Ben Folds

Combined with lyrics that can go from heartbreakingly earnest to biting and humorous, Ben Folds' knack for crafting engaging melodies have helped fuel his climb into the mainstream, from piano-bashing college rock upstart to well-loved and widely-known crooner. The North Carolina native emerged on the greater music scene in the mid-'90s as the leader of the piano power trio Ben Folds Five. The group made it into the Top 50 in North America, the U.K., Australia, and Japan with both their second album, 1997's Whatever and Ever Amen -- featuring the plaintive alternative hit "Brick" -- and the follow-up, 1999's The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. After the Five called it quits in 2000, Folds went on to release a string of acclaimed solo albums, including 2005's Songs for Silverman and 2008's Way to Normal, both of which reached the Top 20 of the Billboard 200. Ben Folds Five reunited in 2012 for the Top Ten-charting The Sound of the Life of the Mind, which found the bandleader skillfully merging his snarky, punk-infused past with the more accessible, ballad-heavy output of his solo career. In the meantime, with a background that included music school and competency on multiple instruments, Folds ventured into sidelines that included a three-season stint as judge on the TV a cappella competition The Sing-Off and the creation of a piano concerto for the Nashville Symphony. The concerto eventually appeared on 2015's classical number one So There alongside pop songs recorded with chamber ensemble yMusic. In 2017, Folds was named the first-ever artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, and he published his memoir, A Dream About Lightning Bugs, in 2019. His 2023 LP What Matters Most marked a return to solo piano pop with his typical mix of earnest and sardonic songs. His first ever holiday album, Sleigher, arrived a year later. In addition to his own work, Folds has collaborated with a wide array of artists, among them Sara Bareilles, Regina Spektor, William Shatner, and authors Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman. A native of Greensboro, North Carolina, Benjamin Scott Folds attended the University of Miami's Frost School of Music on a full percussion scholarship before losing said scholarship and dropping out after a broken hand prevented him meeting jury requirements for his degree. Folds threw his kit in the campus lake and returned to North Carolina. Following a late-'80s stint playing bass for the band Majosha, he spent several years in Nashville working largely as a session drummer. Folds dabbled in acting after relocating to New York, while performing solo gigs around the city and further developing his piano and songwriting skills. Moving back again to North Carolina, in 1994 Folds formed Ben Folds Five, a trio that also included bassist Robert Sledge and drummer Darren Jessee. Whereas most alternative bands of the '90s specialized in distorted teen-angst rock, the guitarless trio was a refreshing break from the norm, its sound akin to such past power popsters as Todd Rundgren, Jellyfish, and early Joe Jackson, and such piano-driven artists as Billy Joel and early Elton John. But like punk bands, Ben Folds Five put on a high-energy, blistering live show. Their self-titled debut arrived in 1995 on Caroline Records, yielding their first cult hit, "Underground." With some help from MTV's 120 Minutes and plenty of touring, the band generated enough buzz to land a deal with Epic Records, which issued their follow-up. Released in 1997, Whatever and Ever Amen proved to be Ben Folds Five's commercial breakthrough, thanks in part to the single "Brick." Unlike the majority of Ben Folds Five's material, which was upbeat, the song contained melancholic music and vocals, as the lyrics told the story of a teenage couple who decide to get an abortion, a story later confirmed by Folds to be autobiographical. Eventually going platinum in the U.S., Whatever also fared similarly abroad, particularly in Australia and Japan. While 1998 didn't see a new studio album by the band, their former label, Caroline, issued a 16-track rarities collection (Naked Baby Photos), while Folds released his first solo album, Volume 1, under the pseudonym Fear of Pop. Although the solo effort went largely unnoticed, it included the song "In Love," which featured some melodramatic vocals from none other than Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, and which was performed on The Conan O'Brien Show shortly after the album's release. Ben Folds Five regrouped with 1999's The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, which was a more mature work than its predecessors, and featured some of Folds' strongest songwriting to date. Although it became their first album to crack the Billboard albums Top 40 (peaking at 35), it would prove to be the band's last record for over a decade. Folds made his official solo debut with Rockin' the Suburbs, a more diversely arranged set that arrived in late 2001 and went to number 42 in the States and number 18 in Australia. A 2003 live effort, Ben Folds Live, was followed by a series of EPs before Folds returned to the piano trio format with the introspective Songs for Silverman in 2005. It went all the way to number 13 on the Billboard 200 and to nine on the ARIA chart in Australia. Lead single "Landed" became Folds' first original solo song to crack the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at 77. Comprising covers, soundtrack entries, and EP material, he released the compilation Supersunnyspeedgraphic: The LP in 2006, followed by the Dennis Herring-produced full-length Way to Normal in 2008. Featuring a duet with Regina Spektor ("You Don't Know Me"), Way to Normal reached a solo-career-high number 11 in the U.S. That same year saw a reunion show by Ben Folds Five during which they performed their third album in its entirety. In 2009, Folds contributed two songs to University A Cappella!, a collection of covers of some of Folds' best tracks by various university groups. Continuing to branch out in varied directions, Folds joined NBC's a cappella talent show The Sing-Off as one of the judges, a job he would hold for three seasons. Lonely Avenue, a collaboration with British novelist/essayist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy), arrived in 2010, followed by the 18-track Retrospective: The Best Imitation of Myself 1995-2011, which represented Folds' first U.S. career overview. The compilation included a new song with the original Ben Folds Five, who re-formed and released their fourth studio album, The Sound of the Life of the Mind, in September 2012. It became Folds' highest-charting effort to date in the States, peaking at number ten on the Billboard 200 and reaching the Top Three of the alternative chart. It also hit the Top 40 in the U.K. and Australia. The concert album Ben Folds Five Live followed in mid-2013. In 2015, Folds released So There, an eight-track collection of chamber pop originals that he recorded with New York City-based classical sextet yMusic. The album also included a performance of his "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra" with the Nashville Symphony. His debut for the New West label, the album reached number one on Billboard's classical and classical crossover charts. Over the following years, Folds issued a pair of live albums, In Concert 2015-2016 and Live in Perth, the latter recorded with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. In 2017, the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. named Folds the organization's first ever artistic advisor. A year later, Edsel issued the exhaustive Brick: The Songs of Ben Folds 1995–2012, a 13-disc box set that included all four Ben Folds Five albums, all of his solo albums (up until 2012), live recordings, B-sides, and other bonus material. Ballantine Books published Folds' memoir, A Dream About Lightning Bugs, in July of 2019. Folds launched a podcast, Lightning Bugs: Conversations with Ben Folds, in 2021, to speak with artists about their creative processes. In 2022, he contributed the title song to the Apple TV+ special It's the Small Things, Charlie Brown and, following occasional guest spots on shows like Community and You're the Worst, Folds had a recurring role on Amazon Prime drama The Wilds. He returned to piano pop in June 2023 with the album What Matters Most (New West). Recorded in East Nashville with producer Joe Pisapia, its many contributors included Tall Heights, Dodie, Ruby Amanfu, and yMusic's Rob Moose (string arrangements). Next up for the singer/songwriter was his first-ever holiday album, Sleigher, which in true Folds fashion was an atypical one. Consisting of seven original songs and three reworked classics, including the Burt Bacharach deep cut "The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle," it arrived on New West in October of 2024. That same month, while out on his Paper Airplanes Request Tour, he recorded a concert album with the NSO in D.C.
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