Ben Rector will be making a stop in Wisconsin as he is beginning to wrap up his tour, titled “The Rectour,” which has been going since March. He’ll be playing at The Majestic Theater with Alpha Rev on Thursday, May 2 at 8:30 p.m. This will be Rector’s third time in Madison.
“I really am excited [to come back]. It was beautiful there. I’ve played there twice; it’s been a while,” Rector said. “The first time I was there was in the fall, with the changing leaves, it was so beautiful, I didn’t really know it looked like that.”
Rector first became involved in music in his hometown of Tulsa, Okla., with piano lessons at a young age. Although he did not grow up in an overly musical family, he developed a serious love for music in high school.
“Only my extended family really played music. My uncle had a guitar and occasionally played and my dad was in high school choir but that’s about as far as it [went],” Rector said. “I took piano lessons when I was small … then I ended up picking guitar up in high school and I played that. I started to play piano again when I was a junior in high school.”
Rector recalled his most memorable performance as being back in his home state at the University of Oklahoma on a previous tour. There were originally supposed to be two shows on two different nights, but it ended up being the only college show on the tour. After a change of events, it turned into one long night of two tiring, but remarkable performances.
“Basically we played the first show, we were all pretty tired; it was the end of a long run. For the second show I was worried, A: that I wouldn’t be able to sing very well, B: that we were all going to be so tired that we wouldn’t play very well,” Rector said. “So we went onstage and we played and actually probably made it our most memorable performance. It was kind of weird, it was almost like we were tired enough where we were really focused and the crowd was great.”
Rector’s music tends to appeal to a younger crowd and he admittedly indulges in the occasional Katy Perry song. Additionally, he finds songwriting inspiration in older musicians and will always have a love for generally older music.
“The stuff that I go back to over and over again … would probably be stuff like The Beatles, Randy Newman, Billy Joel,” Rector said. “And I like Sam Cook, so that kind of era of songwriters.”
Rector’s songwriting process includes a lot of writing about his surroundings and really just anything that captures his attention. His well-known song “When a Heart Breaks” doesn’t follow a particular story, but instead tries to capture the listener’s feelings.
“You know, there’s not really an official story. And I feel like if I tried to put one there, I just don’t know if it would be as effective. It seems like people connect to that song. It’s really just not about anything, [it] just kind of fits with wherever people are.”
