Benjamin Scott "Ben" Folds (born September 12, 1966) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and the former frontman of the band Ben Folds Five.
Early life and career
Folds became attached to a piano when his carpenter father brought one home when he was nine, the result of a barter trade his father made with a customer who was unable to pay for his work. During this time, Folds listened to songs by Elton John and Billy Joel on AM radio, and learned them by ear. During his years at R.J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Folds played in several bands as the pianist, bassist, or drummer.
In the late 1980s, Folds (as a bassist) and longtime friend Millard Powers formed the band Majosha. The group released several locally produced records. They played their first gig at Duke University's Battle of the Bands in 1988 and won. They played at bars and fraternity parties for a while, and eventually put out a self-produced EP sold at a few local stores called Party Night: Five Songs About Jesus (1988). The record featured only four songs, none of which were actually about Jesus. Gradually, their popularity grew and they played larger and farther-flung gigs. They recorded Shut Up and Listen to Majosha in 1989. It contains, among others, the four songs from Party Night (remixed and/or re-recorded), "Emaline", and "Video". At about the same time, they did a dance mix of "Get That Bug" that was released in Japan.
Majosha broke up in early 1990, and Folds formed Pots and Pans with Evan Olson (bass) and Britt "Snuzz" Uzzell (guitar and vocals). Folds played drums. They only lasted about a month, after which Olson and Uzzell went on to form Bus Stop with Folds's brother Chuck Folds on bass and Eddie Walker on drums.
Folds eventually got a music-publishing deal with Nashville music executive Scott Siman who saw Folds open for musician Marc Silvey (as well as playing bass for Silvey's band Mass Confusion) and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue it in 1990. He played drums for a short stint in Jody's Power Bill, headed by Millard Powers, Bill Owsley, and Jody Spence. Jody's Power Bill was later renamed The Semantics. Folds did not take a creative role in the band. He again attracted interest from major labels. He ended up playing drums there as a session musician.
"In Nashville, I was running eight miles a day, hanging out with my friends, walking around eating chocolate-chip cookies and playing a lot of drums, which I enjoyed. Life was easy. I was never frustrated -- even though I wasn't fulfilling my contract obligations. If you are failing in Nashville, at least your standard of living is nice. Nashville is a nice way to fail."
Folds attended the University of Miami's Frost School of Music on a percussion scholarship, but dropped out with one credit to go before graduating. He devoted a lot of time to working on piano technique. "I spent maybe six months just running scales with a metronome like a freak," Folds said. "I suppose that did something."
Folds tells audiences about a jury recital while a student at the University of Miami’s music school. A jury recital consists of playing a prepared repertoire (and sometimes unprepared pieces from prior years of training) before faculty members who then apply a grade for the entire semester. Folds, a drummer, showed up with a hand broken from a previous night’s partying, but was required to play anyway. He ended up losing his scholarship, and threw his drumkit into a lake on campus.
After leaving Miami, Folds moved to Montclair, New Jersey and began to act in theater troupes in New York City. He had previously done some theater in high school. He enjoyed it in 1993 to the point where he didn't want to keep pursuing a musical career. He also played weekly gigs at Sin-é, famous for being the cafe which had helped start Jeff Buckley's career.
Soon after, Folds moved back to North Carolina. The trio of Folds, bassist Robert Sledge, and drummer Darren Jessee formed Ben Folds Five in 1994 in Chapel Hill. As Folds put it, “Jeff Buckley was being signed at that time by Columbia and I was talking to Steve, his A&R guy, and somehow we knew the same people or something."
Ben Folds Five
In 1995, Ben Folds Five released their self-titled debut album (songs included "Philosophy" and "Underground"). The debut was followed by Whatever and Ever Amen in 1997, and the odds-and-ends compilation Naked Baby Photos was released in early 1998. Whatever spawned many hits, such as "Brick", "Song for the Dumped", and "Battle of Who Could Care Less". In 1999, the band released their final album, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner , which included the hit, "Army".
Folds has described his former band as "punk rock for sissies", and his oddball lyrics often contain nuances of depression, melancholy, self conflict, and humorous sarcasm.
Despite its presence on multiple Billboard genre charts, no Ben Folds Five singles reached the US Hot 100, although they did show well on both adult contemporary and modern rock charts. However they gained a strong following in the United Kingdom and Australia early in their career, and like many other 'alternative' American acts this was largely thanks to consistent support from national broadcasters in those countries, the BBC in Britain and the ABC's Triple J youth radio network in Australia (and ABC-TV's music video show Rage ).
The group's first chart breakthrough came in the UK, when "Underground" made the lower reaches of the Top 40, peaking at #37. Britain was the Five's strongest territory in terms of chart success, with five singles making the national Top 40 there -- "Underground", "Battle of Who Could Care Less", "Kate", "Brick" and "Army" -- although none managed to crack the UK Top 20.
In Australia "Underground" likewise broke the band locally and while it did not make the ARIA chart, it came in at #3 the 1998 Triple J Hottest 100 poll. The 1998 single "Brick" became the group's only major chart placing in Australia, reaching #13; it also came in at #53 in the ARIA Australian Top 100 for that year and earned a Gold Record award while its parent album Whatever and Ever Amen peaked at #9 and charted for 32 weeks.
Ben Folds Five reunited to perform its first concert appearance in nearly 10 years on September 18, 2008 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Memorial Hall. The one-off gig was part of the MySpace "Front to Back" series, in which artists play an entire album live. The band played its final album, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner . The concert aired during October and can be viewed at Nowwhat.com. All proceeds from ticket sales benefitted the charity Operation Smile.
Solo career
As of 2008, Folds had released six solo LPs, including an experimental side project called Fear of Pop , which was released while Ben Folds Five was still together.
Folds's first solo release after the breakup of the band was Rockin' the Suburbs in 2001, on which he played nearly all the instruments, notably guitar, an instrument seldom used during the Ben Folds Five days. Millard Powers, Britt "Snuzz" Uzzell, and Jim Bogios joined him on the promotional tour of the album. A year later, he released Ben Folds Live , a collection of live solo recordings. In late 2003, two solo EPs, Speed Graphic and Sunny 16 , were released, and a third, titled Super D , was released in mid-2004.
Songs for Silverman was released in the United States on April 26, 2005. The album featured Jared Reynolds on bass and Lindsay Jamieson on the drums, thus returning to the trio format. This album includes the track "Late", a tribute to the late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, and also features backup vocals from "Weird Al" Yankovic on "Time" (Folds had played piano for Yankovic's song "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?" on his Poodle Hat album. Yankovic also directed and appeared in Folds's video for the "Rockin' the Suburbs" single).
Folds contributed to William Shatner's album, Has Been , as producer, arranger, musician, and backup vocalist. Shatner also sang vocals on Folds's Fear of Pop song, "In Love", which was performed live on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on January 22, 1999.
Folds' friend and fellow musician John McCrea, lead singer of the band Cake, contributed vocals to Folds' song "Fred Jones, Part 2".
The soundtrack for the 2006 animated film Hoodwinked! featured "Red is Blue", a ballad underlying a montage at the height of the sadness of Red, the main character.
In May 2006, Folds contributed three original songs to the soundtrack of Over the Hedge , a DreamWorks production, as well as a cover of The Clash song "Lost in the Supermarket", and a remix of "Rockin' The Suburbs" with some new lyrics written to complement the script of the film, to which Shatner contributed a spoken rant. Songs for the movie are "Heist", which became the main song for the movie, and "Family of Me", a short track which introduces the movie.
On October 24, 2006, Folds released Supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP , a compilation of songs that were originally released on the EPs Sunny 16 , Speed Graphic , and Super D . He announced on his MySpace blog that he planned to work on his next studio album in October 2006, although recording did not actually start until 2007.
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