Ben Folds Talks What Matters Most, Patreon and His Changing Voice

 

In our accelerated age, an artist taking an eight-year gap between albums generally feels like an eternity. Especially if said artist stays out of the public eye that whole time. For singer-songwriter Ben Folds, however, the idea that it has been nearly a decade since he released a full album feels somehow incorrect.

Since 2015’s So There, his collaboration with modern string ensemble yMusic, the 56-year-old has kept himself plenty visible and audible. He started podcasts, wrote a memoir, accepted a gig as Artistic Advisor for the National Symphony Orchestra, did a bit of acting in TV shows like You’re The Worst and The Wilds and, until the pandemic struck, continued to play live around the world. As well, starting in 2019, Folds has kept in close contact with his global fan base through his very active Patreon page.

All that is to say that when news broke that Folds was set to release What Matters Most, a fresh full-length of original matter, it was greeted with neither a shock nor a shrug. New music from this talented artist instead felt entirely expected. What may throw some folks for a loop is how of-the-moment it is. Songs touch on the absurd moments of the 2020 election cycle, digital communication, dealing with a flood of conservative misinformation from an old schoolmate and Folds’ ability to once again walk through the world with some measure of anonymity.

Surrounding those tunes is material that feels much more of a piece with his previous work — ruminative, philosophical and run through with Folds’ sly lyrical wit. The closing one-two punch of the title track and “Moments” are especially powerful on that front, as Folds sorts through his feelings on mortality and existence and asks the deeply important question we all face in our lives, “With so little time / What matters most?”

Paste: It’s been at least eight years since your last album So There was released. When did you realize it was time to get some material together and put together a fresh record?

Ben Folds: I certainly had more time because all the touring was canceled during the pandemic era. I sat down and said, “Okay, I’m just gonna lay my pieces out on the table. All the little ideas I’ve had for songs for a long time. Let’s just get these finished.” And I didn’t. I don’t think any of them made it. I found myself writing from scratch. I was doing songwriting masterclasses and music appreciation over Patreon, and it made me think about songwriting craft because I was talking about it and trying to sort of teach it. I had people turning in songs and I’d go through them with them. Never about the content of the song. Always the craft or the technique. And that kind of pushes me because it’s like, I’m supposed to be the master here. I’m not writing anything.

One of the exercises I did was Headline Songs. We would meet at the same time every week and everyone would bring in today’s most interesting headlines or news stories. They would pick one and I would write a song. It would take me between two and six hours. I would set the day aside to start and finish it as an exercise for me to keep moving, but also so that they could do it. Everyone was writing songs and turning the songs in. The point of the exercise was, selfishly, I wanted to keep moving. But the other thing was to try and give them some hands-on experience to find what’s behind the story. Because that’s what the song is. Because you’ve chosen the headline and the story, what is your subject now? It ain’t the news story just put to rhyme. What’s inside the story? In doing that, I started realizing, “These are better and I need to throw some of that shit away that I had been working on.” Two of them specifically. “Christine From Seventh Grade” was written in a few hours to a Wall Street Journal piece, and the other, “Fragile,” was some local piece about a burglar who was caught by a couple stealing their stuff and he started crying. Sat there and cried and got $250 and left. I thought, “Well, that’s an abusive personality.” He’s not remorseful until he’s caught. He’s made it all about him as a victim. You don’t want to attack someone like that because you’re afraid that they’re fragile. So the abuser is the fragile one. So with the exception of one song on the record, which is the one that is very different from everything else and had been started before the pandemic time, everything else was written in the second half of 2021, then recorded over a year ago. We had to sit and wait for it to be released because vinyl.

Paste: It makes sense to hear you talking about that practice of writing to headlines because, more than any other record you’ve made in the past, What Matters Most feels very timestamped to this era we’re living though. Is that something you fretted over, having these songs be so specific to the here and now or did that really matter to you?

Ben Folds: I was doing all kinds of projects over the time, some TV stuff, and the directive was always, “This cannot be a fucking pandemic show. This can’t be a pandemic song.” There was a real quick awareness that probably no one wanted to hear it, and that it would date something. Well, that’s a real sign for someone like me to be like, “Maybe I’ll look under that rock.” I’m not the only person in the world that wrote a pandemic record. I call it the pandejo record because my producer [Joe Pisapia] calls it the pandejo which I think is hilarious. But, look, maybe I’ve got enough confidence now to go, “I can make it of the era. That’s fine.” Why not? Why not report on what’s now? But at the same time, like the headline songs, what’s the force beneath the story? If we hadn’t gone through the pandemic does the song stand up? That’s not an easy thing to do.

I don’t know how to say it better than: I felt like I could do that. And the songs that I was working on that had more weight seem to be the ones that were more relevant. I had a line in one song that, as a perfect rhyme, sounded great, and it was so of the moment. The line was “Zoom seders and Snapchat daters.” I thought it was cool but, at the end of the day, it didn’t forward the song. I’m quite happy to say I wrote a pandemic record. It’s about our changing times. I’m also pretty confident that it would have sounded fine 20 years ago. I don’t have any real reservations about it. I remember years ago, I wrote the song “Underground” and I had a couple of musician friends who were like, “Do you really want to date that song with all that nosering stuff? That just seems cheesy.” I’m like, “Yeah, sure. Why not? It’s fun for me.”

Paste: I’m sure you’re going to get asked about this song a bunch, but I loved “Back To Anonymous” on the new record. Was that something that you noticed happening gradually in your life, that you could walk the streets fairly undisturbed now?

Ben Folds: Well, it comes and goes. There are times when I can’t go out in public, or in certain places. When I’m in the Midwest, I can’t go out without someone screaming in my face as soon as I walk outside. But that song was also brought about because everyone was sort of equalized to a degree having a face mask on in public. You would see someone that you know but you wouldn’t recognize them because they had a mask on. I began to think about anonymity, and I thought this is a way in because hopefully a song isn’t always a one way street. Like a good comedy, people laugh really hard at things that they relate to and they understand themselves. So some singer saying, “Hey, it’s not that much fun being famous, guys,” everyone’s gonna be like, “Jesus Christ. You got something else to write about? This guy’s lost his mind.”

If it doesn’t affect people that way, I would take a little credit for that, feeling that I had a way in and understanding it. The rest of it is the audience. Are they going to pick up what I put down or not? This is what cracks me up about songwriters that are misunderstood. They get upset and it’s like, look, you’re half the problem. What are people supposed to think when you write something, put a hidden message in and call everyone stupid because they didn’t get it? The same goes with this song. Would I be inundated with people saying, “Jesus, would this guy get to the point?” Maybe it’s timing, too, because I have a feeling that if that had been on my album Way To Normal, people would have been like, “This guy’s a dick. Fuck this guy.” That was sort of the way that record was taken. Now the timing is different. We’ve all been through different circumstances and I think I’m trying to do honest reporting on it.

Paste: At the same time, as someone who has been performing for as long as you have, how do you balance that desire to want to stay connected with your fans but also have a private life? Has that gotten easier over the years?

Ben Folds: Well, yeah. I’m in a pretty good place right now. I’m not all that recognizable. People who recognize me often just give me a nod. You come to some peace after a while. There’s nothing immediate. It’s not like I’m on Succession or something like that. When you’re on TV and you’re right in someone’s living room every night and you pass them at the grocery store, are they gonna flip out? I do. At the same time, I enjoy knowing that I can play a tour, people come see it, and then I can go out to a restaurant so long as it’s not in that neighborhood. I didn’t take to it all that well. I want to be polite and I do love people and I love that they love my music. I don’t want to add any weirdness to it for anyone. If someone runs into me tonight somewhere and wants to say hello, it’s fine. But it’s something that took me a while. It doesn’t feel healthy. Everyone would like to be accepted and popular, including me. It’s the mixed bag part of it.

Paste: You’re talking about being in this great position to be able to tour and knowing that people will come see you, but listening to this record, I got the sense too that you’re in this privileged place where you have the resources and know the right people to be able to make the record of your dreams. Does it feel like that from the inside?

Ben Folds: I’ve probably had that luxury for a long time. With this one, when I told my producer that I wanted to make it generous, I meant that I wanted it to be something that would be a joy to put on. Not everyone can make these things. I wanted it to be like making a great piece of art for your home that you would cherish, look at, and think about differently when you see it at different times. It doesn’t just get popped out. It has to be crafted and made. I wanted to make something like that. People have asked me about that generous line a few times. It’s not that I imagined kowtowing what I’m doing to an imaginary set of ears or audience or focus group. It’s not that I’m not making it for myself, it’s making something that is not overtly just, “Me, me, me.” You don’t sit on someone’s couch and go on about your problems. You want to ask them about theirs. There needs to be some implied two-way conversations in this.

Also, this thing that you’re saying about making a dream record, it’s like, yeah, I did things on this one where I go the extra mile to make it taller and a little more beautiful. I mean, people probably appreciate Steely Dan records now more than they ever did. I think that’s because they’re built so beautifully. People made fun of that as music that you’d test your PA system with or test record players. But what a fucking gift. I mean, that’s amazing! They can get the best musicians around making… yeah… I could have said, “Yes, I wanted to make something good.” [laughs]

Paste: Tell me more about what you’ve been doing on Patreon. You’ve got songwriting classes, and music appreciation where you’re listening to records with people…

Ben Folds: Yeah, we did a couple recently. I just give them extra music and stuff. Throw my phone on stage and let them watch the audience at my feet one night. Stuff like that. I like the music appreciation stuff because I was just curating YouTube videos. Putting them together will take me a few days. Maybe one will be on failure, and we would listen to all different kinds of failure. Is it really failure? Did they not achieve what they were trying to achieve? Is it good because of its failure in that it’s attracting attention? So some of the music appreciation would be that. Some of it would be like drums. “We’re just gonna listen to drums tonight.” And I talked between them and we’d have conversations about it. The songwriting masterclasses are where people are sending in their songs and we all listen to them together. I put a camera over my shoulder where I was going over their lyrics and making notes and had a method by which I got inside the songs. We were doing piano lessons, but the piano lessons were tougher. Those are mostly for kids. I mean, I knew parents were in hell, especially if you were in a small apartment in a big city with two school-aged kids. So I did a lot of things that were geared toward, “Put your finger here. Put this finger here.” Just to keep them occupied for an hour.

Paste: Something else I took away from this record was noticing how your voice has changed from the days of the first Ben Folds Five album. Is that something you felt happening gradually or was it something that came on all at once that you had to adjust for?

Ben Folds: I’ve talked to singers who have had all different sorts of experiences with this stuff. For instance, Randy Newman and Elvis Costello both felt like their ranges and their strength improved. Thicker sounding, but actually more range. Probably from using them. In general, that’s where I fall. It’s a thicker sounding version of what you know. If you listen to the new record, the first record sounds like The Chipmunks. If you listen to that for a while and listen to now, it probably sounds like Fat Boy. It’s just a different tone. But I can hold higher notes than I ever could. There’s an exception in the falsetto, which I used to have. I blew that out probably around ’99 screaming heavy metal stuff as a joke, or it just matured away. I’m not really sure what happened. But, in general, it’s nice.

I used to imply that I hit notes and since the tone was thinner, you thought it was higher. Now, when I’m doing those earlier songs, I’m a stickler. I make sure that I actually hit the note. I went through a long time where I was singing pretty poorly. And the reason was that I was trying to achieve the same tone I was accustomed to hearing come out. So I was adjusting and it wasn’t doing me any good. Now, I’m doing it more naturally. Like “Philosophy,” I would never hit certain notes that I do now. It’s not hard for me to do.

Paste: It’s been about 30 years since Ben Folds Five first got together. When hearing something like that, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Ben Folds: Well, I don’t think I can really listen to it. I stand behind it and everything, but it’s like your notebook or something from that age. You might have one night when you look through some of that stuff drunk and have a laugh about it. I play [that material] every night. But it’s… yeah, I guess I haven’t really listened to those records in a while.

Paste: Something we’ve touched on a bit in this interview is that you’ve gotten to a great place in your career where you can tour when and for how long you want without worrying about selling tickets and you can make the kinds of records you want. Are there still mountains yet to climb for you? Any goals you’ve yet to reach?

Ben Folds: I would like to jump into some musicals, or maybe opera. I kind of have to promise myself to concentrate on that and only that, and make a promise to myself that it’ll be the best work I’ve ever done. Otherwise, I self-consciously feel like I’ll just be taking advantage of something that I could do when there are other people that do it well. If I do it, I need to kill it. So, I think I’m getting closer to that because I’ve thought about it ever since the first album. I tend to stumble into stuff like that, as we all do if you leave your mind open. I don’t often make a list because I find if I make a list of the things I want to do, and I’m putting my attention on it, then something comes up in the periphery that’s an amazing opportunity but doesn’t look like an opportunity to me because I’m too focused on something else. So I just let weird shit come my way, which has really been helpful.