Benjamin Kheng is one quarter of The Sam Willows, the current poster band of Singapore’s music scene. The 27-year-old Fly Entertainment artiste is also busy making a mark as an actor with his first leading film role in local music legend Dick Lee’s biopic, Wonder Boy, which opens in theatres on August 3.
Besides sharing a love for music and tight pants with his character Richard (a young Dick), Benjamin says they could not be more different. “Richard is hotheaded, while I’m non-confrontational. Our song lyrics have a certain candidness to them, but he tells the story in a linear, bold fashion, whereas I don’t adopt that structure.”
That said, music has not taken a back seat. Since its debut in 2012, The Sam Willows has charted numerous milestones: the band opened Singapore’s Golden Jubilee National Day Parade in 2015; headlined its first solo concert at Hard Rock Hotel’s The Coliseum in 2016; and featured on Spotify’s Global Viral 50 Chart—the first Southeast Asian band to do so. The band performs at Summer Sonic 2017 in Tokyo, Japan this month, and will release a new album in October.