LESS IS MORESometimes I’m happiest when I’m by myself.
I never have liked crowds, unless I’m in front of them. Then it’s
OK, because there’s space between me and them, and they seem
almost like one person. It feels more intimate. But when I’m part
of it, I get creeped out. There’s something about a crowd that
seems scary; we turn into something else. I just saw this crazy
footage of American Nazis in New York City. It looks a little like
a Trump rally, but it’s from 1938 at Madison Square Garden – just
20,000 devoted followers of Nazism expressing their thing all at
once, saying everything at the same time. It’s weird.
...................EXPAND YOUR MINDI’m kind of a music slut. If I was at some kind
of event and they were playing German polka music from the 19th
century, I’d love that. That’d be my favourite music, because it’d be
what we were listening to then, and everyone would be dancing to
it, and I’d be like, “Yeah, I love polka music!” I think we use music
so much as identification, especially when we’re younger. We’re
like, “This is who I am, and if that music identifies someone else,
and that’s not who I am, I don’t like it.” But as I’ve gotten older,
I’ve become more and more open-minded in a way I wouldn’t have
expected – I thought you closed up more.TAKE THE REINSI like a book that makes me think so much that
I keep putting it down. You read two pages and then you go, “Oh,
shit.” You put the book down and part of you is wondering, “Why
is this so hard to finish when I really love it? It’s distracting me,
because it’s making my mind start to go, and I don’t want to go any
longer on the track they set up – now I want to set my own track
up and play.” These days, I prefer reading something scientific and
less fiction, because I deal in fiction as a songwriter; it’s sort of
like eating food that’s already been chewed. You just want to read
the facts and chew it yourself....................LET YOUR GUT GUIDE YOUBaz Luhrmann called me from the
middle of the desert while I was making an album. He wanted me
to write a completely happy song forRomeo + Juliet. I thought
about it, called the man back and said, “I don’t think I’m your guy,
because I feel like when I write a happy song, I don’t know if it’s all
happy, and when I write a sad song, I don’t know that it’s all sad.”
A lot of people see my music as a joke, or they see it as really, really
sad. So it’s hard to know what’s coming across. You make a thing
because you’re compelled, and you’re not completely the author
of it, because you’re always going to be collaborating with your
subconscious and things you don’t understand.
...................FIND SOME SWINEA couple of months ago, I was having
trouble sleeping. I kept waking up – I was dreaming about
having a pig. And I just kept dreaming I had this pig. So
finally, at five o’clock in the morning, I started googling pigs
and found the one I wanted to have. There’s a site called
squealsonwheels.us – that’s my favourite one. But I can’t
have one. I went on this TV show once and they had this ridiculous
pig race. We were holding onto them and trying to calm them down,
because they were scared to death. I really bonded with my pig.
I don’t know what he’s doing now; I don’t know how long they live.
But he was cool. I like pigs, yes.the art of happiness...
WITH BEN FOLDS.
Interview Mia TimpanoIllustrationCass Urquhartmusic talks