Born in Wellington, Lemi grew up in a diplomatic family who lived overseas in Washington DC, Tehran and Ankara, Turkey, before returning home when he was starting Year 11 (fifth form) at Wellington College. Thanks to his father, who was passionate about American blues, jazz, folk, country and global 20th century pop music and the cultural histories that informed them, he grew up surrounded by and exposed to a rich array of traditions. “Dad’s record collection started with old Delta blues like Robert Johnson,” he said. “He also listened to Muddy Waters, Paul Simon’s Graceland, and Miles Davis albums like Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain.”

WHILE AT COLLEGE, LEMI BEFRIENDED A GROUP OF SKATERS AND MUSIC LOVERS

At the age of nine, Lemi’s musical journey took a significant turn when his older stepbrother, Rowan, began teaching him how to play the guitar before later exposing him to the moody down-tempo atmospherics of European and British acts such as Björk and Portishead. “[Rowan] knew precisely what music and culture I should be exposed to throughout most of my teenage years,” he told journalist Melody Thomas for Capital Magazine in 2020.

At Wellington College, Lemi befriended a group of skaters and music lovers who were fascinated with 90s trip-hop, downbeat groups, and solo artists like Massive Attack and DJ Shadow. By the time they were in sixth form (year 12), they were spending their weekend evenings at local warehouse parties and sneaking into late-night nightclubs, where they were exposed to the futuristic sounds of jungle/drum & bass, house, techno and ambient music. “That was an exciting moment,” he reflected. During his teens Lemi also began drumming, playing bass, and tinkering around on other instruments.

Near the end of his final year of high school, Lemi was encouraged by one of his classmates, trumpeter and composer Lex French, to enrol at the New Zealand School of Music (jazz school), where TrinityRoots frontman Warren Maxwell tutored him. He also started drumming in Tree Ninja Collective, a folk and indie-pop ensemble led by Lake South, a songwriter and musician who recorded and performed as Urbantramper before reverting to his own name.

Three weeks into his second year at music school, Lemi decided to drop out. This marked the beginning of a significant period of creative expansion within his musical journey. He taught himself how to DJ, started producing experimental electronic music under the alias Lorax, and worked in nightclubs.

In 2005, Lemi joined the reggae-soul-roots group Hikoikoi Reserve (later just Hikoikoi), where he came into his own as a skilled multi-instrumentalist. Over the next seven years, being a member of Hikoikoi allowed him to spend more time in home recording studios and tour New Zealand and Australia. Along the way, he began to learn recording, engineering, and production skills that would be useful later in his career.

During his early years in Hikoikoi, Lemi also started performing with various jazz groups, including Plus One Trio, Food, Axis Of Evil, and Village of the Idiots (led by Anthony Donaldson), which often performed at experimental music-focused venues like The Space and Happy. “I was really hungry to be exposed to different creative energies,” he reflected.

In 2009, Lemi began headed further afield to tour Europe with Urbantramper. Plugging into the DIY circuit, they performed at squat parties and slept on bed bug-riddled couches while chasing their dreams. During these years, he helped bring the cost of touring down by transforming himself into an “economic rhythm section” by teaching himself how to drum and play keyboard bass simultaneously. “At a certain point, I was working with three or four Wellington bands who wanted to go to Europe,” he remembered. “So everyone tried to book their tours close together.”

As the 2000s ended, Lemi's versatility in music became increasingly evident. In 2009, he started playing with Wellington-based jazz-dub-folk-soul singer-songwriter Hannah Howes and Māori experimental folk-pop musician Ariana Tikao. By 2012, he had joined Brooke Singer and John Fitzgerald’s dream-folk group, French For Rabbits. He also began working as a musician with folk singer Amiria Grenell, soul artists Jo Hanna & The Mystery and Dayna Sanerivi, and pioneering New Zealand hip-hop group Upper Hutt Posse.

Even from a distance, it was clear he had cultivated an ability to adapt and support songwriters across various genres. “I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a project where I felt like I was just along for the ride,” Lemi explained. “Generally, I try to commit as comprehensively as I can and give everything to whatever the project is. Therefore, I’m not going to be involved if I don’t think there’s some potential.”

Brooke Singer of French For Rabbits described Lemi as an enigma, “so zen”

When I asked Brooke Singer about Lemi for an article for The Spinoff, she described him as an enigma. “Although I’ve known him for a few years, he is still a surprise,” she said. “When you meet him, he seems so zen – the epitome of politeness and very thoughtful. I think we mostly see only the tip of the iceberg because then he’ll come out with some psychedelic 3D computer drawing that he probably spent three days on or an incredible piece of music which he has played every instrument on – including some you didn’t know he could play.”

In 2013 Warren Maxwell, Lemi’s former music school tutor, invited him to join Wellington jazz, soul, and reggae band TrinityRoots. Outside of music, he was working odd roadie jobs, living in a flat with black mould on the ceiling, and wondering whether pursuing music so wholeheartedly had been a sensible decision. Given this context, Maxwell getting in touch was the moment of affirmation he needed. “TrinityRoots was a very big turning point for me,” Lemi reflected. “That's when it sort of became apparent to me that I could probably survive off playing music.”

Over the next few years, he began touring with TrinityRoots while helping Maxwell and Rio Hunuki-Hemopo write, record and produce their long-awaited third album, Citizen. After its release in 2015, Citizen peaked at No.6 on the official New Zealand Top 40 Albums Chart and won praise in Metro from music reviewer Gary Steel, who described it as “a quietly accomplished album … a slow burner that ends up dazzling.” 

Through TrinityRoots, Lemi also found his way into film and television soundtrack work, beginning with a commission for Awa Films. “Rio [Hunuki-Hemopo] said, ‘You know if you make beats, you can work with people on soundtracks’,” Lemi explained. “I thought, okay, that sounds pretty cool.”

The congress of animals is “a Traveling Wilburys kind of thing,” says Lemi

In 2015, Bret McKenzie (of Flight of The Conchords) invited Lemi to join the Congress of Animals. Starting as a series of jam sessions between McKenzie, Lemi, Age Pryor, Nigel Collins, Justin “Firefly” Clarke and, later, Deanne Krieg and Jacqui Nyman, the Congress of Animals quickly evolved into a touring and recording project. “It’s a Traveling Wilburys kind of thing where we all bring songs together that we want to work on as a band,” Lemi said. Since then, he has continued to work with McKenzie on various projects, including musical theatre, film and television soundtracks, and, in recent years, touring the US with McKenzie in support of his debut solo album, Songs Without Jokes (2022).

In 2017, Lemi released his first solo EP, A Pleasant Climb For Some, under the alias Courtesy Caller. Given his skillset, he played every instrument on the EP, sang on the songs and handled the engineering and mixing as well. Inspired by a range of minimalist composers and avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical groups, including Steve Reich, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, and the Kronos Quartet, the songs on the EP were designed to soundtrack fantastic stories drawn from his imagination and surrealist interpretations of specific memories. When I interviewed him that year, he said, “Each song is a different story, and across the record, we jump from story to story through this weird landscape.”

In the wake of A Pleasant Climb For Some, Lemi began formulating a new solo project called Dawn Diver, which quickly expanded into an ensemble group with a rotating cast of collaborators. “I think taking his time has been a strategy,” said Warren Maxwell when I asked him about Lemi. “He hasn’t taken the lid off the crockpot too early. Ben’s been simmering away with all these groups and taking it in. Most of us jumped out there as soon as we had anything ready, but Ben’s obviously feeling like right now is his time to get something out there.”

In 2018, Dawn Diver made its first live performance at the Meow venue in Wellington. Rather than hanging in the background as usual, however, the ensemble saw Lemi taking centre stage as the frontman and lead vocalist. As he told Melody Thomas, “At first, I found the whole idea quite terrifying. I can’t hide behind the drum kit, palm backing vocal parts off to someone else, or pretend that I’m playing chords while my amp is actually turned down like I did (only once) in my eighth-grade big band! ... The process is scary, but it’s cathartic. It helps me feel alive.”

A vibrant mixture of avant-garde music, jazz fusion, RnB, electronic beats and traditional singer-songwriter music, Dawn Diver blew attendees away. From that first performance, word spread, quickly led to performances at the Wellington Jazz Festival, festival appearances, support slots opening for Cate Le Bon, Stella Donnelly, and The Beths, music videos, and a series of well-received singles, ‘Warming To You’ (2019), ‘Rosemary’ (2020), and ‘Thirsty Critters’ (2021). If all things go according to plan, he hopes to unveil Dawn Diver’s first album before the end of 2024. “I’ve just finished shooting some music videos with [filmmaker] Martin Sagadin,” he says. “Right now, we’re just consolidating our release plans.”

DAWN DIVER EXPANDED INTO AN ENSEMBLE GROUP WITH A ROTATING
CAST OF COLLABORATORS

After just over half a decade, Lemi sees Dawn Diver as more of a provocation than a band. “I just aim for it to function as a conduit for the knowledge I’ve gained both on and off stage,” he said. “Over the years, I’ve developed my appreciation of songwriters through working with Hannah Howes, Brooke Singer, and Warren Maxwell. I’m interested in writers who focus a lot on the song, but the other half of what I do with Dawn Diver is more of a sonics-led, progressive rock thing. I’m very interested in the balance and finding ways to keep the music accessible through songcraft.”

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Lemi slowly refined his studio engineer and producer skills through his work with Hikoikoi, Urbantramper, French For Rabbits, TrinityRoots, Congress of Animals and numerous other groups. “I guess it all started with having to figure out certain producer chops for my own material,” he explained. “I don’t think I ever set out to become a producer; it just gradually happened.”

Six years ago, he began building a dedicated home studio space, which now includes a soundproofed booth for drum recording. When he was talking about his audio engineering journey, he was quick to note the influence of Dr Lee Prebble from The Surgery and Wellington mastering engineer Mike Gibson. “Once I started doing session musician work at The Surgery, I made a habit of picking Lee’s brain about things.”

In 2020, Lemi began playing with Flying Nun artist Vera Ellen, who invited him to produce her second album, Ideal Home Noise (2023). When Ellen was awarded the 2024 Taite Music Prize for Ideal Home Noise earlier this year, Lemi joined her on stage and in follow-up media interviews. It was a fitting testament to a creative partnership that, in many ways, is only just getting started. “The refreshing thing about working with Vera [Ellen] is that she's very brave as a songwriter and really clear about what she wants to do with her sound and songs,” he said.

Alongside leading Dawn Diver and working with Ellen, Lemi has also spent recent years working with The Adults, Glass Vaults, Estère, Flip Grater, Nadia Reid, and numerous other group and solo artists. This year, he’s also been busy in the studio handling recording and engineering duties for new projects from Emily Edrosa, Louisa Williamson, LCD Project, Iris Little, and Mā. “At this point, I'm very much feeling like a conduit these days,” he said.

During the week, Lemi also holds a senior tutor position at Massey University’s School of Music and Creative Media Production in Wellington. With two decades of experience in the music industry behind him and plenty more ahead, it’s a task he’s well equipped for. “I’ve been lecturing for four years now,” he said. “I feel like there is a lot of stuff I’ve experienced that I can pass on and help the students avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made in the past.”