Chapter 1

The Ascent of Ben

Ben Folds had a knack for music from an early age. While he capably played bass and drums in a few bands through childhood, his talent was most pronounced on the piano. So he stuck with it, even though it might not have been the coolest hobby.

While I was getting the basketball crammed down my throat, I'd just remember, 'Well, I can play piano' Ben Folds

"I moved once a year as a kid, so I didn't really get a chance to find out what the kids in the neighbourhood thought of it," he told Robbie Buck in 2006.

In the absence of talent in other extracurricular activities, his brilliance on the piano became a source of pride.

"It was something I was really good at," he said. "I was good at it quickly. I wasn't as good at basketball. While I was getting the ball crammed down my throat, I'd just remember, 'Well, I can play piano'."

After studying percussion at the University of Miami in the early-1990s, Folds spent some time living in New Jersey. From there he'd trek to Manhattan to act in theatre troupes and play weekly solo shows at Sin-e, the venue where Jeff Buckley was cutting his teeth as a performer.

Folds moved back to his birthplace of North Carolina in 1994, where he formed Ben Folds Five with bassist Robert Sledge and drummer Darren Jessee. They released their self-titled debut album in 1995, a raucous record led by the infectious 'Underground'.

After its release they hit the road and won over audiences across the United States with their energetic live show. Even in those early years, Folds insisted on touring with a proper piano, a common thread throughout his career.

"I've only played one show where I've played a fake piano," he told Buck. "A digital ironing board piano. The rest of the time it's been real pianos.

"But it's a real commitment. When we started I moved the piano by myself with a friend of mine who acted as our tour manager – basically a piano moving bitch."

Speaking with Richard Kingsmill in 1999, Folds admitted the band needed to make a certain amount of money just to break even, given the heft of his instrument of choice.

"We can't stiff too badly because of the cost of carrying a grand piano. That's just the logistics that no one has to know about. But we have to sell some records. Because it's expensive to carry a grand piano."

Chapter 2

Whatever and Ever Amen

"When you put out an album you have to simultaneously brace yourself for the end of your career and for huge success," Ben Folds told Richard Kingsmill in 1999. "I didn't know what the album was going to do; if it stiffed then I was ready for that. But it probably did a little better than I imagined it doing."

Those comments sound incredibly modest two years on from the second Ben Folds Five album, Whatever and Ever Amen. The record quickly went platinum in Australia, Japan and the United States and took the band to a whole new level of popularity. But Folds says there was a fair share of backlash from the band's early fans.

"There was a lot of negative reaction from the initial fanbase for that album in general," he told Zan Rowe and Lindsay McDougall in 2013. "Not everyone hated it, but the experience with every record you make after your first one is that people will react that it's not like the one you just made."

The album boasted big sing-along favourites like 'One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces', 'Steven's Last Night in Town' and 'Battle of Who Could Care Less'.

But the two songs that connected with audiences most, 'Brick' and 'Song for the Dumped', were practically anthems.

'Song for the Dumped'

"Those were [Darren's] lyrics," Folds told Kingsmill in 1999. "He sketched it out in my notebook one day.

"He just wrote this 'so you want to have some space? Fuck you too. Give me my money back you bitch'. I was like 'ha ha' and then about a year later I'm like 'wait a minute – this is a good song!' and I wrote some music for it."

'Brick'

"I feel pretty good about that one," Folds said. "I feel like it was pretty responsible. It was a true story. It was something at the time I wasn't as comfortable with talking about. But hell, probably a couple of million people have heard it now.

"In high school me and my girlfriend had to have an abortion – well, she had to have an abortion, but I had to go through it with her – that's what the song was about. When I wrote the song – Darren helped me write it – I was really conscious of not being sensational with it and not taking it to the point where it was an issue song or trying to push the buttons too hard.

"I was just trying to say 'here's how I felt about it. Here's what it feels like'. If the song is sad to you, you can multiply that times 100 and that's what it's really like.

"I didn't feel, after leaving the song to do its own thing, I didn't feel that I had exploited it. I'll tell people anything about myself so long as I feel like I'm being responsible about it."

He later told Zan and Lindsay that the song was a huge departure for the band at the time and that it wasn't exactly lauded initially.

"I remember when we recorded the song," he recalled. "People from the neighbourhood knew we were making the album in my house. They were listening at the door and I came out to a conversation which was like 'that's not really gonna be on your album is it? You guys have sold out. It sounds so slow.'

"We'd been touring around the country for a few years just playing fast, loud music and we felt the need to tell some stories and slow it down a bit. And I think it holds up."

The piano driven Ben Folds Five were a fresh force in rock music in the late-'90s. But Folds was a little bit cynical about just how fresh anything in rock music was at that time.

"I think we're a bit self-conscious of being in the position where everything's been done," he said. "Rock'n'roll is not new anymore. So, what are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna do something that's never been done or are you going to celebrate something that's already been done?

"There's nothing socially significant at the moment going on in music other than in R&B and rap music. The rest of us are just singing about how we haven't grown up and gotten jobs yet.

"I can understand that. I'm in a band that has proclaimed that we will have no guitars. The way that we are different from the other bands before us is we have no guitar.

"To admit, three albums in, that maybe people 50 years ago had the right idea is kind of tough in a way, but I like it, because I'm learning a lot. There's so much emphasis on being innovative. Jimi Hendrix wasn't thinking about being innovative, he just had soul.

Chapter 3

Away When You Were Here...

Australia took to Ben Folds Five quickly. Their first single 'Underground' appeared at number three in the 1996 Hottest 100. Their early tours saw them play massive venues to huge crowds. And Ben Folds reciprocated that love straight away.

"I shit you not; this is a really cool country and if you didn't live here you'd probably think it was even cooler," he told Robbie Buck in 1998.

Folds was so taken by Australia on Ben Folds Five's first tour that he came back to holiday.

"I just really like it here," he said. "We toured here once and it just looked like a really good place to get your head together. We've been really, really, really busy and as soon as I got some time off I did what I said I would do, I bought the big ticket, I came here and I started driving around.

I like Summer Rolls and Cherry Ripes, we don't have those in America. Ben Folds

"I started in Cairns and then I went down Queensland to Brisbane. I stopped in all these places in between.

"I was in Rockhampton, I stayed in a hotel I saw off the highway and it happened to be that You Am I were playing down the street, which was really cool because we toured with those guys in the US. It was a total coincidence.

"Then I flew to Adelaide and hung out in Adelaide for a while, went to the Barossa Valley, and then flew to Perth. I feel like I'm retired or something. I left the piano at home. I'm going back to Adelaide and then I'm going to drive to Melbourne."

It wasn't all fun and games though. On their first tour, Folds copped backlash from The Midday Show bandleader Geoff Harvey after getting a little aggressive on Harvey's piano.

All of a sudden, it became a hassle for Ben Folds Five to hire a piano again.

"When we're in a place like this with my reputation now preceding me, I have to put up a pretty big bond to rent a piano, because they won't rent them to someone who slams a stool on it," Folds told Kingsmill in 1999.

"We got dropped off our Steinway endorsement the day after that show. It's a pain in the arse because then we had to do the rest of the tour coughing up $5,000 to $10,000 to play a show.

"Pianos are tough. Age wrecks them, humidity, moving them sometimes might. But not by playing them hard or throwing stools at them.

"That whole Geoff Harvey thing was a total mistake on the side of people handling the business on both sides. It's well known that I might do something to a piano, so when we go in it's all arranged. It's a rental piano. The rental people realise we might break a key or two, but we'll fix it. But that was Geoff's piano and no one said anything. So he was pretty pissed off.

One part of the story that rarely gets mentioned is that Folds ensure the hatchet was quickly buried.

"I think he's a little bit of a hothead but that's okay. He's really cool though, I like the guy. I had a beer with him last time I was here. We made up."

Folds ended up marrying an Australian woman, Frally Hynes, moving to Adelaide and having two kids. The marriage ended in 2006 and Folds moved back to the States. But not before learning plenty about the most important aspects of Australian culture.

"I like Summer Rolls and Cherry Ripes, we don't have those in America," Folds told Robbie Buck in 2006. "If someone says 'Oh bugger, bloody Eagles stuffed me footy tips' I like knowing what that means, when other Americans don't know what they're talking about.

"'Frank, what he means is, 'Oh gosh darn, the football team messed up their football bets'.'"

He's always had a way with words.