Interview: BEN FOLDS Talks Songwriting Career, Paper Airplanes & More!

Ben Folds is one of the most prolific songwriters out there right now. Having a career that spans almost 20 years, Ben was recently in Chicago at the Blizzard Theatre at Elgin Community College with his solo show "Ben Folds and a Piano," where Ben plays his hits on a solo piano. Having seen him in this atmosphere before, I knew this seemed like a lot of fun for him.

Throughout the concert, Folds played through some of his favorite songs from his discography for the first half. For the second half, it was all "Paper Airplane Requests," where the audience would step out into the lobby, write down their song request, fold it into a paper airplane and fly it onto the stage where Ben picked 10 to play. Overall, it was a fantastic show by a fantastic songwriter.

From 1995 to 2000, Folds was the frontman and pianist of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five. After the group temporarily disbanded, Folds performed as a solo artist and has toured all over the world. The group reunited in 2011. He has also collaborated with musicians such as William Shatner, Kesha, Regina Spektor and "Weird Al" Yankovic and undertaken experimental songwriting projects with authors such as Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman. In addition to contributing music to the soundtracks of the animated films Over the Hedge, and Hoodwinked!, Folds produced Amanda Palmer's first solo album and was a judge on the NBC a cappella singing contest The Sing-Off from 2009 to 2013.

BWW's Kevin Pollack recently sat down with Ben Folds to talk about his career, paper airplanes and more! You can check out that interview here!

Setlist:

Phone in a Pool

Annie Waits

Too Late

Ascent of Stan

Bastard

Not a Fan

Improv song

Bitch Went Nuts (Fake)

Effington

You Don't Know Me

Landed

Where's Summer B?

Fred Jones, Part 2

Gracie

Piano Concerto First Movement

Not the Same

Cologne

Rock This Bitch Improvisation

The Luckiest

New song with yMusic

Emaline

Underground

Kate

Zak and Sara

To post a comment, you must register and login.