The Sound of the Life in the Mind is the latest album by Ben Folds Five. Picture: Autumn De Wilde
Source: National Features
AS rock 'n' roll splits go, Ben Folds Five's was hardly Guns N' Roses.
"There was an email with everyone including lawyers copied in," Folds says of their 2000 demise.
Following their unlikely mainstream breakthrough via 1997 ballad Brick, detailing a teenage abortion, by the third album, 1999's The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, they were already burnt out.
"We'd done recordings for a new album, it sounded tired and uninspired," Folds says.
"We'd declined quite a bit in ticket sales, the last record hadn't sold as well. We were recovering from a hit single (Brick). We felt our stocks were going down and we thought what we were doing was little too sacred to leave on a low note. As soon as I did Rockin' the Suburbs I felt back on form ."
Folds' solo career launched with Rockin' the Suburbs in 2001. A decade of extensive touring and prolific releases followed. After a one-off Ben Folds Five reunion in 2008 the trio recorded for Folds' career retrospective The Best Imitation Of Myself last year.
As painlessly as they split they regrouped last December to record a belated fourth album, The Sound of the Life of The Mind.
"It was like riding a bike," Folds says. "A bike with new gears. It feels not so much like a reunion but a continuation after a break."
The album's recording was funded by fans via crowdfunding website Pledgemusic.
Eager fans could donate for everything from a simple pre-purchase of the album to, for $2500, a re-recording of a song with their name inserted into the lyrics.
"The dinosaur in the room is for the last eight years or so bands have been funding themselves. This isn't to be seen as The Man has been taken down and the fans have risen on the internet. This puts the artist back being the artist, not the financier.
"It's not about sticking it to The Man. I don't want The Man gone. I don't want to sit in my basement and press records and lick stamps. The Man got it. He can't sit down. The ones left in music are the good ones for the most part. Whether it's a journalist or A&R man, they're in it because they love it."
Folds has 2014 blocked out for a solo orchestra tour but is committed to touring with the Five from now until the end of 2013. He'll play a few solo songs with the band.
"There's solo fans, the oldies for them are Rockin' the Suburbs. Then there's those who wouldn't touch my solo career with a ten-foot pole and they'll come back, hopefully."
Folds is on his fourth marriage, although he's aware many Australians freeze-framed him still living in Adelaide with now ex-wife Frally and his twins – who are now 13 (Folds shares custody of them with his ex).
"I'm not Madonna or Kanye West, I don't think my life is that interesting."
HEAR The Sound of the Life in the Mind (Sony) out tomorrow
SEE BEN FOLDS FIVE
VIC Harvest Festival. Werribee Park, Nov 10, 11. $163.20, Oztix.
NSW Harvest Festival, Parramatta Park, November 17. $163.20, Oztix
QLD Harvest Festival, Brisbane City Botanic Gardens, November 18. $163.20, Oztix
View full post on www.news.com.au/entertainment/music
Source:
http://tabloidbuzzer.com/2012/09/19/ben-folds-takes-five-once-again/