Ben Kweller Talks Loss, Ed Sheeran and New Album With Zane Lowe
(DKC) Ben Kweller, formerly of Radish, joins Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 to open up about his upcoming solo album, 'Cover The Mirrors.' In the conversation, he reflects on how the loss of his son Dorian shaped the album's creative process, how Ed Sheeran supported him through grief, and how he plans to bring the record to life on stage.
The full interview aired live for free today, Wednesday, May 28 on Apple Music 1, and can be streamed anytime on demand with an Apple Music subscription here. Here are some excepts:
Ben Kweller tells Apple Music about how music helped him cope with the loss of his son and inspired his upcoming album, 'Cover The Mirrors'
Zane Lowe: Let the music guide us. So when Dorian passed away, where was music for you? When did music start showing up for you?
Ben Kweller: Well, we couldn't really even, so my wife Liz and I, love music obviously. I feel like we couldn't listen to music for a few weeks, just sitting in silence. Songs and melodies are always going through my head and I've noticed that ever since I was a little boy, it's the one constant in my life is music. So I think maybe a few weeks, maybe three or four weeks, a month after Dorian died, I started thinking about music more. The first thing I did was I went into his bedroom. Dorian was so transparent with us, I'm so grateful for that. I knew the password to his iPhone, could get logged into his computer. I mean, he was so open and I feel like it's like his soul knew that he wouldn't be here long and he had a lot to share.
And, so the first thing I did was go into his room, get on his MacBook and a lot of Apple references here, let's go and pulled up FL Studio, which is the DAW that he recorded in, which is so cool. It's such a hip-hop. He loved rap. I barely, I was watching YouTube tutorials, how to balance a track in FL because I'm a Pro Tools guy.
Zane Lowe: I tried to learn FL, my kids were on it. I tried to learn it at one point and I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing on this thing.
Ben Kweller: And apparently it's really easy.
Zane Lowe: I know too much.
Ben Kweller: That's the thing. Yeah, exactly. But he would make the sickest beats and he would write most of his songs in FL and then he started playing guitar. But basically what I'm saying is he has hundreds of song ideas and maybe 50 finished songs, so more than an album's worth. And he was an artist. In the year leading up to his death, he started releasing music under his middle name Zev, which means Wolf, great artist. Oh my God. So my reconnection with music was listening to him on his laptop and just trying to back up because he was like, most kids, most artists, they don't care about backing up your data. And I would talk to him about this. I'm like, dude, we should really plug in a hard drive at some point. You have all this stuff and you're just storing it on your main hard drive.
So yeah, that was kind of it. And then playing guitar and piano. So I live on a little ranch outside of Austin. It's about 30 acres west of Austin, in a town called Dripping Springs as we have our house and there's an old barn from the 1800s that we've converted into a really cool recording studio called Noiseco Studio. And so that's my commute to work as I walk across a field and go to the barn. And so I spent a lot of time there in the following weeks and months and the album started to appear.
Ben Kweller tells Apple Music the story about how he met Ed Sheeran and opened for him on tour
Zane Lowe: I know this has been written about, but I only bring it up because I know him pretty well, and I know what a real one he is and how success can change people's perception of individuals. And they think, "Oh, well Ed Sheeran, he sells a squillion records and plays nothing but stadiums. He's not really a human being anymore." But you and I both know that he's one of the sweetest, most genuine human beings on the planet. How did you meet Ed?
Ben Kweller: Yeah, Ed. Wow. It was funny. I was at home on a Thursday, and my booking agent called and said, "Hey, BK, are you in Austin tomorrow?" And I said, "Yeah, I am." He said, "Can you open for Ed Sheeran tomorrow?" And I'm like, "Yes, I can."
Zane Lowe: Where am I playing? It's the big building in town.
Ben Kweller: Yeah, the big one on Main Street.
Zane Lowe: Just head to the big building.
Ben Kweller: Just find the big one. This was 2015. Friday, I roll up to this arena. And because he was only playing arenas at that point, not quite stadiums. Which I never really knew the difference until you hang out with a crew like that and you're like, "Oh yeah, there's a big... Arena's this, stadium's like that." Because I'm used to clubs. Maybe theaters, a nice theatre. So I roll up to the venue, and first thing was, I noticed there was just one guitar on a stand and one microphone on stage. And I remember asking the crew, "So where's all the back-line? Where's the band?" And they were like, "No mate, he just plays by himself."
Zane Lowe: Do you even know who Ed is, mate?
Ben Kweller: Yeah. I'm like-
Zane Lowe: Have you even listened to his music?
Ben Kweller: Which I had, but basically-
Zane Lowe: Yeah. But still, you don't know.
Ben Kweller: Yeah. And so I was like, "Oh, right on." Because as a solo artist and a solo, I've performed solo acoustic many times, and I actually really love that. And there's a stigma sometimes like, "Oh, you got to put together a band at some point." Even SNL, I think you have to have a band. They don't allow solo acoustic performances, which is strange to me. They don't think it'll work for airtime, but whatever.
So I did this show on Friday night in 2015, and the reason was because the opening act was stuck in Australia, something with a passport. So I was filling in. So I play the show. Ed comes up to me after and is like, "Dude, that was amazing." Can you come tomorrow to Dallas? And I was like, "Yeah." And so then we do Dallas. And then he was like, "Hey, can you just do the whole tour? We just want you on this tour." And so I was like, "Totally." So that's how we met.
Ben Kweller tells Apple Music how Ed Sheeran supported him after the loss of his son
Ben Kweller: It's more than just we're musician friends. It's like a family thing with Ed and Cherry. And so when Dorian died, Ed called me up and was like, "Dude, I don't know if you would want to, but I'm just throwing it out there. Maybe it would be helpful." He's like, "I just lost my friend, Jamal. I'm going through some sh*t. I know you're going through some sh*t right now. But I have this tour coming up, and I'm doing stadiums on Saturdays and theaters on Fridays. And I was thinking it'd be really cool if we did the theatre shows together. Just you with your guitar, and me with my guitar." I was like, "Man, I would love to." I was scared, a little bit, because I hadn't-
Zane Lowe: Yeah. Did you say yes before you even felt you even knew what that answer was?
Ben Kweller: I think some of me was like, "Well, I'll talk to Liz." But it was a yes on the phone call.
Ben Kweller tells Apple Music about the moment he knew he was putting together an album, which would turn into 'Cover The Mirrors'
Zane Lowe: What was the song that you think made you realize that this was going to be something that you would share with other people and not just process for you?
Ben Kweller: The moment that I realized, Okay, this is an album and I'm putting it together. It's this song "Trapped", which is one of my favorites on the album. "Trapped" is a song that Dorian started writing a month before the car crash. And I remember hearing him in his bedroom singing this amazing chorus, and I walked in and I'm like, "Dude, this is awesome." Keep going. And we started working on it, and working on the verses. And we made some voice memos, and it was going to be a Zev track for sure.
But he never finished it, and so that was one of the first things I did. One of the first song writings after he died was... I just couldn't stop thinking about this song and I'm like, that amazing song no one's ever going to hear now. And so I finished it for him. That's an anchor song for me. I don't have the list of songs in front of me. It's so fresh and new.
Ben Kweller tells Apple Music about playing his new album live
Zane Lowe: Are you going to play as many of them as you can? How do you feel about sharing them now that you've written them?
Ben Kweller: The live show's always an interesting thing every time you put out a new album because you want to play all your new stuff, but then you have a catalogue of music that's also fun to play. And there's certain songs, there's probably five or six songs that I feel like I have to play.
Zane Lowe: A few more than that, but yeah, there we are.
Ben Kweller: Yeah. Well, you know.
Zane Lowe: There's that humility again.
Ben Kweller: We're doing a lot of the album, I'll put it that way. There's a few. There's a song, "Letter to Agony," which I haven't played live yet, and it's a good one. I like it. There's another one called "Breaks" that we are going to do.
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