Benjamin Scott Folds (born September 12, 1966) is an American singer-songwriter. After playing in several small independent bands from the late 1980s through the early '90s, Folds came to prominence as the frontman and pianist of the alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five from 1993 to 2000, and again during their reunion from 2011 to 2013. Folds has recorded a number of solo albums, most recently Ben Folds Live with the National Symphony Orchestra (2025). He has also collaborated with musicians such as Regina Spektor, "Weird Al" Yankovic and yMusic, and undertaken experimental songwriting projects with actor William Shatner and authors such as Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman. Folds was the artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. from 2017 until 2025.
Folds has frequently performed arrangements of his music with uncommon instrumentation for rock and pop music, including symphony orchestras and a cappella groups. In addition to contributing music to the soundtracks of the animated films Hoodwinked! and Over the Hedge, Folds has produced several albums, including Amanda Palmer's debut solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer (2008).
Folds was also a judge on the NBC a cappella singing contest The Sing-Off from 2009 to 2013. In July 2019 he published his first book, a memoir titled A Dream About Lightning Bugs.
Early life and education Folds was born in 1966 to Dean and Scotty Folds (née Kellam; born 1945) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His paternal grandmother was from West Virginia. He became interested in piano at age nine. His father, a carpenter, brought one home through a barter trade with a customer who was unable to pay.According to Ben Folds on his iTunes Originals interview titled "My Inner White Man Came Out in Full Bloom" During this time, Folds listened to songs by Elton John and Billy Joel on AM radio, and learned them by ear."Ben Folds And Nick Hornby On World Cafe". NPR Music. As a child, child psychologists told his mother he was considered to be “slow”, which he and his mother acknowledged as meaning he was creative.https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/floating-drums-and-lederhosen-ben-folds-musical-journey He stated he started listening to “7 hours of records” when he was 2 years old, including “Hold On, I'm Comin'” by Sam & Dave. During his years at Richard J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem, Folds played in several bands as the pianist, bassist, or drummer.
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 lost his scholarship. He devoted a lot of time to working on piano technique. "I spent maybe six months just running scales with a metronome like a freak", Folds said. "I suppose that did something."
After leaving Miami, he returned to North Carolina and enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for the fall semester of 1985. It was while studying at UNCG that he met his "accidental mentor", Robert Darnell. Folds would acknowledge the impact of Darnell on his appreciation of music in his 2019 memoir A Dream About Lightning Bugs.
Career Majosha and early career
In the late 1980s, Folds (as a bassist) formed the band Majosha with longtime friends Evan Olson, Millard Powers, and Eddie Walker. The group released several locally produced records. They played their first gig at Duke University's Battle of the Bands in 1988, and won. They played at bars and fraternity parties, and self-produced an EP called Party Night: Five Songs About Jesus (1988), which they sold locally. The EP has four songs, none of which are about Jesus. They recorded Shut Up and Listen to Majosha in 1989. It contains, among other tracks, the four songs from Party Night (remixed and/or re-recorded) and "Emaline" and "Video", which Folds would later record with Ben Folds Five. The song "Get That Bug" from Party Night was released as a dance mix in Japan.
After Majosha broke up, Folds played drums in a band called Pots and Pans with Evan Olson on bass and Britt "Snüzz" Uzzell on guitar and vocals, but the newly formed band lasted only about a month. Olson and Uzzell formed Bus Stop with Folds's younger brother, Chuck Folds, on bass, and Eddie Walker on drums.
Folds eventually got a music publishing deal with Nashville music executive Scott Siman who saw 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. He played drums for a short stint in Power Bill, headed by Jody Spence, Millard Powers, and Will Owsley. Power Bill were later renamed the Semantics. Folds did not take a creative role in the band. He attracted interest from major labels. He ended up playing drums in Nashville as a session musician:
In Nashville, I was running eight miles a day, hanging out with my friends, walking around eating chocolate-chip cookies and playing a lot of drums, which I enjoyed. Life was easy. I was never frustrated—even though I wasn't fulfilling my contract obligations. If you are failing in Nashville, at least your standard of living is nice. Nashville is a nice way to fail.
Folds moved to Montclair, New Jersey, and began to act in theater troupes in New York City. Around 1993, he was enjoying this to the point where he did not want to keep pursuing a musical career. He also played weekly gigs at Sin-é, famous for being the café which had helped start Jeff Buckley's career.
Ben Folds Five (1994–2000)
Folds moved back to North Carolina and formed Ben Folds Five in 1994, with bassist Robert Sledge and drummer Darren Jessee, in Chapel Hill. As Folds put it, "Jeff Buckley was being signed at that time by Columbia and I was talking to Steve, his A&R guy, and somehow we knew the same people or something." In 1995, Ben Folds Five released their self-titled debut album. The debut was followed by Whatever and Ever Amen in 1997, and the odds-and-ends compilation Naked Baby Photos was released in early 1998. Whatever and Ever Amen included many singles such as "Song for the Dumped", "Battle of Who Could Care Less", and the band's most successful song, "Brick". In 1999, the band released what was to be their final album for over a decade, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, which included the hit "Army".
Folds has described Ben Folds Five as "punk rock for sissies", and his lyrics often contain nuances of melancholy, self-conflict, and humorous sarcasm, often punctuated by profanity.
Early in their career, Ben Folds Five gained a strong following in the United Kingdom and Australia. As with many other "alternative" American acts, this was largely due to consistent support from national broadcasters in those countries: in Britain the BBC and in Australia the ABC's Triple J youth radio network and ABC-TV's music video show Rage. The group's first chart breakthrough came in the UK, when "Underground" made the lower reaches of the Top 40, peaking at no. 37. Britain was the band's strongest territory in terms of chart success, with five singles making the national Top 40 there—"Underground", "Battle of Who Could Care Less", "Kate", "Brick" and "Army"—although none managed to crack the UK Top 20. In Australia, "Underground" likewise broke the band locally and while it did not make the ARIA chart, it came in at no. 3 on the 1996 Triple J Hottest 100 poll (broadcast on January 26, 1997). The 1998 single "Brick" became the group's only major chart placing in Australia, reaching no. 13; it also came in at no. 53 in the ARIA Australian Top 100 for that year and earned a Gold Record award while its parent album Whatever and Ever Amen peaked at no. 9 and charted for 32 weeks. Following their tour in support for The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, the band decided to amicably break up, with each of the band members pursuing different projects.
Rockin' the Suburbs to Supersunnyspeedgraphic (2001–2007)
Folds's first solo album after the breakup of the band was Rockin' the Suburbs in 2001, released on the same day as the September 11 attacks. He played nearly all the instruments, most notably guitar, an instrument seldom used during the Ben Folds Five days. "The Luckiest" was written for the Amy Heckerling movie Loser, but the scene it was meant for was deleted. Millard Powers, Britt "Snüzz" Uzzell, and Jim Bogios joined Folds on the promotional tour of the album. "Weird Al" Yankovic directed and appeared in Folds's video for the album's namesake song, "Rockin' the Suburbs". Folds's friend and fellow musician John McCrea, lead singer of the band Cake, contributed vocals to "Fred Jones, Part 2".
A year later, Folds released Ben Folds Live, a collection of live solo recordings. In late 2003, two solo EPs, Speed Graphic and Sunny 16, were self-released on Folds's label Attacked by Plastic. The last EP, Super D, was released in mid-2004.
Songs for Silverman was released in the United States on April 26, 2005. The album returned to the trio format, featuring Jared Reynolds on bass and Lindsay Jamieson on drums. This album includes the track "Late", a tribute to the late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, and also features backup vocals from "Weird Al" Yankovic on "Time". Folds had played piano for Yankovic's song "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?" on his Poodle Hat album.
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. On that same day, Folds became the first person to webcast a live-by-request concert over MySpace. The concert was complete with pranks staged ahead of time by Folds, including a drunk man falling over the balcony during "Jesusland" and a "suicide attempt" by Folds at the end. The concert is also notable for featuring a "guitorchestra", a group of acoustic guitarists from Nashville who accompanied Folds on some songs, as well as an impromptu ringtone orchestra made up of audience members playing their cellphone's ringtones in unison. A DVD of the performance, "Live at MySpace," was released on February 20, 2007.
Way to Normal to Ben Folds Five reunion (2008–2013)
During a concert at the National Theatre in Richmond, Virginia, on April 11, 2008, Folds announced that he had completed his newest album, and played four tracks from it. He played the first track, "Hiroshima", at the show. He also debuted new music at an impromptu gig at the Exit/In on December 19, 2007, and at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival on January 25, 2008. Other new songs included "Errant Dog," "Effington," "Bitch Went Nuts," "Free Coffee," and "Kylie From Connecticut." 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.
On July 16, 2008, an anonymous user posted what they claimed was a "leak" of Folds's latest album on a fan site (eventually called Way to Normal (Fake)). The file contained nine tracks along with a PDF of supposed cover art, and was a mix of what appeared to be legitimate songs from Way to Normal, pastiches of dry humor and melodramatic pop interwoven with bright, energetic melodies. 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. His sources had then leaked them to the public as a light-hearted joke on his fans.Buell, Gromt. "Way to Normal Leak". BenFolds.org. July 16, 2008.