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
A lot of 18-year-olds are like old men. They think they've seen everything.
I love you more than I have ever found a way to say 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.
Was I gung-ho about changing society when I was 18? I don't know about that. When you're 18, you're really into yourself and what's happening to your body. But I definitely had some ideas. This malaise is not confined to America either. I spotted that same attitude in kids in Eastern Europe before the fall of communism.
The press is like any business. It's a group of really intelligent individuals that ends up being one slathering, one-eyed, drooling monster.
My idea is to play with the people who you know want to get it right. Then it's fun and easy to record, and you can get down to details, like taking out cymbals so the verse doesn't dwarf the chorus, something like that.
Maybe this is wrong, but I feel like I craft my songs carefully enough that I still find that fifteen years after having written one, it still works for me - I'm not cringing.
Everybody knows it hurts to grow up... and we're still fighting it.
With the a cappella groups, every voice is like one string on a guitar, one note on the piano, or one cymbal, and you don't have the luxury of falling back on anything.
I had to play a George Harrison song at a benefit a couple nights ago, and it was really hard for me. Obviously it wasn't my world.
The main thing is that we performed the songs, then went to the speakers - if we liked it, we kept it; if we didn't, then we did it again. That seems like the most obvious way to record, but it really isn't the way we make records in this day and age. This is just very old-fashioned.