Ben Folds
Ben Folds
Benjamin Scott "Ben" Foldsis an American singer-songwriter and record producer. From 1995 to 2000, Folds was the frontman and pianist of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five. After the group temporarily disbanded, Folds performed as a solo artist and has toured all over the world. The group reunited in 2011. He has also collaborated with musicians such as William Shatner, Regina Spektor and "Weird Al" Yankovic and undertaken experimental songwriting projects with authors such as Nick Hornby and Neil...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth12 September 1966
CityWinston-Salem, NC
CountryUnited States of America
I'm definitely an anomaly, but I'm making things. They're selling, say, martinis, and I'm kind of making vintage Riesling. People aren't going to sit there very often, not your average public, and your average music-business monster is not going to take the time to notice the overtones and the undertones inside the flavor. They'd rather just have the martini.
Now that I have found someone, I'm feeling more alone... than I ever have before.
I'm older than I was, and I'm still washed-up, and I haven't changed my music one iota. It's just much easier to do this when people are being nice to you.
I don't leave my neighborhood. I don't go anywhere. There are four blocks I live in and there are two coffee shops, one at each end of the block... so I don't do much driving... Some people would say they never see me because I don't go anywhere. I stay in the blue state of Nashville, in my bubble.
I'm romantically inclined. No human being on Earth is not attracted to other people. There is no fairy tale that they only have eyes for you. You just choose to act on it or not.
In many ways, I've chosen to be plain, almost too plain, too self-effacing. Like, if I record a vocal and I don't like the way it sounds, I would have them turn it up and take the reverb off it to make it as plain as possible.
The cruelest lies are often told without a word The kindest truths are often spoken, never heard
You never know when you put out an album that's unique whether it'll get beat up for it or not.
I've gotten to the point where I realize that I need to tell my truth in music and not walk around blabbing my mind.
Rock and roll is - and should be - a kid's place.
It's a tough thing to know that when you're making your album, you're going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.
Everyone, when you're a teenager and you're growing up, you do feel like your life is dramatic enough to be on a TV screen, but we know that it's not.
The less I talk in bars, write emails, express myself in an emotionally lewd way outside of my songwriting, the more I have to do it through my music.
Everything I write is personal, really. Even when I'm sarcastic, it's quite personal. And on this record, from the production to the singing to the performances, I got it really honest. To the modern ear, it seems soft. When you hear it against other things, it seems vulnerable. Lyrically and musically, though, this is more subtle. And, yes, it's asking a lot of someone who's used to being hit over the head with bright neon to listen to this.