Ben Karis-Nix

BIOGRAPHY:

Ben Karis-Nix is a solo musician making giant strides in the indie music scene. Based out of the Capital Region of New York, Ben’s musicianship is a harmonious blending of indie-rock, alt-country, and experimental multi-media. Ben began playing shows in college while earning a degree in Anthropology and Fine Arts. He caught the bug to travel while training to be an archaeologist in Mexico, but after graduating, poured his energy into his first touring rock band, “the Orange”. Ben later moved to Los Angeles and joined the band Jupiter Sunrise as a songwriter, vocalist, and guitar player. He toured with Jupiter Sunrise throughout the United States and Canada for five years in a vegetable-oil-powered bus until the group’s final tour in 2006, having earned features on CWTV’s “One Tree Hill,” National Public Radio, A.P. Magazine, and MySpace Music. Ben is now emerging as a disarming solo performer, imbued with the texture of his experiences and a broad imagination.

Ben’s most recent release, We are Giants Now, a self-made project featuring three mini-disc singles mounted directly onto silkscreen poster art is available at www.wearegiantsnow.com. Currently, Ben is in the studio working on a multi-media project, entitled “The Reverie of Ruby Star,” that integrates recent songwriting with animated vignettes, intended for recorded releases, film festivals, and immersive audio/visual live performances.

Run, We Must Clothing Line by Ben Karis-Nix

The Run, We Must line was conceived in 2005, when Karis-Nix was on the Warped Tour with his former band Jupiter Sunrise. After the Warped Tour, Karis-Nix began making sketches of ideas for his own clothing line, often with imagery derived from nature.

Ben’s multiple talents in graphic design and screen-printing, coupled with his aspirations to create warm painterly images, were one of the two foundations of the clothing line along with supporting nature and conservation efforts. Most importantly, Karis-Nix’s goal with the clothing line was to raise awareness of issues and ideas that pertained to alternative energy. Along with raising awareness about alternative energy issues, Karis-Nix began donating 10 percent of “I Heart Windmill” t-shirts sales to help support Windustry, a non-profit organization working to increase wind energy opportunities for rural landowners and communities by providing technical support and creating tools for analysis.

The reason behind choosing wind energy he says, “was because as alternative energy systems go, wind-energy is very well suited to our blustery, often sun-obscured Northeast climate; especially on the scale of powering large energy-consuming facilities, farms, and even whole communities. I also wanted to address the public perception of wind farms in general. Every energy system has its tradeoffs, and harvesting wind sometimes draws opposition from folks who feel windmills take up natural space, dotting ridgelines and the country with their man-madeness. So, I felt that celebrating their elegant aesthetic qualities with artistic imagery might help others see them as beautiful clean machines.”

For more information about Run, We Must clothing and participating retailers, visit www.runwemust.com.

For more information about Ben Karis-Nix visit www.benkarisnix.com or www.myspace.com/benkarisnix. Media inquiries can be made to Franesa Pyle at Franesa@noteworthypr.com or 518-852-1591.