Benjamin Scott Folds was born on September 12,1966 and is an American singer-songwriter.
77 Facts About Ben Folds
2.
Ben Folds has recorded a number of solo albums and performed live as a solo artist.
3.
Ben Folds has collaborated with musicians such as William Shatner, Regina Spektor, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and yMusic, and undertaken experimental songwriting projects with authors such as Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman.
4.
Ben Folds was a judge on the NBC a cappella singing contest The Sing-Off from 2009 to 2013.
5.
In July 2019, Ben Folds published his first book, a memoir, titled A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons.
6.
Ben Folds attended the University of Miami's Frost School of Music on a full percussion scholarship, but dropped out after having failed 'the jury' and losing his scholarship.
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Ben Folds devoted a lot of time to working on piano technique.
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Ben Folds would acknowledge the impact of Darnell on his appreciation of music in his 2019 memoir A Dream About Lightning Bugs.
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Ben Folds eventually got a music publishing deal with Nashville music executive Scott Siman who saw Ben Folds open for musician Marc Silvey, as well as playing bass for Silvey's band Mass Confusion, and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue it in 1990.
10.
Ben Folds played drums for a short stint in Power Bill, headed by Jody Spence, Millard Powers, and Will Owsley.
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Ben Folds ended up playing drums in Nashville as a session musician:.
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Ben Folds moved to Montclair, New Jersey, and began to act in theater troupes in New York City.
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Ben Folds played weekly gigs at Sin-e, famous for being the cafe which had helped start Jeff Buckley's career.
14.
Early in their career, Ben Folds Five gained a strong following in the United Kingdom and Australia.
15.
Ben Folds played nearly all the instruments, most notably guitar, an instrument seldom used during the Ben Folds Five days.
16.
In late 2003, two solo EPs, Speed Graphic and Sunny 16, were self-released on Ben Folds' label Attacked by Plastic.
17.
On October 24,2006, Folds released Supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP, a compilation of songs that were originally released on the EPs Sunny 16, Speed Graphic, and Super D He announced on his MySpace blog that he planned to work on his next studio album in October 2006, although recording did not actually start until 2007.
18.
On that same day, Ben Folds became the first person to webcast a live-by-request concert over MySpace.
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The concert was complete with pranks staged ahead of time by Ben Folds, including a drunk man falling over the balcony during "Jesusland" and a "suicide attempt" by Ben Folds at the end.
20.
Ben Folds played the first track, "Hiroshima", at the show.
21.
Ben Folds played The 6th Annual Langerado on March 8,2008, and was a part of the lineup for the 2008 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.
22.
Ben Folds explained on Triple J radio a few weeks later that in one overnight session in Dublin he and the band had recorded 'fake' versions of songs from the new album.
23.
Ben Folds's sources had then leaked them to the public as a light-hearted joke on his fans.
24.
Ben Folds Five reunited to perform its first concert appearance in nearly 10 years on September 18,2008, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Memorial Hall.
25.
Ben Folds responded, releasing a more "traditional" mix of the album entitled Stems and Seeds, featuring various bonus tracks such as the entire "leaked" album and providing stems that allowed fans to create remixes.
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In March 2010, a video Ben Folds created titled "Ode To Merton" went viral on YouTube.
27.
On June 14,2010, Ben Folds released the official album art via his Twitter account.
28.
Ben Folds recorded a video song with Nick Hornby and Pomplamoose.
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In March 2014, Ben Folds premiered a commissioned piano concerto he composed with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.
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Ben Folds guest-starred on a second season episode of the Showtime drama series Billions in April 2017, playing his song "Landed".
31.
On May 11,2017, Ben Folds was appointed the first Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
32.
Ben Folds helps program NSO's Declassified series of concerts, which presents classical and contemporary music in modern, "reimagined" ways.
33.
The episodes featured a new plaintive piano-and-vocal version of the Ben Folds Five hit "Brick", as well as Folds' rendition of the Psychedelic Furs song "The Ghost in You".
34.
On February 15,2023, Ben Folds announced that his next album, titled What Matters Most, would be released on June 2,2023.
35.
In 1997, Ben Folds recorded an unreleased studio album titled Forever Valentine with Whiskeytown.
36.
In 2004, Ben Folds acted as producer, arranger, musician, and backup vocalist to William Shatner's album, Has Been.
37.
Ben Folds produced Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls' first solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, which was released September 16,2008.
38.
Ben Folds has often contributed both original and previously recorded songs to movies and television shows.
39.
Ben Folds wrote the soundtrack for the Netflix original film Handsome, released in May 2017.
40.
Ben Folds was accompanied by Britt "Snuzz" Uzzell on guitar and electronic keyboard, Millard Powers on bass and keys, and Jim Bogios on drums.
41.
Ben Folds again performed with Wainwright and Lee in the summer of 2005 as part of the "Odd Men Out" tour.
42.
Ben Folds performed with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in March 2005, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in November 2005, the Sydney Symphony at the Sydney Opera House, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Western Australian Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and the Queensland Orchestra during an Australian tour in 2006.
43.
Ben Folds performed with the North Carolina Symphony in March 2010, and the Utah Symphony Orchestra in July 2010.
44.
On May 9,2007, Ben Folds performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra.
45.
The orchestra's performance was marred when a fight broke out between two audience members in the balcony, though Ben Folds had not yet taken the stage.
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In March 2007, Ben Folds went on a headlining tour, which opened on March 24 at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts.
47.
On March 29,2008, Ben Folds played the Cage Center Arena at Berry College in Mount Berry, Georgia.
48.
On May 9,2008, Ben Folds played his first completely solo show in years at Western Connecticut State University due to the fact that his bassist Jared Reynolds was with his wife who had just given birth to their first son.
49.
Ben Folds made a brief solo tour of Australia during August 2009; at one of his sold out Sydney Opera House concerts he was joined onstage for several songs by Aimee Mann, who was touring Australia at the time.
50.
At the Palais theatre in Melbourne Missy Higgins joined him for "You Don't Know Me", a single from Way to Normal that Ben Folds originally sang with Regina Spektor.
51.
Ben Folds performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC for the 2012 Presidential Scholar in the Arts ceremony with several of YoungArts best alumni.
52.
From November 22 to 24,2013, Ben Folds took part in Performing Arts' American Voices festival hosted by Renee Fleming at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, which featured American jazz, country, Broadway, gospel, popular and classical music.
53.
On January 20,2014, Ben Folds performed at the El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles, in support of the David Lynch Foundation's celebration of Ringo Starr's "lifetime of peace and love".
54.
From July 2017 to early 2018, Ben Folds went on a tour titled "The Paper Airplane Tour", in which audience members were encouraged to throw paper airplanes with song requests onto the stage halfway through the concert.
55.
Ben Folds is an avid photographer and cites it as more than just his hobby.
56.
Ben Folds's work was featured by National Geographic during the 2010 Tennessee floods.
57.
Ben Folds made a brief guest appearance on a 1996 Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode, Surprise, on Cartoon Network.
58.
In 2001, Ben Folds was an inaugural member of the Independent Music Awards' judging panel to support independent artists.
59.
Ben Folds again returned for the show's second season in December 2010, the third season in September 2011 alongside Stockman and Sara Bareilles and a fourth season with Stockman and Jewel in December 2013.
60.
Ben Folds made a cameo appearance in the 2013 film We're the Millers playing himself as a piano teacher, although the scene did not make the theatrical cut.
61.
In 2022, Ben Folds appeared as himself on 3 episodes of the 2nd season of Prime Video's drama series The Wilds.
62.
Ben Folds described his role on the show as playing a "twisted, dream version" of himself.
63.
In July 2019, Ben Folds published his first book, a memoir, titled A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons.
64.
Ben Folds's telling of the story is included on the "Brick" track on the album.
65.
Ben Folds leased RCA Studio A in Nashville, Tennessee beginning in 2002 and was pivotal to the preservation of the historic building during its developer controversy in 2014.
66.
Ben Folds supported Bernie Sanders for president in the 2016 presidential election.
67.
Ben Folds owned a residence in Hudson, New York from 2016, until it was sold in December 2020.
68.
In March 2020, Ben Folds temporarily resided in Sydney, where he was touring when travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic prevented him from traveling home.
69.
Ben Folds has been married five times and divorced four times.
70.
Ben Folds met his first wife, Anna Goodman, in first grade at Moore Elementary School, Winston-Salem and was married to her from 1987 to 1992.
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Ben Folds has since described Goodman as his "oldest friend" and the person who originally inspired him to play music.
72.
Ben Folds was then briefly married to Kate Rosen in 1996.
73.
Ben Folds met Frally Hynes, an Australian, in January 1998 and they were married in May 1999 in Adelaide, South Australia, making their home there and later releasing a song about the city titled "Adelaide".
74.
Ben Folds married Fleur Stanbrook on November 17,2007, at The Venetian in Las Vegas.
75.
Ben Folds married Emma Sandall, a former Royal Ballet dancer, sometime before July 2020.
76.
Ben Folds was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2011.
77.
October 29,2015, Ben Folds was initiated as an honorary brother of the men's music fraternity Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia at the University of Miami.