Ben Kweller

Speaking from the back of his tour bus, parked in Dallas, TX, singer/songwriter Ben Kweller is tired, but cordial. “My goal is to tour around the world and spread this music to as many people as possible. I’ve never really felt excited to do that until this album.” That’s a curious admission from the always-smiling, endlessly agreeable Kweller, the boyish singer/songwriter who has spent the last five years tirelessly touring the world. Now 25 years old, he’s 10 years removed from being labeled the next Kurt Cobain by overeager journalists who badly wanted his teenage band, Radish, to push grunge music into the second half of the 1990s. But Kweller was never a particularly appropriate successor to Cobain’s angst and self-loathing. Too nostalgic, too good-natured, too tuneful, Kweller has evolved into a classicist in the Petty-McCartney-Springsteen mold, and the boy who was considered washed-up at the age of 18 is now making some exceptionally timeless music.

    “Originally I was going to play it with the whole band and do that thing that I’ve always done, and I was sitting with Gil at our second meeting in London,” he says, recalling the planning stages with esteemed record producer Gil Norton (The Pixies, Foo Fighters, Counting Crows) for his third full-length release. “And he said, ‘Man, I think you should play all the instruments because these songs are so personal and so autobiographical that if you put your finger on every track, it will be really intense and really special.’ So I gave it some thought, and I knew he was on to something when he told me about it,” he says thoughtfully. “But I didn’t want to bum out my buddies who were expecting to play on the album. I knew the record company would be a little scared, and there was a lot of stuff to consider. But at the end of the day, you can’t let that stuff get in the way of making art.”

    The result was the appropriately titled Ben Kweller, an album on which he plays every guitar chord, every epic piano trill and every drum fill. And while his intensely hands-on approach echoes that of Stevie Wonder and Prince, his songwriting belongs to the tradition of heart-on-sleeve American troubadours.     “I love all that stuff,” he says in response to the Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen comparisons that have been laid on his latest release. “Full Moon Fever [Petty’s classic 1989 release] is one of my favorites. I love how pristine and perfect the music is, but it’s still Tom Petty singing so it has all this character to it. It’s so much different than if you had the same backing tracks and had Celine Dion singing. It would be glossy bullshit. I love that juxtaposition, because my voice is a little quirky, too. Born to Run and that early Springsteen—that’s the sound of movement and energy and youth rebellion.”  

    That same sound pulses through Ben Kweller, from the rousing power-pop of “Run” to the heartfelt balladry of “Thirteen” and the careening “This Is War.” In short, it’s a coming of age album that couldn’t be more different from 2004’s somber and straightforward On My Way.

    “It is the complete opposite idea and approach,” he admits. “It was really creative, too, and I created a lot of parts on the fly. I wrote the song ‘Thirteen’ right there in the studio, so there was a lot of good creativity going on, and that might not have happened if I was in there with a group of guys sitting around waiting for me to write a song.

    “Plus, I’m really good at anticipating where the drummer or the guitar player is going to go when it’s me playing both of those instruments,” he laughs.

Today, he’s one day away from his set at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, a performance already legendary for a gushing nosebleed that spattered his guitar and piano as he gamely attempted to finish his set with a tampon crammed in his left nostril. Tomorrow, he won’t be able to finish his set, but he’ll earn the respect of all in attendance for continuing long after most would have retreated to the hospitality tent for a box of tissues. But now, an hour from his hometown and with his family driving to meet him, he’s in a reflective mood.

    “My older sister just had a baby boy, so I’m an uncle now, and I’ll get to meet him,” he says excitedly.



    “And I recently became a father, as well. I have a baby boy now! It’s all family in the Kweller camp,” he laughs, admitting that fatherhood will likely influence his future songwriting. “I’ve just always known that I wanted to be a dad. I always wanted to have a big family. I’m just excited that my dreams have come true, and I’m sure I’ll write songs about him now. I’ve already been writing some children’s songs.”  

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