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Ben Folds Five dropping pianos and swatting flies This interview was done quite a long time ago now, 7 months to be exact. That was the day that Better Than Ezra came to town. The Dambuilders and Ben Folds Five opened up. I was long gone by the time BTE got around to playing "Good" or whatever. I really wanted to meet Ben and the boys because they had put out one of the finest albums, Ben Folds Five, in recent memory; sort of a indiepop-meets-Broadway vibe. This interview was conducted at the Holiday Inn in Iowa City, notable that day for the incredible number of flies buzzing around. The interview was punctuated with the slams of various Ben Folds Five member slaughtering defenseless flies. Perhaps somebody should have called PETA, but I didn't have time, 'cause I had questions to ask... Ben Folds (piano, vocals) Robert Sledge (bass, vocals) Darren Jessee (drums, vocals) Smartass: Rob Galgano Smartass: How about a history of the band? Ben: We've been together for one and a half years now; we're from Chapel Hill, NC. For all practical purposes, we met to form the band. Me and Darren knew each other, and me and Robert had met one time. From the time we decided to put it together until the time we played our first gig was about two months. We started the band in January, and we played our first gig in March of 1994. We played a show up in New York that Caroline Records saw. In October, we signed with them. We were in the studio within a month of that, and we've been playing constantly since then. We use a real baby grand piano that we take around to the gigs. I don't think that anyone else at our level is doing that. Smartass: I only know of one other band that uses piano. Ben: Suddenly, Tammy! We played a show with them. SA: That must have been a great night for pianos. Ben: It was a great night for our piano. Hers is a digital; she doesn't use a real piano. Our piano weighs 800 pounds. This may be the hardest load-in we've ever done. SA: Have you ever dropped it? Darren: Once, on Ben's little brother. SA: Is he all right? Ben: He's okay. I was more worried about me 'cause Mama was in town. She was gonna kick my ass. Darren: It was almost like the time when you hit your brother in the back of the head with the apple. Ben: Yeah, I hit my little brother in the back of the head with an apple. SA: How old was he at the time? Ben: He was six, I was eight. The sun was going down red behind him, and he was standing with his back to me. I took an apple and beaned him in the back of the head, and I saw it spray up into the sunset. My father's car came around the corner at the same time-he beat my ass. Robert: More recently, the piano fell on him. He was helping us with the piano and somehow got twisted sideways and it started to fall and Chuck was underneath it. Ben: We know to move out of the way. Once it tips so far, you just have to move. It kinda slowly fell on him. He's got kind of a Billy Ray Cyrus haircut, short on the top and really long in back. All I could see was a little perm sticking out [laughs]. He was okay. SA: So what do you guys think of Better Than Ezra? Darren: They're nice. Ben: They've been really good to us. We toured with the Smithereens, and I can't say that I really liked their music or their crew-a bad experience. But this has been so great. Robert: The Dambuilders have been really nice, too. SA: I was listening to the album and thinking that some of these songs could have been written for muscials. Do you ever listen to non-rock stuff that influenced you? Ben: I think we were all different. I know that I didn't listen to a whole lot of Broadway musicals, but enough to have a notion of what they were. I liked the idea of musical theater. I lived in New York for a while and it totally dispelled the whole romantic notion that musical theater is a cool thing 'cause it was so dorky. What I'm writing now isn't as Broadwayish 'cause it's all been blown for me 'cause I saw Cats! It sucked! SA: How many of the songs are based on fact or people? You talk about "Uncle Walter," "Julianne," "Alice Childress"... Ben: All of them are based on...what I usually do is take someone's name that I know and insert it into someone else's situation, or my own. That way I don't piss anyone off. "Julianne" isn't really Julianne, it's someone else. There's some fairy tale shit going on sometimes, but it has to be based on something I really know or feel, or it wouldn't have any vibe. "Uncle Walter" was actualy based on this woman, the mother of this guy I played in a garage band with, and she was a total absolute drunk. They'd leave to go get a cord or beer or something-I was 14-and she'd trap me in the corner and just talk, talk, talk [drunk voice] "If I was President, I would have done this..." She's dead now 'cause she was washing her hair in the bathtub, and the bathtub was filling up, and she hit her head on the faucet and she passed out into the tub and drowned. The Uncle Walter I actually have is a nice guy. SA: What are some on-the-road fun activities? Robert: Bowling. Ben: Throwing up. Darren: Hitting bears. SA: You hit a bear? BEN: We hit a black bear in Charlottesville, Virginia. Darren: In the middle of the night, we were lost, going 80 miles an hour down an interstate highway, trying to get back to where we were supposed to be, and this bear lunges right in front of the truck. SA: Wreck the car bad? Darren: You can see the damage on the front of the truck. Ben: It was in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, pitch black dark. We didn't know if we'd killed the bear, or if it was still alive. [It died.] SA: You mentioned sports a couple of times on your album. What are your general feelings about sports? Ben: We all grew up playing soccer. Robert: I played baseball, too, third base. I couldn't bat, but I could field. Batting is something that comes naturally, but you can train someone to field. SA: I asked the sports question because of the song "Sports And Wine"...it seems like an anti-jock song. Ben: It's one of those impression songs. I had the picture in my mind of the yuppie jock who would try to snub you with nothing to back it up. SA: What about "Boxing"? Was that about Muhammad Ali? Ben: It started with the saying "Boxing's been good to me Howard." I think I saw it on TV. I was thinking about how Muhammad Ali would quit over and over again and kept on coming back. At the time I was really tired of what it took to play music professionally. So I noticed that I'd been doing a lot of that myself. It's almost like a suicide attempt that you don't mean, so people will talk you out of it. It's a "I feel sorry for myself and I'm gonna quit" song. SA: I just picture a guy in a bar who is an ex-boxer, and he didn't realize the end was coming, it was maybe 20 or 30 years later. It goes back to like being in a play. Ben: Well, if you take a scene that has almost a parable-like quality to it , or something that you can derive something else from, then you can be thinking of a lot of different things and use one thing to personify what you're talking about. I can't sit down and write a song like "I think I'm gonna quit, yeah." I would rather paint a picture and have a story in there. SA: Then there was "Underground" where you kind of feel like a misfit. Did you ever feel that way or is it just a song? Ben: I think that one speaks. It's pretty self-explanatory. SA: Does "alternative music" mean anything to you or is it just bullshit? Ben: It's bullshit. Darren: It's what "Underground" is about, a clique of people who have cool hair, and they decide that someone else doesn't fit in. They're just insecure. SA: Any final statements? Ben: I want my little brother to have my stereo. [smack] Ben: Did I get one? All: Yesss! Robert: We got a little graveyard going here. Ben: They should stay the fuck away from us. [to the fly] You want some more of us? Get up! Get up! -Rob G. This interview originally printed in the now defunct You Could Do Worse magazine, one of the greatest print zines you won't find on your newsstand. If you find a back issue, pick it up and reap the benefits of Rob Galgano's hard work. |
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