Ben Folds

From piano-bashing college-rock upstart to widely adored crooner, Ben Folds has scaled the mainstream on the strength of his gift for memorable melodies and lyrics that swing between raw sincerity and sharp, comic bite. A Greensboro, North Carolina native, he arrived on the broader music landscape in the mid-1990s fronting the piano-driven power trio Ben Folds Five. Both the 1997 release Whatever and Ever Amen, which contained the wistful alternative single “Brick,” and its 1999 successor, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, carried the band into the Top 50 across North America, the U.K., Australia, and Japan. When the group disbanded in 2000, Folds embarked on a series of well-received solo projects; Songs for Silverman (2005) and Way to Normal (2008) each climbed into the Billboard 200’s Top 20. The trio reconvened in 2012 for The Sound of the Life of the Mind, which reached the Top Ten and found Folds deftly blending the band’s earlier snarky, punk-edged energy with the more polished, ballad-oriented voice of his solo work.

Armed with formal conservatory training and proficiency on several instruments, Folds also pursued parallel paths, serving three seasons as a judge on the NBC a cappella contest The Sing-Off and composing a piano concerto for the Nashville Symphony. That concerto surfaced on the 2015 album So There, which topped the classical chart and paired new pop material with chamber arrangements by the ensemble yMusic. In 2017 the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center appointed him its inaugural artistic advisor, and two years later Ballantine Books issued his memoir, A Dream About Lightning Bugs. His 2023 solo outing What Matters Most returned him to intimate piano-pop terrain, mixing earnest and sardonic tones, while the following year brought his first holiday collection, Sleigher. Beyond his own catalog he has partnered with Sara Bareilles, Regina Spektor, William Shatner, Nick Hornby, and Neil Gaiman.

Folds entered the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music on a full percussion scholarship, yet a broken hand ended his eligibility for the required jury and he left the program. After discarding his drum kit in a campus lake, he returned to North Carolina. In the late 1980s he played bass with Majosha, then spent several years in Nashville primarily as a session drummer. Relocating to New York, he tried acting while playing solo shows and refining his piano and songwriting abilities. Back in North Carolina, he assembled Ben Folds Five in 1994 with bassist Robert Sledge and drummer Darren Jessee. In a decade dominated by distorted grunge, the guitar-free trio offered a buoyant alternative whose sound echoed Todd Rundgren, Jellyfish, early Joe Jackson, Billy Joel, and early Elton John, yet they delivered the ferocious live intensity of punk bands. Their 1995 self-titled debut on Caroline Records yielded the cult favorite “Underground.” Buzz generated by MTV’s 120 Minutes and relentless touring secured a move to Epic, which released their second album.

Whatever and Ever Amen became the band’s commercial breakthrough, propelled by “Brick,” whose somber tone and account of a teenage couple’s abortion—later acknowledged by Folds as autobiographical—stood apart from the group’s usual exuberance. The album earned platinum certification in the United States and comparable success in Australia and Japan. In 1998 Caroline issued the rarities set Naked Baby Photos, while Folds, under the alias Fear of Pop, released Volume 1, which included the melodramatic track “In Love” featuring William Shatner and which he performed on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. The 1999 album The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner displayed greater maturity and songwriting depth, reaching No. 35 on the Billboard 200—its first Top 40 placement—yet proved to be the band’s final release for more than a decade.

Folds launched his solo career proper with Rockin’ the Suburbs, which entered the Billboard 200 at No. 42 and reached No. 18 in Australia in late 2001. A 2003 concert recording, Ben Folds Live, preceded several EPs before he revisited the trio format on the reflective Songs for Silverman (2005), which peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and No. 9 on the ARIA chart. Its single “Landed” became his first original solo entry on the Hot 100, climbing to No. 77. The 2006 compilation Supersunnyspeedgraphic: The LP gathered covers, soundtrack cuts, and EP tracks. Produced by Dennis Herring, Way to Normal (2008) featured the duet “You Don’t Know Me” with Regina Spektor and attained a solo-career best of No. 11 on the Billboard 200; that year also saw a one-off Ben Folds Five reunion performance of their third album in full.

In 2009 Folds supplied material for University A Cappella!, a set of collegiate covers of his songs. He later joined NBC’s The Sing-Off as a judge for three seasons. The 2010 collaboration Lonely Avenue paired him with novelist Nick Hornby, while 2011 brought the career-spanning Retrospective: The Best Imitation of Myself 1995-2011. The reunited Ben Folds Five returned with The Sound of the Life of the Mind in September 2012, Folds’ highest-charting U.S. album at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and Top Three on the alternative chart; it also reached the Top 40 in the U.K. and Australia. A live album followed in 2013. So There (2015), recorded with yMusic, incorporated the “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra” performed with the Nashville Symphony and topped Billboard’s classical and classical-crossover lists. Subsequent live releases included In Concert 2015-2016 and Live in Perth with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.

The National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center named Folds its first artistic advisor in 2017. The following year Edsel issued the comprehensive box set Brick: The Songs of Ben Folds 1995–2012. His memoir appeared in July 2019. Folds began the podcast Lightning Bugs: Conversations with Ben Folds in 2021, contributed the title song to the 2022 Apple TV+ special It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown, and took a recurring role on Amazon Prime’s The Wilds after guest appearances on Community and You’re the Worst. What Matters Most, issued by New West in June 2023 and tracked in East Nashville with producer Joe Pisapia, featured Tall Heights, Dodie, Ruby Amanfu, and string arrangements by yMusic’s Rob Moose. October 2024 brought Sleigher, Folds’ inaugural holiday album on New West, comprising seven originals and three reinterpretations—including Burt Bacharach’s “The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle.” During that month’s Paper Airplanes Request Tour he captured a live recording with the NSO in Washington, D.C.