Award winning American songwriter Ben Folds has spoken about his upcoming collaboration with Nick Hornby.
Ben Folds is one of the most respected songwriters of his generation. Through his work with Ben Folds Five, and on into his solo career, the writer has matched a prodigious work rate with an astonishingly high quality control.
A highlight of the piano player’s live set is his tendency to make up songs on the spot, following suggestions from the audience. Ben Folds has been using this skill recently to put lyrics written by Nick Hornby to music.
A best selling British author, Nick Hornby is also a bit of a music geek. Having written ‘High Fidelity’ the writer is set to turn his hand to lyrics, sending batches to Ben Folds via email.
The singer then whittles down his favourites, with eight songs having been written this way so far. Speaking to Australian radio station Triple J Ben Folds claimed that he is relishing the challenge of writing in this way.
“Everything he writes is important. And y’know a rock writer is used to going ‘yeah and c’mon and yeah and my Mom….’. You know there’s actually a method to that because as a cadence goes you have to have dynamics, you have to have ups and downs so if you have something that’s absolutely meaningless for a second then when the important part of the music comes then the important lyric can come.”
“It does make some kind of the sense, some of the best songs in the world have some silly hey hey heys all over them. Nick’s not going to sit there and write hey hey hey for me. It’s all important.”
“So my job then is somehow without wearing the listener out, I’ve got to find the natural breathing cadence of what he’s written. I think it’s a really neat process and I’m not sick of it at all yet.”
Ben Folds has also streamed one new track via the Triple J website. To listen to the track just click HERE!
Ben Folds / Nick Hornby are set to release their collaborative album next year.
