The fab Five

Will 'Brick' break Ben Folds?

by Bob Gulla

Chuck your preconceptions of Ben Folds as a nerdy guy who plays the piano out the proverbial window. By most counts, though admittedly cutting an unimposing figure, Folds does not fit that particular bill. "I got my ass kicked in college in a bar fight by an amateur boxer," he remembers. "It was over fast, but I kept swinging like a drunken idiot. I remember hitting the wall with my fist and breaking my hand, thinkin', `Cool, I hit 'im.' "

Fortunately, Folds is more on target with his musical hooks than his left hooks. As the piano playing frontman of the cheekily named Ben Folds Five, the Chapel Hill trio have built a considerable following both at home, where his indie credibility and smarty-pants piano pop precede him, and abroad. In Japan, for example, the band has moved more than 200,000 copies of its indie self-titled debut, and even more of the recent, most excellent major label bow Whatever and Ever Amen (550Music).

"I learned how to say, `Tokyo fucking rocks!' in Japanese," Folds grins, adding that the band played five sold-out nights in Tokyo on their last trip to the island. "I'd love to go into a record store and say, `I AM BEN FOLDS!' and have all these Japanese girls swarm around me while someone takes a video of it to show my friends back home."

If Folds's luck continues, he'll equal that mania on these shores with Whatever, an ebullient pop tonic comprised of brainy piano stomps and clever blue-eyed soul. In fact, "Brick," the album's third single, has been added to MTV and VH1 rotations, while the band's current tour has been selling out 1000-seat venues with ease. With bandmates Robert Sledge on bass and Darren Jessee on drums, Folds creates a dazzling union of candid, alternative nation cynicism and accessible classic rock schmaltz, bringing the super-earnest songwriting styles of pianists Elton John and Randy Newman careening into the 21st century. "Seventies guys like that, like Billy Joel and Eric Carmen, have got such an amazing command of singing, songwriting and playing," says Folds. "It's just that my criteria -- what I want someone to feel when they listen to my music -- is different from theirs."

That's quite an understatement, considering Folds likes his happy songs to keep listeners off balance, such as Whatever's "Fair," which includes the lines, "When he lunged onto the hood/She stopped to tell him she'd been wrong/He was thrown head over heels/Into the traffic coming on." "That's fun to me, finding a way to say those kinds of things and making them work. Sometimes [that approach] doesn't get as much credit as a techno record with farting noises all over it, but what can you do?"

Just keep releasing records, right? In January, BF5 will feed its fans a highly anticipated collection of vault recordings called Naked Baby Photos (Caroline), a celebration of sorts of their four years as a trio-cum-quintet or, in Folds's words in his liner notes, "a portrait of what was inadvertently captured over the last few years." He continues, "Thanks to anyone who was there early (before we were so fucking huge). Here they are, made public for the first time our naked baby photos."

Drummer Jessee insists the album is strictly for fans. "People might get a kick out of hearing songs, like `Jackson Cannery,' the first song we ever recorded. In fact, it's the first version of our first song." Other gems to look forward to include the metallic "The Ultimate Sacrifice" (recorded in May of this year at Lupo's), for which Folds annotates, "If BF5 were a big-haired metal band, this is what they'd sound like. Robert and Darren actually have some legit metal cred. [But] when you add me to the picture, Black Sabbath starts sounding like Survivor."

A classically-trained orchestral percussionist, Folds attended the prestigious jazz program at the University of Miami on a scholarship, but ended up losing focus and tossing his drums into a lake. What happened? "Most of the drums sank, but the cymbals floated."

After venturing home to North Carolina and getting a job at a local supermarket, Folds switched from drums to piano and enrolled at UNC-Greensboro on another music scholarship. Ironically, Folds lost interest in the academic side of piano and flunked out, choosing instead to re-enroll in English. He was a semester away from graduating in that major when labels came a-buzzing and his recording career took flight. Since then it's been nowhere but up (and out) for the stage-diving, baby grand piano pounding showman, with slots on the '96 Lollapalooza and this year's H.O.R.D.E. trek (which featured a four-piece string section), a major label record deal, and a long sought-after chance to do what he does best: merge Gershwin and Fats Waller with Billy Joel and Todd Rundgren. All, of course, with his screwball humor in overwhelming evidence.

"For me, humor is something slightly poisonous that tastes good," says Folds. "I admit I laugh at too much. Not too long ago I was on a plane that had such bad turbulence it turned completely sideways; two guys hit their heads on the ceiling, ice from drinks was flying everywhere. It was like, `Shit, we're gonna die!'But I was laughin' my ass off the whole time!"

Ben Folds Five will appear at the WBRUBirthday Bash on Wednesday, December 3.