Ben Folds Five
alternative_rock
About
Ben Folds Five, a three-member band formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, were a mainstay of piano rock through the 1990s and early 2000s. Much of their work was influenced by jazz, evident in frequent improv-styled passages through bridge and/or ending.
The members of the band were Ben Folds, lead singer and pianist, who also wrote most of the songs, Robert Sledge on bass, and Darren Jessee on drums. The group released four studio albums and a live album, and last performed together in 2013.
Folds, who resides in New York and Australia, went on to launch a solo career in 2001. Sledge, who lives in North Carolina, gives music lessons and performs with local bands, and Jessee, who resides in New York, produces and records albums with his band Hotel Lights.
Folds once described their music as "punk rock for pussies" - a reaction to the angst prevalent in 90s rock. When asked about his band's name he jokingly responded "you mean a trio isn't five?" In other interviews, the band said that the name was simply because Ben Folds Five sounded better than Ben Folds Three.
As a solo artist, Folds has produced and recorded numerous solo and collaboration albums with artists from Sara Bareilles to William Shatner, composed and released a critically acclaimed piano concerto that debuted at #1 on the Billboard Classical and Classical Crossover charts, wrote a New York Times Best Selling memoir, and is currently curating and hosting his own podcast series.
