Ben Folds Five

MOJO Rising: Ben Folds Five

Report and Interview by Marc Weingarten, MOJO, June 1996

THERE ARE ROUGHLY two kinds of pop musician: two-bit hacks who try to squeeze everything they can out of hokey harmonies and three threadbare chords ...

Ben Folds Five: Grease Is The Word

Report and Interview by Paul Moody, New Musical Express, 1 June 1996

LET'S SEE: Mike Flowers is the polyester-wigged new James Last of the cheesy-listening plague that's, erm, "sweeping the nation". So that must mean that Ben ...

Ben Folds Five: Splash Club, London

Live Review by Ian Watson, Melody Maker, 1 June 1996

IF IT makes you feel better, think of Ben Folds as a visiting alien. He's travelled to our planet in peace, hoping to exchange ideas ...

Ben Folds Five: The Men From U.N.C.O.O.L.

Interview by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 20 June 1996

BEN FOLDS FIVE are on a mission (impossible) to make Seventies radio pop so hip it hurts ...

Ben Folds Five

Interview by Bill Prince, Q, July 1996

North Carolina trio with bold no-guitar manifesto revive pummelling of ivories with marvy debut LP. ...

Interview with Ben Folds (December 1997)

Interview by Kit Aiken, extracted in Uncut (July 1999), 1997

KA: What's on this new compilation (Naked Baby Photos) on Caroline? ...

Ben Folds Five: Whatever and Ever Amen (Sony)

Review and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, March 1997

Piano/bass/drums trio whose 'Underground' was a summer Top 40 hit. This is their second album, their first for Sony. They are, wouldn’t you know, big ...

Ben Folds Five: It's Hip to be Square

Interview by Simon Price, Melody Maker, 8 March 1997

No guitars. Stevie Wonder cover versions. Three boys steeped in musicals. What are BEN FOLDS FIVE like? ...

Ben Folds Thrives

Profile and Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Details, April 1997

BILLY JOEL MEETS HOLE: ARMED WITH PUNK ATTITUDE AND A TASTE FOR SHOW TUNES, BEN FOLDS FIVE IS MAKING THE PIANO HIP AGAIN ...

Ben Folds Five: Irving Plaza, New York NY

Live Review by Ira Robbins, Rolling Stone, 12 June 1997

BEN FOLDS pounds out a far more traditional pop message than today's techno titans, but the North Carolina pianoman shares one of their key insights: ...

Ben Folds Five: The Wax Inspectors!

Report by Neil Mason, Melody Maker, 20 July 1997

Jeez, the things you find out when you take an American band — BEN FOLDS FIVE — to a London tourist attraction — Madame Tussaud's ...

New Geeks on the Block: Ben Folds Five at Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC

Live Review by Jeff Apter, nyrock.com, March 1998

SOMETIMES PERSEVERANCE really does pay off. Take, for example, the rags-to-not-quite-riches rise of Ben Folds, who, along with Robert Sledge and Darren Jessee, make up ...

Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorised Biogrpahy Of Reinhold Messner

Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, May 1999

Piano-led trio’s third album proper. ...

Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (550/Epic)

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 5 May 1999

THE NOTORIOUS thing about the "college rock" I grew up on, over a decade ago, the same time Ben Folds was gestating in the university ...

Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorized Biography Of Reinhold Messner (Epic)

Review by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, 8 May 1999

I.D. HIGH! ...

Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorized Biography Of Reinhold Messner

Review by Erik Himmelsbach, Spin, June 1999

NOW THAT they have your attention, Ben Folds Five want you to feel their pain. Although the Chapel Hill, North Carolina, drums-bass-piano combo rose through ...

Steinway to Heaven: The Ben Folds Five

Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, June 1999

On a three-man mission to revive the grand piano’s sex appeal ...

The Ben Folds Five: Steinway to Heaven

Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, June 1999

IT'S TEMPTING TO IMAGINE that in eschewing guitars and positioning the grand piano as the centrepiece sound of their three maverick alt-pop albums, the Ben ...

Ben Folds: Rockin' The Suburbs** (Epic)

Review by Kit Aiken, Uncut, October 2001

FOR ALL the kick-ass live excitement and increasingly refined recorded achievements of his piano-led power trio, it was inevitable that the most musically literate pop ...