When one chapter ends, another always begins. Radical Face spent eight years working on his critically acclaimed three-album conceptual saga, The Family Tree: The Roots (2011), The Branches (2013), and The Leaves (2016). Throughout that time, the Florida-born multi-instrumentalist Ben Cooper teetered on something of an existential seesaw: rising to success one moment, and plummeting into personal discord the next.

With a vision birthed in a shed behind his family’s house, and out of the ashes of two finished novels that he lost on a crashed hard drive, Cooper garnered acclaim from the likes of NPR, Paste Magazine, Diffuser, The BBC, The Independent, The Wild Honey Pie, in addition to performing across multiple continents and on late night television for Last Call with Carson Daly. But alongside this, after a family member came to him about her sexual and religious abuse, he found himself a witness in a criminal trial against the very people he grew up with. Meanwhile, “Welcome Home, Son” from his 2007 debut Ghost would land syncs on the trailer for the Academy® Award-winning The Descendants and on The Blacklist as well as soundtracking ad campaigns for Nikon and Chevrolet, eventually amassing over 66 million Spotify streams. Soon after, The Leaves became his third consecutive album to bow in the Top 30 of Billboard’s Heatseekers chart, coinciding with the adoption of his niece and his newfound role as her legal guardian.