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Ben’s Friends and Relations

Darren Jessee, Ryan Lerman projects

There’s fresh action from a couple of Ben’s former sidemen, original Ben Folds Five drummer Darren Jessee and guitarist Ryan Lerman, who toured and performed with Ben in the post-BFF days.

Darren has announced that he’ll be at one of the first venues where Ben Folds Five performed, the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, N.C., on November 19. He’s opening for  Rose City Band, actually solo country rocker Ripley Johnson from Portland, Oregon. Darren’s picked up a few outstanding North Carolina musicians, has promised new music coming soon and “announcements right around the corner.” Tickets are $15 and are now on sale.

Meanwhile, Ryan Lerman, active in solo performances and touring in recent months, has teamed up with Boston vocal trio Tiny Habits on a cover of Plain White T’s “Hey There, Delilah.” It’s a stripped-down, very sweetly-harmonized vocal underlaid by Ryan’s strumming along with Greg Liesz, also on guitar. The trio met while students at Boston’s esteemed Berklee College of Music and, during the pandemic, discovered each other’s vocal talents via Instagram and decided to get together. Of the trio, Ryan says “if you don’t know Tiny Habits go down the wormhole. Their unison has been shown to reverse the aging process. Their arrangements are so special.” Their TikTok videos garnered over a million views, and they’ve been picked up by the cover site Stories to do a four-song set with Ryan and Greg. Check out more of their work on their YouTube channel.

Back to the Cradle

Cat's Cradle

Courtesy Chapelboro.com

When Ben, Darren and Robert first assembled as a band in 1994, one of the first places they unloaded Ben’s Baldwin was at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, N.C., the little town just down the street from Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina (famous in song for Kate handing out the Baghavad Gita on Rosemary and Cameron Streets). The Cat’s Cradle hosted Ben Folds Five for the first time on February 10, 1995 as the fifth stop on a mostly Southern tour as the band was gaining popularity with each gig.

Now, Ben is returning to the Cradle on October 17 for a very special private one night only appearance in support of North Carolina Democrats. (more…)

Takeover Tuesdays: On politics

As we approach the consequential midterm elections in the US, Ben is turning his Facebook page over on Tuesdays to issues of politics. Every week he’s featuring a guest commentary to encourage fans (and everyone, really) to vote in our November 8 Congressional elections (and, in many states, local and statewide elections). Current commentaries come from his manager, Mike Kopp, a longtime political operative turned music manager, and Scott Goodstein, Mike’s blogging partner, who took the opposite course and transitioned from music to a career in politics. Both have tremendous insights into our political landscape and are worth paying attention to.

The bottom line in the effort is to excite everyone – especially young people – to pay attention to the candidates who want to serve as their representatives and to the issues on the ballot in their communities, and to register and vote in this fall’s election. The weekly commentaries are well worth the read, and will hopefully motivate you to get involved.

 

New band and song for Chad Chapin

The BrethrenIf you’ve attended a Ben Folds show in recent years, you may remember Tambo-Man, the mysterious figure who  appeared on stage to play the tambourine and occasionally the guitar. Tambo-Man is actually former tour manager Chad Chapin, a Grammy-nominated drummer in his own right, who got the role, as the story goes, when Folds had a dream that Chad was playing drums during a show. Chad comes from a musical family – he’s played the drums since childhood, and his brother Lonnie plays bass. They got their start playing in the band at their dad’s church and went on to back up Michael Tait in his Christian rock band TAIT, where Chad earned the reputation of “the Tommy Lee of Christian rock”.

The two brothers have now teamed up with another pair of brothers, (more…)

New Darren Jessee album now out

Darren Jessee, former drummer, songwriter and vocalist for Ben Folds Five, has another new work of his own. Available today, Remover is described as an album that “redefine[s] the significance of quiet moments with grand consequence.” Indeed, the leadoff single of the ten tracks, Never Gonna Get It, is a quiet ballad about separation and loss, laced with dreamy orchestrations and gentle melodies.

You may recall that Remover was a name for a band that Darren put together in 2003 but was changed to Hotel Lights because another band already had that name. The title stuck with Darren, though, and resurfaces as the title of this latest work.

Remover is available through the usual digital channels and on vinyl. For more info, visit darrenjessee.com.