Photo Credit: Devon Young Cupery
Meg Bishop
Ben Weaver doesn’t just write songs and poetry—he rides them. The songwriter, poet, letterpress printer, and father has long chosen the bicycle as his vehicle for creativity and connection. His music career began young, and he eventually found himself sucked into the music industry but became burnt out.
“Around 2009, I started to experiment with what it would be like to ride my bike to a show,” Weaver said. Soon after, he began to base his shows around water. He went down the Mississippi River, around the Great Lakes, and took chilly rides up north to the Boundary Waters.
Weaver has created a life where music, poetry, and movement intertwine. His recent release Stay With is an immersive collection of sonic poems recorded over four years, beginning in early 2020. Weaver spent hours biking through Saint Paul, capturing the sounds of the landscape: birds, water, trains, creaking trees, and passing conversations.
“We have semi trucks and trains clanking around, and then we also have cedar waxwings moving through and nettle growing in the corner of a parking lot,” Weaver said. Stay With reflects on the experience of living in a city while being attuned to the natural world.
“His music is always earth-centric and respectful of Mother Earth and the environment,” said Danette Knickmeier, an avid cyclist and attendee of Weaver’s past shows. In collaboration with engineer Tom Herbers, Weaver’s recordings became the foundation of Stay With, designed to be experienced like a book: with full attention, free from distraction.
Weaver hosted a listening event in January at Creation Audio in Minneapolis to celebrate the release of Stay With. “Music is a way of telling stories, and stories are a way of connecting people and finding common ground,” Weaver said. Two guests, Sharon Day and Carolyn Holbrook, joined the event to contribute by reading poetry.
Attendees didn’t have to applaud, move to the rhythm, or bring a group of friends to feel welcome. “It’s such a calming, grounding experience that you forget you’re in a city,” Knickmeier said. The power of Weaver’s shows comes from a shared stillness, a collective moment of peace.
Weaver’s work invites others to pause, listen, and become attuned to the living world. “There aren’t a lot of opportunities in our day-to-day lives for meaningful interaction with the land or with other people,” Weaver said. “It’s good to start making room to share stories, feelings, and thoughts about what is going on.”
Weaver’s new record Stay With is available now on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify and iTunes, as well as on Bandcamp. You can also explore more of his work at benweaver.net.
Meg Bishop is a writer from Minneapolis and dedicated member of the Sierra Club Forest and Wildlife Stewards.