Ben Folds applies the same principles to songcrafting across all mediums

"Charlie Brown is just an old man in a kids body and I relate to that."

Emmy-nominated singer songwriter, New York Times Best Selling author, film, television and theatre composer, and advocate and founder of music education not-for-profit, Ben Folds is a man of many masteries.

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Rising to prominence as the namesake, and lead singer and pianist of alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five in 1994, and steadily staying at the forefront with his solo offering, Folds catalogue across the two celebrated music projects is nothing short of spectacular.

Now his hits and deep cuts from the two, including ‘Brick’, ‘Army’, and ‘Philosophy’ from the Folds Five collection, and ‘Rockin’ the Suburbs’, ‘The Luckiest’, and ‘You Don’t Know Me’ within his solo selection are getting special treatment as he brings them to Australia in his most intimate incarnation yet; just Folds and the origin instrument – a piano.

“At this point I’ve rotated a variety of things and that’s one of them. I think last time I came through Australia might have been orchestras, the time before that was either the band or solo – I can’t remember now. But the thing is, solo piano touring is homebase. It’s about the songs and I feel like I need to do those at least once every few years because, I don’t want to say it keeps you honest, but I guess it does, it keeps me honest,” Folds laughs.

It brings Folds back to the origins of the songs and allows him to re-find the nuances of the tracks, playing around with different dynamics and also offering full flexibility in his setlist depending on what the mood allows for.

“I play with orchestras and they’ve got an incredible amount of music on their stands and it’s not like I can just pivot to another song. When I play solo one of the things that it offers is that every night is different. There’s freedom and fluidity in the setlist.” 

He continues, “Early on when I started playing solo piano, I was drawn to changing the dynamics. You hit a chorus that’s supposed to be the louder part – let’s get really soft and see what that makes me do next. The lyrics and the songs get a slightly different cast on them. I’ve considered doing tours where I brought out some fun with some other instruments and loopers and things because I could do that to be kind of fun, but at the end of the day it ends up being just about the songs and I’ve spent my life crafting them.”

Whilst the solo shows showcase the intimate inception of the tracks, Folds most recent collaboration with National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) saw him reimagine his tracks to their fullest capacity. Following an eight year stint as the first ever Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Folds stepped down when Donald Trump announced his takeover of the Center. On 25 and 26 October 2024, just days before the US presidential election, Folds recorded two sold out performances with the NSO, and released them as what he describes as a career collection.

“You could call it a greatest hits record if you wanted to. It’s just like stuff that works with the orchestra over time – both early and old stuff, new stuff and to be honest, I’m not hearing a huge difference in how the tracks come together for Ben Folds and Ben Folds Five. It’s all the same principles.”

It’s principles that he has applied to his colourful CV of collaborations. including Amanda Palmer, Regina Spektor and ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, undertaking an unlikely experimental project with William Shatner, and, most recently, tackling the beloved Charlie Brown and Snoopy series as a composer for the AppleTV+ Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical.

“If you listen to my recordings of them and you shuffle them in with other stuff I’ve written, I don’t see a huge difference – I’m not trying to make cases for I only do one thing, but it is the same thing. Normally you’re writing and there’s some sort of context, like it could be your writing about something or you’re writing about a feeling but you’re living in there in some context. So these were Charlie Brown songs, for Charlie Brown to sing in the musical. There’s three of them and it was quite clear where he was in his life the same way it would be quite clear of where I was in my life, and I would be carrying all that. So you are at the mercy of yourself in the universe of Charlie Brown. He’s in the script. I can understand that, I know who this guy is and you just express this thing. I don’t feel like it’s a different from writing for myself.

Fold puts it into one simple ethos taken from Hemingway – “All you have to do is write one true sentence”. 

“It’s that simple.”

You can see Ben Folds play Bendigo’s Ulumbarra Theatre on Friday 27 February. Buy tickets here.