Ben Folds talks about fame, songwriting

Ben Folds has devout fans and he is a critic’s darling. But it used to bother him that he wasn’t a pop superstar.

Only in the past two or three years has Folds, 46, become more comfortable with his place in the world.

“For years, my ego was always up in arms about things” – such as when a new pop icon was hailed as “the new great crafty songwriter,” Folds tells me.

“And it’s like: I wish they’d say that about me,” he adds with a self-deprecating laugh.

Folds – who performs Friday in Ben Folds Five at the Palms – is grateful for fans and acclaim.

“I’m not complaining,” he says. “I appreciate my position now, where I was more defensive about it five years ago.”

His position: Folds learned to play piano as a kid, and he spent decades perfecting the craft of writing classically structured pop songs.

“I was always shooting for a seamless performance of the songs,” he says.

But then he would see Americans get magnetized to other musicians who “weren’t that good,” and that “killed my ego,” he says.

“They hadn’t put the time in to learn to build a song. Building a song is not unlike building a house or crafting anything. It’s not something you just do one day.

“When you’re manipulating chords and melodies, it takes a lot of resilience to stay inside the song in an emotional way, while you spend time hammering the nails.”

Folds says he respects today’s pop artists.

“I’m just patting myself on the back for not being so bummed about it, the way I used to be. You know, it’s OK.”

So Folds digs on contemporary-style songwriters such as Kanye West.

“He’s amazing.”

But Folds knows contemporary pop writing isn’t for him. He is hunkered down in traditional pop music structure.

“There aren’t many of us crafting songs in more of a classic style. That’s a ghetto, honestly – writing in the old school,” he says.

At this part of our interview, I tell Folds he is reminding me of an interview I did a decade ago with the great Rufus Wainwright, because Wainwright declared he wanted to be a pop superstar (an unlikely expectation since Wainwright is too musically colossal for simple pop culture).

Folds says he knows what Wainwright meant.

“The truth is, anyone who’s doing what I’m doing, none of us feels like we’ve achieved what we want to achieve. We feel like we haven’t been respected,” Folds says.

“More songwriters and more singers should probably relax and be more open about those things, because then you say, ‘Don’t worry about it, anymore,’ and you move on.”

Folds enjoys talking about his humility journey.

“I go into interviews like it’s a therapy session, but I feel much better about that now. It’s a lot healthier to do,” he says and laughs.

“I have to admit that I can’t help that I constitutionally write class-form songs. And sad songs and waltzes aren’t in, anymore,” he says. “And that’s completely OK.”

(FYI: He is referring to an old Willie Nelson song that goes, “Sad songs and waltzes aren’t selling this year.” Cake does a sublime cover of it.)

Folds and Wainwright certainly aren’t alone in being genius songwriter-pianists. Consider Fiona Apple, Regina Spektor and others. Folds loves them all.

“The thing about Rufus – that’s a lifetime” of mastering music, Folds says. “He’s a craftsman.

“Regina – she has studied the (expletive) out of music, especially the expressionistic stuff.

“Fiona’s out of sight, man. Her piano playing to me is really inventive. That little girl is a life support system for crazy music.

“And Sufjan Stevens – I just feel about him the way I felt about Elliott Smith when he was around.

“Those talents will stand up in any era as being great composers. Those are my peers, and I just think those are the best.”

He and those songwriters, though, “didn’t get the memo” that said their music would not be more valued by pop culture, he says.

Folds says he has bought drum software 20 times in his life to be more contemporary, but he always returns to traditional songwriting.

“I find myself spinning at the piano and composing,” he says. “As I get older, I continue to work toward things like proper voice-leading between the bass and the middle voices.

“I just can’t help it.”

That’s fine with me. The new album “The Sound of the Life of the Mind” by his trio Ben Folds Five is outstanding.

Folds boasts they are playing better than ever on tour.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to see a band like this for another few years. It’s a show I would say is worth seeing, and I normally don’t say that.”

Ego or not, here comes Ben Folds.

Doug Elfman’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.