Published at 7:00 AM on July 8, 2008

By Jason Killingsworth

Ben Folds talks new album and release date

Everybody’s favorite piano-rocking, Shatner-collaborating, sailor-mouthed goofball Ben Folds has a new album hitting shelves on Sept. 16. Way To Normal, the singer’s first new studio LP since 2005’s Songs For Silverman, is produced by Dennis Herring (Counting Crows, Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello) and will be released on Epic Records.

Even though Folds has played some high-profile shows over the past couple years backed by a full symphony orchestra (he’s scheduled to perform with the Nashville Symphony on Sept. 7 to open its 2008-09 Pops season) the new record is still unabashedly rock.


“It’s a fairly un-orchestral record,” Folds tells Paste. “It’s a fairly lyric-driven rock record. We’ve looked at taking a few of the songs on the new record and scoring them for orchestra and, uh, it was kind of slim pickins.”

Notable tracks include a quirky duet with Regina Spektor called “You Don’t Know Me” and a glitchy sonic experiment called “Free Coffee” on which Folds gets a crackling faux-electronic effect by taping Altoids cans to the strings of his acoustic grand piano and running that sound through a distortion pedal.

The cheeky irreverence that’s become Folds’ trademark is still on full display in tunes like “Bitch Went Nuts,” which tells the fictional story of a relationship that went south after the narrator’s lover goes psycho and stabs his basketball. According to Folds, the song is a comment on the male perspective. “If you ask loads of women what went wrong in a relationship, they’re going to give you a variety of answers. But you ask men, especially at a bar somewhere, and they’re gonna go, ‘Uh, bitch went nuts!’”

Considering Folds’ penchant for fun-loving shenanigans, have any fellow artists or friends urged him to grow up?

“No, luckily I have a loyal team of yes men. And whatever I say is just the fucking shit. No, that’s not true at all. What I do have is a few good friends and people that I work with who are really happy when I’m having a good time with something.”

Click here to read Jason Killingsworth's full Q&A with Folds.

Related links:
Cover Story: Ben Folds Outgrows the Industry of Cool
BenFolds.com
Ben Folds on MySpace

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

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