Mills was born and raised on the West Coast of Canada in the port town of Nanaimo, British Columbia.

As a child he drew pictures, raced go-karts, and eventually moved on to the more mature past time of drinking beer at the end of unlit cul-de-sacs. He was employed as a dishwasher for the first time at age 20 after partying at a rave held inside the restaurant He was given three trial shifts over a weekend which turned into a decade long on-again-off-again relationship as an uneducated employee of commercial kitchens.  With medium ambition Mills studied creative writing at Nanaimo’s Malaspina University-College. He began writing comedic plays for classmate Matt Quick who was a drama student.

In the summer 2003 Mills and Quick produced their first show ever at the Chuck Mobley theatre in Quesnel BC (The theatre attached to Quick’s former high school). The show consisted of a series of one-acts under the name Ill-Dependence and starred a thirteen member cast of mostly local teenagers.

Mills wrote another play for Quick titled Grape Jelly & Champagne that was produced for their Universities student run one act festival. More memorable then the script itself was the large tarantula costume Mills’ constructed for the brief four show run. Though humble, it still remains Mills’ most successful involvement at a staged play to date.

Shortly after the production of Grape Jelly & Champagne Mills dropped out of school. He moved to the secluded town of Wells BC and joined Quick as an employee of Barkervile provincial park, a historic town staffed by people dressed like it’s 1870s. Mills donned a bowler cap and took a job as a box office attendant at the Theatre Royal.

It was here he met the other box office attendant, singer-songwriter David Newberry. Although they were negligent toward what little responsibility they had at the job, the two would go on to collaborate creatively on numerous projects throughout the years.

In the downtime from the job Mills wrote a two man sketch comedy show with Quick.

They performed Matt and Ben’s Sketch Comedy one time only in the stageless Island Mountain Art Gallery.  Musicians David Newberry and James Burrows opened up for them.

It was Mills’ first live performance.  It took place in front of a forgiving crowd of acquaintances and a school of ceramic fish.

Mills and Quick united again to host Newberry and Burrow joint CD release called Burrows and Newberry Hate Each Other at the Bear’s Paw Cafe. Antics included a favourite scene in which Quick choked Mills out in a sleeper hold to stop him from reading poetry. Mills also performed a spoken word portion titled The Phantom Cook which was also featured on one of Newberry’s tracks. Other shows for Mills that summer included co-hosting an event called the Wells Comedy Auction in a gymnasium for two dozen people, and the speaking roll of Son # 3 in Barkerville’s Annual Chinese Lantern Festival.

At the end of the summer Mills moved to Vancouver BC to pursue stand up comedy. Quick instead continued his ambitions in the theatrical arts, pursuing a career in theatre management.

Mills’ first job in Vancouver was as a cook at a hip Turkish music house on Commercial Drive called Rime. His boss was a enjoyably smug leather pant wearing Iranian man. For reasons never explained the cooks were allowed to come in and drink free draft beer on their days off. Mills, Chef John, and Deniz the Turkish bluesmaster made a weekly tradition of attending The Laugh Gallery comedy show across the street on Wednesdays and hosted by Graham Clark. It took place in a dingy (sometimes filthy) Central American themed restaurant called the El Cocal. The comedians we often interrupted by dripping water, flickering lights, and a curious house cat that otherwise slept on a kitchen counter.

Mills performed stand up comedy on the El Cocal stage for the first time on April 19, 2006. He developed passionate arguments on absurd subjects and performed them at an equally eclectic number of venues in the Vancouver. At one point in Mills was confusingly included on Just for Laughs endorsed show at a club in Vancouver that was in some way played on XM Radio. Like most events in Mills’ comedy “career” how or why any of this occurred remains a mystery.

It was also during this time he met comedian Dylan Rhymer who booked Mills early and often on a show called Nudge in an extinct Wink coffee shop near Main and Broadway.

In Early 2006 Graham Clark wanted to move The Laugh Gallery into a cleaner larger venue. Mills suggested his workplace of Rime and the already popular show blossomed in this new environment. Mills also began participating more in the operations of the comedy show itself; putting up posters, working the door, running the tech, setting up, tearing down, and eventually guest hosting.

He was performing sets regularly at Rime as well working shifts as a cook throughout the week. Mills’ successes and failures as a comedian were always punctuated the following day by a waitress commenting something like “Better luck next time” and heaving a bus bin of dirty cutlery into the sink for him to clean. This held true even for a Vancouver Comedyfest show at Rime in which Mills was the first of fifteen acts and lukewarmly entertained a scattered few while they found their seats still cast in broad daylight.

It was through his association with this show that Mills befriended Gerald “The Horror Comic” Varga. The two grown men would go on to share a series of ridiculously small living arrangements in the Greater Vancouver area, while Varga acquired an increasing amount of props for a character called Gerald Gerald Geraldson. The list included a latex replica of Gerald’s head severed below the jaw was stored in the walk-in closet where Mills slept.

It was also during this time in Vancouver that Mills took a second job cooking at new pub called the Black Frog in Gastown.

This bar became his main source of income as well as a downtown social hub for most of his years in living in Vancouver. It was here that Mills was reunited as an employee with the freshly graduated David Newberry, this time working in the close confines of the kitchen.

In the early spring of 2008 Mills embarked on stereotypical adventure for a young man raised in the suburbs with a sense of self entitlement. He set upon a cross-continent journey wearing a fresh backpack from mountain equipment co-op. Although he took numerous glamour photos of himself shaggy bearded squinting wearily into the wind, in reality his persona was as edgy as a loaf of bread. He traveled exclusively with a discounted greyhound bus pass and was rarely far from a helpful authority figure. Nonetheless, this trip accounts for over half of Mills’ life experience.

Mills first three days of traveling were spent in Kelowna performing at a comedy club/sports bar. It was here he met fellow comedian Ian Black from Halifax.

Mills paced his trip through Western Canada specifically to meet up with Graham Clark in Toronto in time for Clark’s performance in the finals of a contest for $25,000. It was here that Mills once again bumped into Haligonian comic Ian Black. Clark won the contest and the money and he and Mills headed to New York to celebrate.

One night Mills and Clark  performed in the basement of a Czech bar in Queens to a dozen people. This still accounts for Mills’ only performance in another country.

Mills ran out of money around Halifax and stayed there for the summer. He was reunited for a third time with comedian Ian Black who introduced Mills to his future roommate comedian Catherine Robertson. She rented an ashy book-strewn cranky-cat dominated 9^th floor apartment overlooking a massive hospital chimney. While the air quality was low their spirits were upbeat.

Both Mills and Robertson performed regularly on Black’s bi-weekly Stand and Deliver show at an upstairs bar called Ginger’s Tavern.  The bars most popular show of that time was the sketch comedy group Picnicface, a show Mills would occasionally perform on as well. It was also via Picnicface that Mills was included in the 2008 Halifax Pop Explosion. It was also during this time that Robertson began dating Brent Geikie who would also go on to master Mills’ first comedy album.

Mills moved back to Vancouver before the maritime winter could grip tight. He started 2009 living in a condo in Chinatown on the periphery of the poorest ZIP code in Canada in a place that was nonetheless quite nice. His mood was saddened by the news that Ginger’s had permanently closed its doors. He was then roommates briefly with wandering Nova Scotian comedian David Millett.  In order to save money they shared a single bedroom in a smelly three bedroom apartment that housed five “men” total.

Mills also returned to work at the Black Frog Eatery which also reunited him once again as David Newberry’s co-worker.  Despite years of education in the field of Political Science, Newberry remained working as a fry cook in the downtime between touring his albums.

Mills largely avoided stand up comedy on account of pleasant weather, and instead reunited creatively with David Newberry for the first time since the Bear’s Paw Cafe show four years prior.

Mills and Newberry made The Ben Mills Two – Three Paycheck Month consists of both live and studio recorded monologues set to music and ambient sound in the invented genre of quasi-hybrid musical soundscape comedy.  The album was released online late November 2009 and released on Canadian radio stations summer 2010.

Vancouver’s increased rent and infectious class bias motivated Mills to move back to Halifax in August 2009. A severe case of eczema localized on the palms of his hands led to the discovery of a allergy to dairy and alcohol. Mills responded to the news by sighing loudly and pushing a half eaten plate of beer cheesecake away from his body.

It was this second stint in Halifax where Mills was almost immediately reunited with Dylan Rhymer who moved to there after a period of living in Toronto. Mills and Rhymer worked almost exclusively together on various projects.  Most notably:  Mills hosts the stand up comedy show LaughterBurner at Bearly’s House of Blues and Ribs on Wednesdays, and the So You Think You Can Think? pub quiz at the Loose Cannon Scottish Public House on Sundays.

Comedy Lounge at Gus’ Pub on Mondays contributed to a personal stand up comedy resurgence for Mills.

The addition of Jokers Comedy Club to Halifax’s downtown also brought Mills more stage time in 2009/2010.   He co-featured one weekend with Andy Bush of Picnicface, and another with Adam Pateman his friend from the El Cocal days in Vancouver.  Mills also briefly hosted the improv sports games show The Pudding Room at Jokers.

Highlights over this time include two holiday shows in comedian Peter White’s hometown of New Glasgow NS titled A Peter White Christmas (with Dylan Rhymer and Jay Malone).

Mills also experienced an artistic resurgence designing colourful posters for his various projects as well as the cover art for his comedy album.  His crowning achievement being a Canada Day poster for the Cuban Assassins (Brent Geikie’s band) last show ever featuring and exploding beaver.