In chatting with Ben Kweller before his recent Irving Plaza show in New York City, Ben joked that he finds it flattering when people read into his lyrics and develop notions based on those perceptions. On his new release, Go Fly a Kite, the song Full Circle has garnered a lot of attention as it makes perfect sense in terms of the musical direction. Kweller’s prior release Changing Horses was a complete departure from his trademark pop sound in favor of a collection of country tunes, while Go Fly a Kite brings the music squarely back into his pop wheelhouse.
In actuality, the song Full Circle is meant to reflect Ben’s life decisions like moving back to Austin and bringing his distribution, merch and booking in-house under his new record label the Noise Factory, but the Full Circle analogy just kept popping up. Musically, the reversion back to more pop material served Kweller well: Go Fly a Kite demonstrates both accessibility and progress as he incorporates an impressive degree of sophistication within a pop framework. Over the course of the following chat, Ben hits on the new record, talks about the drive and excitement surrounding the labeland serves a critic-size helping of rock history.
Hidden Track: To start off, if you could just give a little background on the new record and when you wrote the songs?
Ben Kweller: I started writing the songs actually here in New York before I moved to Texas. I was about to record my last album Changing Horses, which is a collection of a bunch of country songs that I had been working on over the years. I remember I wrote Jealous Girl right before I went down to record the country record and I was like, “Oh cool, now I know what my next record is going to sound like.” And then I wrote Gossip and kind of explored some darker thoughts.
So, then we ended up moving to Austin after we finished the Changing Horses album, and I just kept writing and I was really happy with the collection. It has the diversity that I have on my other albums, but it also felt really focused at the same time. I think it’s one of the best representations of what I do kind of all in one ball – some folk, some piano ballads, and mostly rock n’ roll.
HT: It’s interesting you mentioned Jealous Girl, I was going to ask you about that, because it sounds a lot like Springsteen to me. I wondered if that was by design at all?
BK: I wasn’t going for a Springsteen thing, but God, we have home videos of me dancing around to Born In The USA. He was definitely one of my favorites as a kid.
HT: Another one, Full Circle, that’s interesting because you mentioned the country album and this new one is kind of bring it back around. Was that the idea there?
BK: You know, I was actually thinking more about my personal life than my artistic life, but a lot of it is one and the same, really. My songs are about the things I go through on a daily basis, the people I know, and the situations and circumstances that happen to all of us. Yeah, I wasn’t making a direct reference to “it’s me, coming back full circle on the electric guitar.” [laughs] It’s funny though, people pick up on those things, like how I named my second album I’m on My Way, and people were like, ‘Yup, he’s on his way.” [laughs] It’s actually really fun when people read into the stuff you write.
HT: So, obviously the new record label has been a big deal for you lately. Not to dig up any dirt on ATO, but I’d be curious to hear how that has been going?
BK: It’s cool. In all honesty, there is no dirt. They are an amazing company and a great label to be signed to. I was their first worldwide signing back in 2001, and we were together for 10 years. My deal was up halfway through and I re-signed for another five years, and it was awesome.
When my deal came up again, the company had changed a lot, and a lot of the people who were with me from the beginning had moved to other areas of the business. I was just ready to take that part of my life in-house.
A lot of the Full Circle in my life has been going back to Texas, and back to square one in a lot of ways, because there have been times in my career where I’ve had the big stereotypical rock n’ roll team – the manager, the booking agent, the publicist, the business manager, the lawyer, and everyone is getting a cut of everything and it becomes this big bloated deal. So, I kind of got rid of everything and went back to the bare essentials of who I am as an artist and what is important to my family.
In that strivance; is that a word, strivance?
HT: I don’t think so. It’s nice though! [laughs]
BK: In that strivance for independence [laughs], I decided I want to have my own label, which will become the office for everything I do. So, we have have our merchandise in-house, all the touring is run out of that, and so that is kind of the team now. I don’t have a manager, which is kind of interesting. So, the label is doing all the day-to-day stuff now.
HT: So, do you envision that having other artists eventually?
BK: I do, maybe not from a management perspective, because it’s a fucking full-time job managing an artist’s career, but as far as signing and releasing 7 inches, for sure. I just don’t want to be another label that starts up and signs a shit ton of bands and then goes out of business a year later though, which happens all the time. I’m definitely more in a longevity state of mind.
HT: So, you are a relatively recent father, correct?
BK: Yup, five years now and a recent father to my second. My first, Dorian, was actually born right here on 12th Street.
HT: Is he named after…
BK: The Picture of Dorian Gray?
HT: [laughs] I was thinking the guitar mode, actually.
BK: Oh, the mode! [laughs] Dude, I didn’t even think of that. He’s named after Liz’s mom, my mother-in-law, who I never got the chance to meet. Her name was Dorilla, so we wanted to to name the kid after her and we loved the name Dorian. So, then all of my musician friends are like, “Dude, the Dorian mode; that’s the shit, bro.” [laughs] So, that’s super cool. I always thought if we ever had a girl, we could name her Mixolydian… Mixy. [laughs]
HT: [laughs] So, how is it going, I’m sure that’s a major balancing act?
BK: Big time. Now especially. For five years, they have come everywhere with me, which has been awesome, but now Dorian has started kindergarten. So, this is the first time where they aren’t with me. It’s kind of a drag. I’m trying not to do more than two weeks at a time away. It’s definitely a balancing act and I’m trying to figure it out, because I still have that fire to perform. Last night, we just played Boston and it was just fucking amazing. The fans were incredible, singing the words back to me and yelling and freaking out. You know, I still have to play those songs and get them out of my system.
During the day though, I start to get down and miss home. So, I have to figure it out, man. I’m not big enough where I can have a tutor and bring everybody, that whole thing. I have a lot of friends that are way more successful than me, and are able to pull off a lot more, but as far as working within our means, we do a really good job and have a pretty cool setup. We have our own tour bus that is definitely my house away from home, but it’s interesting. It’s bizarre when you realize you make your living on the road.
So, I don’t know what the future holds, but maybe I’ll get more into the art of recording and making albums, and touring when I want to as opposed to when I have to, quote-unquote.
HT: On the new stuff, what songs are the most fun to play live?
BK: I love playing Gossip. That’s FUN to play on the piano. I also love playing Mean to Me, that’s really fun. We’ve been opening up with that, which is really cool. Jealous Girl is fun. All of them are fun really, because they are so fresh.
HT: So, my buddy Jeff who also writes for our site – who you have actually interviewed with before – mentioned that this record has been in the can for a while?
BK: Yeah, it was actually. I was on ATO when I started recording the album and then we knew the deal was expiring and it took me a while to make the decision that I didn’t want to re-sign, and wanted to move on with my own thing. So, it took a little bit of getting the guts to be like, “Ok, fuck it, I’m going for it.”
So yeah, the album was done. It wasn’t mixed and there were some vocals we still needed to cut, so once I decided on the label, I kind of put the record on hold for a bit and we set up the business. We had to figure out partnerships with distribution companies around the world, so we were flying around meeting people. It was really fun, because I’ve only really done artist deals. This was us going around negotiating a label deal, which was so interesting.
For me, I got a real kick out of it. For once, they weren’t signing me, they were signing a company that will be signing other bands. Like the woman who signed us at ADA, she signed Merge Records and she works with Sub Pop, Saddle Creek and the Noise Company. I’m like, “Well, fuck, that’s the real deal.” So, she really saw something in this company, because take Merge Records; that was started by Superchunk obviously, so she loves the artist-run idea, whereas other distributors think it sounds like a nightmare.
There are so many artists self-releasing their music, and you can get up on iTunes and Bandcamp or other services, which I’m sure are really great, but this is not that. This is definitely the real thing. Anyway, it was cool, and I like the idea that it’s something bigger than me. Like, I love the idea that Arcade Fire is way huger than Superchunk, but they are on Superchunk’s label. That’s fucking cool, man.
Ben Kweller – Gossip (Live at SXSW)
HT: I wanted to ask you a bit about your musical training. Were you mostly self-taught or did you go through anything more formal?
BK: My dad taught me drums when I was 7. Then someone taught me how to play Heart and Soul on piano. So, I saw the chord progression – the pattern of it over and over again. So, I said fuck the second chord, I’ll go to the third chord, then the second chord, then the fourth chord. So then I thought, “That sounds like Let It Be,” which it was. So, Let It Be is Heart and Soul inverted. So, next I said fuck the second and third chord, I’ll go to the fourth chord, then second and third, and that sounded like something I’d never heard of before. So, I wrote a song.
I learn in patterns, visually and how the sound hits me. So, they got me piano lessons and I went through five teachers, because I never wanted to practice and nobody could harness my creativity. I would come home and play piano all day, but I wasn’t playing what they wanted me to play.
I was a little different. Most kids don’t want to practice, but they want to go outside and play baseball. I didn’t want to practice, but I did want to play music. My fifth teacher was like, “Ok, we’re going to teach him, but he’ll do his own renditions.” So, I’d do my own version of Let It Snow at recitals, or something like that.
Then, my dad showed me an E chord on guitar when I was 10, which is the chord on the album cover and also the chord that opens up the album. So, that’s also kind of a Full Circle thing.
HT: One last thing, I always find to be an interesting element of your music is the tempos, cadences and times.
BK: Yeah, that’s always fun. I’m always trying to do something new and different, and it sounds like me usually, but that’s just me trying to quelch the ADD side of me, to try not to get bored while I’m writing – to fucking finish the song [laughs].
I like that though. I like odd time signatures in a pop landscape. It’s kind of cool. You know who did that a bunch was Soundgarden, on that one huge record they had with Black Hole Sun. All those hits, like My Wave, and… Damn, hey what were those other Soundgarden songs like My Wave? [Yells to the bassist warming up in the adjacent room].
Bassist: Fell on Black Days?
BK: Yeah, Fell on Black Days! That was some cool shit. That was some prog rock shit, but it was so accessible. It’s good when you don’t even notice that it’s technical.
That’s the thing with the Beach Boys, not with time signatures, but with chord progressions and melodies. Brian Wilson would modulate a song to the point where every chorus would be in a different key, but you don’t hear it off first listen. But then you sit down on the piano to try to play it, and you’re like, ”Whoa! That’s deceptive!”
Ben Kweller’s tour spans the west coast in April before skipping the pond for a mini UK run in May.
One Response
Great work Ryan!