Sha Sha Ben Kweller to open for Dando

The first time I heard Ben Kweller’s newest CD sampler Freak Out, It’s Ben Kweller, I did, in fact, freak out. All of the songs are so perfectly poppy, but I literally began to blush while listening to track three, “How It Should Be (Sha Sha).” The soft, innocent and childlike tone that this teenager emanated through my headphones made this 20-something gush at her desk. I immediately knew that I had to interview the 19-year-old singer/songwriter and former frontman of the Texas band Radish about his music and growing up in the business.Louise Thach: I heard that you already have a record deal for a solo album.
Ben Kweller: I’m with Island Def Jam Music Group. Basically, we, for the past year, sort of have been demoing and writing songs, just waiting to get a really good body of work together, and I finally feel like I’m definitely ready to go in and make a record, so that’s sort of where we’re at right now. We just made a list of different producers that we want to work with.

LT: Who are you looking at?
BK: Different people. The main guy that like I’m probably going out to LA in January to meet is Julian Raymond. He did the last two Fastball records, and he did a Hole record, and he did some other stuff that’s pretty cool. But I like the latest Fastball record, as far as a new, like modern record. I mean, I really like the production on it.

LT: So why haven’t you put a CD out yet? Was it because you weren’t ready to put out a record?
BK: Well, it was sort of both of us [Kweller and Island]. We were sort of in an agreement like, ‘Let’s just keep writing and get stuff together.’ I mean, it’s been a really long time, a long process, just because they’ve also been getting their stuff together, because they went through the whole merger with Seagram’s. And so, everyone that I used to work with over at Mercury got fired or left, and then they brought in a whole new team so I had to get to know everybody and reassess everything.

LT: How long have you been signed?
BK: Radish was signed to Mercury for like three years, and I’ve been signed to Island Def Jam Music Group ever since they became a label, so, for about a year.

LT: So what is this latest CD Freak Out, It’s Ben Kweller?
BK: It’s a sampler I put together that I’m giving around to different people. I’m just trying to get my music out there. I moved to New York to make things happen, and all of a sudden I meet Juliana Hatfield, and I give her a CD and she calls me the next day and she was like ‘You’re my new favorite band. Let’s hang out.’ So that was really cool. So we started talking, and she took me out on the road and gave a CD to Evan Dando and then he calls me up and he’s like, ‘I live in Manhattan, come over. Let’s go tour.’ So we started touring last month. We just hop in my Volvo with two acoustic guitars. So, that kind of stuff, to me, is what it’s all about, like playing music as much as possible. I’m not one of the artists that sit around and try to write a hit song, and I think that’s what a lot of majors want these days.

LT: But your stuff is so catchy.
BK: I think so too. I think that’s true and so do all my fans and a lot of people that are on my side. Hopefully, people in the business will realize it soon, and they are because just being in New York, it’s on such a different scale from being in Dallas. I don’t know, I just feel like I’m meeting more powerful people that are digging what I’m doing, and maybe that will take me to a different place in my career.

LT: So where are you in your career right now?
BK: I’m just at a different place, because comparing it to Dallas, I was playing every club in Dallas and selling them out and the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Observer would write about me, and I sort of felt like I couldn’t go much farther. It’s sort of one of those scenes where it’s an amazing music scene and all the bands are friends and it’s really cool and homey, but most bands don’t even get out of Texas, you know. So I just felt like in New York, if you do something cool, then Rolling Stone will pick it up or something that goes all around the world.

LT: You’ve been getting around to a lot of local music venues.
BK: Yeah, I just got a new manager, which I’m really psyched about. This guy Dalton Sim, he manages Guster, and they’re really good friends of mine and they have just built such a great organization for themselves, so it’s like I totally connect with what they’re doing. And Dalton really loves my music, and he’s been helping me out a lot ever since I moved to New York. And finally, the other day, I was like ‘I want you to be my manger, and he was like ‘Well, then I’m your manager.’ It was nice. I just jumped up and down for a few minutes, ’cause I was so psyched.

LT: Do you like playing at smaller places like Maxwell’s?
BK: I do. I love playing small places, big places; I just like playing. Living room shows are like my favorite. Just like when I have a dinner party and invite friends over and we have little talent contests. We just have fun. But I’m so psyched about this Maxwell’s show, because it’ll be my first show at Maxwell’s.

LT: Did you ever hear about Maxwell’s in Texas?
BK: Yeah, oh yeah. It’s definitely a famous club, and I’ve seen a few shows there and it sounds awesome.

LT: I know you’ve been playing forever. How old were you when you first wrote a song?
BK: I started playing piano when I was five year old. I think I wrote my first song when I was probably about seven. And basically, what it was, was someone taught me how to play ‘Heart and Soul’ like every other American kid. I learned how to play ‘Heart and Soul’ on the piano, and I just used the same four chords from ‘Heart and Soul’ and changed them around. But it sounded completely different from ‘Heart and Soul,’ so no one knew it was ‘Heart and Soul.’ My head learns in total patterns, so all of a sudden if you just change two chords, you have ‘Let It Be’; it’s also ‘Heart and Soul,’ just backwards. So that’s what I did. I just made up my own melodies, and it was all with the white keys; I had no use for the black keys, because they didn’t make sense to me. And I remember my mom was getting the piano tuned one day by some professor form the local Texas University or something, and she was like ‘Ben, come play us a song.’ So I played them a song, and he was like, ‘That’s good, but you’re just playing all the white keys, and I was like ‘Holy s***, he noticed.’ So then I quickly learned about sharps and flats, but I was doing fine without them.

LT: How did you learn how to play guitar?
BK: My dad had a guitar, and he showed me a few chords, and I quickly sort of did the same thing with the guitar. I just learned one song, and that’s all you need to know, because there’s only 12 notes in music. Once you learn the 12 notes, you can just make up anything you want. It’s so much easier than people make it. I don’t know real theory and I can’t read music, but I just learn from hearing music and just visualizing it. It’s hard to explain I guess, but it’s all about patterns and just remembering different patterns. And you would be surprised about how many rock ‘n’ roll songs are like the total same. Like ‘Let it Be’ is a good example, because it’s the same as Green Day’s ‘When I Come Around.’ A lot of people don’t realize it, but it’s the same. Music in patterns, it’s like color by number by Ben Kweller.

LT: So you’ve been performing since you were 12?
BK: Yeah, I put together a trio, and we called it Radish.

LT: What inspired your songs at 12?
BK: Music is just so fun like for every age group, you know. You know how much fun it is to sing ‘Old McDonald’ when you’re six years old? Well, I was just getting that same feeling from The Beatles. When I heard, ‘She Loves You,’ I was like ‘Oh my God, this is so awesome and it makes me feel so good to sing it.’ And I just knew that I wanted to do that too, and it turned out that I was good at it. I learned it very quickly, and it’s been a main part of my life ever since.

LT: How did you manage to escape all the drugs and alcohol while touring at such an impressionable age?
BK: I don’t know. I think parenting is a big part of it; I have amazing parents, who have always been open about talking about everything from sex to drugs at an early age. I just came from two amazing people, and I just managed to stay grounded through it all.

LT: But were you exposed to it?
BK: Like partying? Oh, yeah. Like when I was touring at 15 like overseas, I definitely had fun, but I also felt like I’ve known where to draw the line. I always like to stay in control of myself. But, I’ve definitely partied and had my fun, but I haven’t ever abused it. Like you’re 16 years old, and you’re hanging out with Marilyn Manson in London, you know, and that’s awesome, but don’t get too f***ed up, because I want to live a nice long life.

LT: It seemed like age was a big factor when you were in Radish.
BK: Yeah, it was, too big of a factor. Now that I look back, I can say it wasn’t a big deal, but I know that it definitely bummed me out so hard. I remember when we had gotten signed to Mercury, and the record was going to be released, and they booked us on the Conan O’Brien show the night before the record was going to hit the stores. Silverchair had already been pretty popular, and I was dying to see the backlash to their whole deal, and I was like ‘F***, I don’t want to go. I’m not going to do Conan O’Brien; I’m like 15 years old.’ I just felt like I was able to see how people thought, and I knew I wasn’t going to be taken seriously by people who I wanted to be taken seriously by. I knew we weren’t like a teenybopper band, but that whole thing like Hanson hadn’t started. So we did Conan, and I’m glad that I did it to show my friends and my kids one day, and that’s cool to have for posterity, but I’m glad that Radish really didn’t blow up, because it could have definitely done more harm. But I’m so thankful that I had such an amazing experience early on, because now I’m only 19 still and that’s super young, and I have all this time ahead of me to develop the kind of career that I want. Visit Kweller’s very “Sha Sha” website at www.benkweller.com.