularly in compositions such as “Becoming The Horizon” and “Moksha”, where the larger vocal arrangements reinforce the spiritual and emotional ideas behind the lyrics.
Pieces: Five Beats, Seven Beats and a Musical Puzzle
“Pieces” is one of the most ambitious compositions on Resurgence, stretching beyond eight minutes and bringing together heavy progressive riffs, melodic passages, gospel influenced harmonies and instrumental solos from Justin and Pascal.
Lyrically, the song explores reclaiming aspects of ourselves that have been lost through difficult experiences and conditioning.
Benjamin explained that he already knew the concept belonged on the album, but finding the right musical arrangement took considerable work.
His songwriting process had changed significantly during the trilogy.
Earlier in his career, he would generally begin with instrumental ideas, develop vocal melodies and rhythms, and then write lyrics around the music.
Across Ethereal Self, Emergence and Resurgence, he began approaching things differently. Instead of waiting until the compositions were taking shape, he would write down streams of thoughts, lyrical ideas and personal reflections, gradually discovering how those pieces connected before building the music around them.
“Pieces” went through numerous revisions before one particular rhythmic discovery helped unlock the composition.
And this was one of my favourite revelations from the interview.
Benjamin explained that the final riff and closing section of “Moksha” were actually the first musical ideas SOURCE wrote for Resurgence.
From there, much of the album developed backwards.
The breakthrough came when the band discovered a rhythmic relationship between “Pieces”, “Hit It” and “Moksha”.
“Pieces” uses a five-beat pattern that corresponds with the opening five beats of the seven-beat rhythm found in “Hit It” and “Moksha”.
Once SOURCE recognised that connection, other musical ideas began falling into place.
What I love about this approach is that the complexity isn’t simply there to demonstrate how technically capable the musicians are. Those rhythmic relationships become another way of connecting the compositions and strengthening the larger story.
“Pieces” also gave Justin and Pascal opportunities to step forward with drum and bass solos.
Benjamin laughed about there already being plenty of guitar solos across the album and deciding there was no need to squeeze another one into this particular track.
Instead, he wanted the other musicians to have their moments. It was important that the composition reflected SOURCE as three individuals working together rather than simply providing another showcase for the guitarist.
That sense of unity became an important theme throughout our conversation.
What Remains: The True Cost of Following the Music
One of the most revealing moments came when we reached “What Remains”.
There’s an enormous difference between what people see happening onstage and everything required to make those performances possible.
The travelling, money, missed moments, hours of preparation and uncertainty about what comes next can all take their toll.
Benjamin knows those experiences particularly well.
SOURCE have spent years building their career independently, and there were periods when touring became increasingly difficult to justify financially.
He described the frustration of investing so much into the band while questioning whether the results were ever going to reflect that effort.
But “What Remains” isn’t simply about the disappointment of chasing success.
Benjamin explained that Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces and the wider concept of the hero’s journey have strongly influenced the trilogy.
For him, the important lesson was learning to separate the value of the journey from the outcome he hoped it would produce.
A show might attract only five people, but those five people could have just experienced the best night of their lives.
The performance still mattered.
Benjamin spoke about recognising that he loves creating and performing music, even when the circumstances surrounding it become difficult.
But he also realised that loving something doesn’t necessarily mean continuing to approach it the same way when that approach is no longer working.
SOURCE needed to make changes.
He was remarkably open about the difficulties of promoting independent music, including unsuccessful marketing experiences, financial setbacks and an experience with a record label that he says cost him a substantial amount of money.
Eventually, the band decided to redirect money they had been losing through DIY touring into a more focused approach to reaching listeners online.
Benjamin credited a musician from the band KOLM with helping him understand how to approach paid advertising more effectively.
According to Benjamin, the results were significant.
SOURCE’s monthly Spotify audience grew from approximately 4,000 listeners to around 28,000 or 29,000 over five months.
Those numbers were impressive, but the more important point was how the change happened.
Instead of continuing to invest in something that wasn’t sustainable, SOURCE recognised the problem and found another way forward.
Benjamin hopes that building a stronger audience will eventually allow the band to return to touring without facing the same financial difficulties.
What struck me was how closely this connects with the philosophy behind “What Remains”.
Sometimes following your passion doesn’t mean pushing harder against exactly the same obstacle. Sometimes it means being honest enough with yourself to recognise that something needs to change.
We also spent some time talking about the importance of supporting independent musicians beyond simply streaming their music.
Buying albums, picking up merchandise and getting along to local shows can make an enormous difference.
It’s something I’ve always encouraged through Crannk, and Benjamin’s experiences were another reminder of why those things matter.
For independent artists, those small acts of support can be the difference between continuing to create music and having to reconsider how they make it sustainable.
Stimulus and Tolerance: Making the Listener Feel the Music
Another fascinating part of our conversation centred on “Stimulus” and “Tolerance”.
Musically, the two compositions couldn’t be more different.
“Stimulus” pushes SOURCE towards an industrial influenced sound, with electronic textures, aggressive riffs and frantic percussion that creates a genuine feeling of urgency.
Then “Tolerance” arrives and strips much of that intensity away.
The heavy electronics disappear, making room for acoustic instrumentation and beautiful vocal harmonies between Benjamin and guest vocalist Chipo Muzilikazi.
Having spent time with Resurgence before speaking with Benjamin, this was one of the transitions I kept returning to. There’s something about that sudden change in atmosphere that makes you stop and listen differently.
And that was entirely intentional.
Benjamin explained that while SOURCE have always been interested in connecting musical ideas with larger concepts, Resurgence involved a much more deliberate effort to understand how the sound itself could influence the listener.
Instead of simply writing music that felt good to play, the band wanted to explore how particular arrangements, rhythms and production choices could communicate emotions.
That approach became especially important with “Stimulus”.
Benjamin pointed towards Justin’s drum performance, particularly the chorus, where the percussion deliberately avoids settling into a conventional backbeat.
The intention was to create a physical sensation of agitation and overstimulation.
Then comes “Tolerance”.
The acoustic arrangement provides a completely different experience, allowing the listener to recognise the contrast between constant stimulation and something quieter and more grounded.
Benjamin connected that idea with the way people can become caught in repetitive habits, particularly the almost automatic experience of endlessly scrolling through their phones.
He wants listeners to become more aware of those patterns and recognise when they’re becoming disconnected from the present moment.
For him, the contrast between the songs is intended to communicate that experience through the music itself.
The listener doesn’t necessarily need to understand every lyric to recognise the difference between those two emotional states.
I found that particularly interesting because it demonstrates how SOURCE’s progressive arrangements are serving something beyond technical complexity.
The music isn’t simply describing an emotion. It’s attempting to make us experience it.
The Painter: Chiselling Away Everything That Doesn’t Belong
When we moved into “Becoming The Horizon” and “The Painter”, Benjamin shared another idea that helped explain how the album came together.
Both compositions explore letting go of established defence mechanisms, reconnecting with creativity and discovering a more complete understanding of ourselves.
Musically, they move between atmospheric passages, layered harmonies and heavier progressive arrangements.
When I asked how SOURCE brought those different elements together, Benjamin explained that the process wasn’t always clear while they were working through it.
The band understood that the ideas were connected, but that didn’t necessarily mean they knew exactly how everything should fit together.
Then he shared a metaphor Pascal had used during the songwriting process.
Sculpting.
When an artist begins with a block of stone, the finished sculpture is already somewhere inside it. The challenge is recognising what needs to be removed to reveal the form.
Benjamin felt that SOURCE approached Resurgence in much the same way.
They began with musical and lyrical ideas, knowing there was something meaningful buried within them, then kept working until they discovered how those pieces belonged together.
Sometimes that meant changing rhythms, removing sections, developing connections or reconsidering how a composition related to the larger record.
“There was no settling on this album,” Benjamin explained.
I really like that comparison because progressive music can sometimes become obsessed with adding more. More riffs, more solos, more time signature changes and increasingly elaborate arrangements.
But SOURCE’s approach suggests that creating something meaningful can depend just as much on recognising what doesn’t belong.
Sometimes the strongest musical decision is knowing when you’ve finally uncovered the song that was hiding underneath everything else.
Everything Is Love: Finding the Right Ending
After three albums exploring identity, consciousness, conditioning, despair, transformation and the search for meaning, SOURCE have chosen a remarkably intimate conclusion.
“Resurgence Pt. 2” closes the record with delicate piano, eventually bringing back vocal elements from the opening composition.
The final words are “everything is love”.
What interested me was the decision to end such an expansive progressive musical journey without relying on some enormous final display of heaviness or instrumental virtuosity.
Benjamin’s answer brought us back to something fundamental about SOURCE.
The relationship between the musicians themselves.
Although the lyrics often begin with Benjamin’s personal perspective, he doesn’t consider the finished music to be solely his own expression.
Creating music with Justin and Pascal involves an incredibly personal relationship built through trust, collaboration, communication and shared experiences.
The songs become an expression of that connection as well.
Benjamin hopes that listeners can use the music as a way of reflecting on their own lives and the choices they make.
For him, the conclusion isn’t about eliminating despair or reaching some permanent state of happiness.
Hope and despair have existed throughout the trilogy, sometimes appearing to be in direct opposition to one another.
But Benjamin sees something deeper beneath those experiences.
A capacity for unconditional love, acceptance and compassion that allows those different emotions to coexist.
Rather than offering a neat solution to every difficulty explored across the records, Resurgence ends with an invitation to approach ourselves and the people around us differently.
It’s a fitting conclusion to a journey that has been as much about understanding the human experience as creating progressive music.
From the Spice Girls to Tool and the Best Albums of 2026
After spending much of our conversation exploring some pretty deep subjects, I decided to lighten things up with a few quickfire questions.
And Benjamin delivered one of the funniest first album stories I’ve heard in a while.
The first album he remembers buying with his own money was a P. Diddy record, inspired by the song built around a sample of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”.
Unfortunately, when he took it home, the rest of the record wasn’t quite what his younger self had been expecting.
So he returned to Target and asked whether he could exchange it.
His preferred replacement?
The Spice Girls.
Benjamin laughed about how much happier he was with that decision.
His first concert was another pop experience, seeing the Backstreet Boys not once, but twice.
When I asked which artist his parents introduced him to that he still listens to today, the answer brought us back to The Beatles.
Benjamin explained that his father had played the famous red and blue compilation albums, but exploring the band’s complete catalogue eventually revealed songs he loved even more than many of those familiar classics.
When it came to choosing an all-time favourite album, Tool’s Lateralus was one of his immediate contenders, although Benjamin admitted that Fear Inoculum might actually be his favourite Tool record.
That opened another conversation about experiencing the band live, including their approach to restricting phone use during performances.
Having seen Tool myself, I could appreciate exactly what Benjamin was talking about.
As someone who spends so much time photographing and covering gigs, there’s something special about attending a concert simply as a fan, putting the phone away and becoming completely absorbed in what’s happening onstage.
Benjamin feels much the same way.
When it came to his favourite albums of 2026, he had several contenders.
All Them Witches’ House Of Mirrors had made a strong impression, alongside Puscifer’s Normal Isn’t.
But Mastodon’s Marrow Deep had recently arrived and, at the time of our conversation, taken his top spot.
Given everything we’d discussed about SOURCE’s influences, it was a pretty fitting collection of records.
What Comes Next for SOURCE?
Before wrapping up our conversation, Benjamin shared several developments in the Resurgence campaign.
On 19 November, SOURCE are scheduled to release a completely live performance of “What Remains” flowing directly into “Presence”, complete with live audio and video through their YouTube channel.
Benjamin was particularly excited about the quality of the recording and the opportunity to present the two compositions as one continuous performance.
Another single is also on the way.
“Hit It” is scheduled for release on 9 December, accompanied by a music video.
Benjamin revealed that he’s also been developing an interest in lighting design, spending time programming elaborate lighting arrangements for two of the band’s upcoming videos.
The first is planned for 9 December, with the second arriving alongside the album on 15 January.
It’s another example of Benjamin continuing to explore different creative disciplines beyond songwriting, guitar and production.
And when Resurgence finally arrives, listeners will have the opportunity to experience the entire twelve-track journey as SOURCE intended.
The Journey Matters as Much as the Destination
Looking back over my conversation with Benjamin, what really stands out is how closely SOURCE’s musical development connects with everything the band have experienced along the way.
There was a time when Benjamin was trying to understand how to make expansive progressive music more accessible without losing the elements that made it meaningful. There were years spent developing musical ideas that eventually became a connected story about identity, transformation, hope and acceptance.
And there were moments when the realities of independent touring forced SOURCE to reconsider how they approached building an audience and sustaining the band.
Across Resurgence, those experiences have found their way into the compositions themselves.
The rhythmic connections between “Pieces”, “Hit It” and “Moksha”, the musical fragments carried between albums, the deliberately uncomfortable contrast between “Stimulus” and “Tolerance”, and the intimate closing piano piece all serve something beyond simply demonstrating the band’s considerable musicianship.
Benjamin, Justin and Pascal want the music to communicate something meaningful.
I think that’s what makes this particular chapter of SOURCE’s career so interesting.
Resurgence might conclude a story that began with Ethereal Self six years earlier, but it doesn’t suggest that the musicians have suddenly reached some final destination where there’s nothing left to discover.
If anything, the experience appears to have reinforced the importance of remaining open to change, recognising when something isn’t working and continuing to search for more honest ways of expressing themselves.
And that brings me back to something Benjamin said about playing to five people in the middle of nowhere.
Those five people might have just experienced the best night of their lives.
Sometimes the value of what we’re creating isn’t immediately reflected in the numbers, the attention or the outcome we were hoping to achieve.
Sometimes it exists in the connection itself.
For a band that has spent more than a decade exploring the human experience through music, perhaps that’s one of the most important things SOURCE have discovered along the way.
SOURCE — RESURGENCE
Release Date: 15 January 2027
Label: Independent
Format: Fifth studio album, twelve tracks
SOURCE Is:
Benjamin Gleason — Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards
Justin Mirarck — Drums, Acoustic and Electronic Percussion
Pascal Faurie — Bass
Upcoming Releases:
19 November 2026 — “What Remains” / “Presence” live performance, scheduled for YouTube
9 December 2026 — “Hit It” single and accompanying music video
15 January 2027 — Resurgence album and additional music video
Listen and Connect with SOURCE
Official Website: https://www.listentosource.com/
Resurgence Preorder: https://listentosource.bandcamp.com/album/resurgence
Bandcamp: https://listentosource.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/listentosource
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/listentosource
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SourceBand
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5zEuzw6dwKcnNtXahckDXi
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/source/1462541339
