Miami's Ben Katzman Plans to Outshred on Season 46 of Survivor

Outwit, outplay, outshred. Miami musician Ben Katzman is ready to manifest the shred and face his fears on the upcoming 46th season of Survivor, premiering Wednesday, February 28, on CBS.

As a fan of Katzman and his band DeGreaser, a favorite Katzman moment I got to witness (besides his badass, energetic performances on stage with DeGreaser) was last year in March during a Miami Film Festival event featuring Nicolas Cage as the speaker. Although I had a bad view of the stage, I quickly recognized Katzman's voice as he was up first to ask Cage a question during the Q&A portion of the night, leading to a signed sequined pillow and a David Lee Roth impersonation by Cage.

Catching up with Katzman on Zoom ahead of the reality competition show's premiere, he explains that he was offered to be on Survivor the same day he got to meet Cage, one of his heroes.

"He started going, 'If things scare you, you should probably do it.' I was like, Man, Nic Cage is ethereally telling me to do Survivor right now, and I'm doing it." Katzman shares.

At 31, Katzman was already having the craziest year of his life in 2023: He met Nic Cage, signed a distribution deal with record label AWAL (Sony Music), toured in Europe, and released his latest album, Transcendental Shreditation. And in June, he secretly traveled to the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji to film and compete on Survivor's 46th season.  For 26 days (if you make it to the end without being voted out), contestants live together on a beach where they're given no food or shelter and asked to compete in physical and mental challenges in grueling hot weather. In conditions like this, tensions are bound to rise, leading to some juicy drama as well as heartful moments, all being recorded by a camera crew.

Managing the tricky dynamics of being in a band or going on long tours helped prepare Katzman for the careful strategizing and relationship management it takes to be a good gameplayer on Survivor.

"Survivor is a game of tribes, at least in the beginning. Being in a band, everyone has to work together for a common goal, and you hope you're going to kick ass at the concert or the tour. Maybe the tour is like the long immunity challenge, and the reward is like getting to rock out for a lot of people and having people fuck with what you do," Katzman says.

Katzman shreds through life on and off stage, whether he's giving it his all during his performances live or in the studio or when he's working as a music teacher at Wynwood School of Music. Embracing the mantra from his track "Don't Be a Poser (To Yourself)," Katzman went into the competition ready to stick to his larger-than-life personality and super-chill attitude no matter what, hoping that it would connect him with the right tribemates.

"I do know I'm a personality, and people can perceive me as a cartoon character sometimes," he admits. "Try and always find that grounding so you know you're being true to yourself, and that's what I told myself. If I get taken out on day one or whatever it is, at least I know I was me, and I can live with that."

During what he calls his Rocky III training methods, the Miami Beach resident did some swimming and hanging out on the beach on hot days to physically prepare for Survivor's tough challenges and grueling weather.

Katzman joins Dee Valladares, the show's latest winner, in representing Miami in back-to-back seasons.

"I feel like I'm Miami Beach as all hell, and she's super Miami Lakes. I couldn't think of two more extreme personalities on those spectrums than me and her to represent Miami," Katzman jokes.

To celebrate the premiere, Katzman is throwing a private party at Gramps for his friends, family, and students.

"It's gonna be cool to have Survivor projected on the stage where I got to play some of my favorite rock shows of my twenties," he adds. "It's like a movie moment. Look where we are. Started from the bottom, maybe we'll be on the bottom — hopefully we're not!"

Survivor season 46 premieres Wednesday, February 28, at 8 p.m. on Paramount+ and CBS.