Stephen Montoya
Somewhere between explaining the difference between a delta and a desert to a room full of ninth graders and tuning up for a late-night gig, Ben Archie — better known onstage as Bencjones pronounced (Ben–C–Jones) — made a quiet, life-altering decision.
He was going all in.
No more juggling lesson plans and looping pedals. No more living life in the margins of the school day. After fifteen years in the classroom, the Fort Worth teacher-turned-musician decided to follow the whisper that had always been there, humming beneath the surface of his days like a favorite record playing low in the background.
The whisper said: It’s time.
“It’s wild and a little chaotic,” he says now, a year into his leap of faith. “I’m used to structure, not being all over the place. I used to have the 9 to 5 and then music. Now it’s just...music all the time. But I’m in.”
The result of that plunge is All We Really Needed Was a Chance, his fourth LP and sixth album overall. It’s a seven-song love letter to sound and soul, arriving May 23 exclusively on Amplify 817 — the Fort Worth Library’s streaming platform that’s quietly become a sanctuary for local artists with something to say.
And trust us: Bencjones has something to say.
If earlier projects hinted at the reach of his sonic appetite — think rock licked with blues, brushed with jazz and wrapped in soul — this album dives deeper. It’s not a grab-bag of genres; it’s a world. His world. Built one chord at a time.
“I’m not chasing a sound,” he says. “I’m building something.”
But before he was building records, he was building young minds. For over a decade, Bencjones taught high school geography — wrangling maps, tectonic plates, and the unpredictable energy of freshmen in the front lines of education. It was good work. Noble work. But there was always something else pulling at him.
“The guitar was always there,” he says. “Leaning in the corner like a dare.”
Stephen Montoya
For Bencjones, music wasn’t a phase. It was family. His parents met at Howard University as music majors. His mom taught piano. His dad played trombone and tickled the ivories at home. By the time Ben was in middle school, he was already absorbing melodies — through piano lessons, school band, and eventually, late nights strumming a guitar borrowed from a camp counselor at Camp Crucis in Granbury.
That spark became a fire in college, where he studied radio, television, and film at the University of Texas in Austin. There were bands. There were gigs. There were dreams. But there was also real life. And real bills.
“I got a job selling Dell computers, hated it, and moved back here,” he says. “Ended up at a cell phone refurbishing place. But I started training the younger employees, and that’s when someone said, ‘You should teach.’ So I did.”
Fifteen years later, with one foot still in the classroom and the other in the studio, Bencjones reached a fork in the road. The pandemic years didn’t help. Neither did burnout. But what finally tipped the scale was a simple idea, delivered by a friend:
“If you really want to go for it, Ben — go now. You can always come back to teaching.”
He didn’t just go for it. He launched. And now, he’s everywhere. Producing other artists. Dipping into the genre of kids’ music. Even exploring new age sounds for YouTube. But the heart of it all remains Bencjones — the name, the sound, the vision.
The name itself came from a spontaneous moment in the studio. While producing a track for American Idol alum Sarah Sellers, a rapper named Picasso caught him in his groove behind the mixing board.
“You’re like Quincy Jones,” Picasso said, then paused. “Ben. C. Jones.”
A joke. A nickname. A spark.
And just like that, Bencjones was born.
To celebrate All We Really Needed Was a Chance, Bencjones is throwing a proper hometown party on June 13 at The Post in Fort Worth. The show is part of KXT 91.7’s Homegrown Series, a spotlight for the city’s most exciting rising voices. Ryker Hall, Dave Cave, and Reagan Beard round out the bill — three acts bringing raw energy and undeniable talent to the mix.
But the night isn’t just about music. It’s about community. It’s about the ecosystem of believers backing the dream: KXT 91.7, Hear Fort Worth, Rahr Beer, Printed Threads, The Proper Cocktail Bar, YDQ Designs. People who don’t just say they support local —they live it.
“It’s a village,” Bencjones says. “And they’re making this possible.”
Ask him what the future holds, and he shrugs — half humble, half hopeful. He’s not chasing fame. He’s chasing fulfillment. He’s writing, producing, collaborating. He’s showing up at open mics across DFW, shining a light on fellow dreamers with his project DFW Open Mic Review. Every post is a ripple in the pond, another way to say: “I see you. Keep going.”
And really, that’s what All We Really Needed Was a Chance is all about.
A door closing. Another one cracking open. A former teacher giving himself permission to dream out loud. Not just for him. But for every student who ever sat in his classroom wondering if maybe, just maybe, they could make something beautiful too.
"I'm just looking for somebody out there, I guess, who believes in me, who's going to help me down that path,” he says. “I mean, you never know how the doors open up and how meeting random people can help make things happen.”
