Ben Kweller Interview

Story by Alex Wunrow 

| Published Nov 23, 2010

Standing on the perimeter of the Maha music festival, we spot someone backstage who looks either like a girl, or Ben Kweller. Instead of frantically trying to wave him/her down, we made friends with a security guard, who after a little sweet-talking, decided to go grab Ben Kweller for us.

Our security guard friend came back to let us know that Ben would come talk to us after he finished saying hi to the Old 97’s.

Then all of the sudden he was there, taking time out of his day to throw a couple of kids a bone.

After guiding us to a more private area ‘behind a van,’ Ben opened up. Away from all the festivities, just him, two nervous ‘student-journalists’ and a tape recorder.



Dailyer: So, what got you to play Maha?

Kweller: Well, we got a call about it and it sounded amazing. A lot of my friends were playing it, and it just seemed like a good time. Omaha is one of my favorite towns, and i just think that they’re doing a really cool festival, it’s really special.

Dailyer: You’ve played Omaha before, right?

Kweller: Oh, yeah.

Dailyer: What do you think about playing in Omaha, versus other cities?

Kweller: Hanging out with the Mogus boys, my friends and if Connor’s in town. Just some of my friends are here, or are from here. And it’s just a good time, you know? And the Slowdown is a really cool venue. I used to play, is it the Ranch Bowl? Is that still around?

Dailyer: I don’t think so.

Kweller: It used to be a bowling alley? It was a venue. It’s where I used to play, but I guess it’s gone now. Gotta ‘fact check’ that for me (laughs). But if it did exist, and I know there was a bowling alley in Omaha, I think it was next to some awesome steak house.

Dailyer: You’re from Texas, so do you feel different performing in the Midwest, compared to playing one of the coasts?

Kweller: The crowds are bigger on the coasts, but that’s it. The energy can be similar everywhere, you know?

Dailyer: Have you ever been to Lincoln?

Kweller :Yeah, I played there. That was about six years ago.

Dailyer: Where’d you play?

Kweller: I played the University there, I think. Again, ‘fact check’ me. Because I don’t know for a fact, but I remember playing there and then walking to a cool little bar. Hung out with some locals.

Dailyer: What do you think of the Lincoln and Omaha music scene?

Kweller: I’m a little disconnected to it, I don’t know much about it. When I was really coming up, I was in New York, so I was really a part of the New York scene. Like the Strokes, Adam Green, the Moldy Peaches, and so that’s kind of where I come from.

But also, I’m from Texas so like, the Old 97’s, I grew up playing shows with them before I went to New York.

So I’m kind of like half-Texas, half-New York. So I’m a little out of it, I like Tilly and the Wall, I’ve done a lot of shows with them. But yeah, you’d probably be able to tell me a lot more about the scene here.

Dailyer: In the music scene, new forms of social media are being utilized, making new music readily available to anyone that wants it. Have you seen this transition, and what’s it been like?

Kweller: Oh, it’s completely a transition that I’ve been through. When I started in the late 90’s, it was like photo-copying flyers and stapling them to lamp-posts.

Definitely things have changed a lot, I still have mailing lists of 10,000 actual addresses, you know, snail mail. Because we used to actually send out mail. That was our thing, we had little BK fan-zines called amplified rebellion. And I kind of wanna bring that back.

But everything is online now, and I remember when MySpace came out, I remember when Napster came out, and that kind of started changing everything.

But for me, when I was coming up, during Napster, it was a good thing for me. Nobody knew who I was and if I was opening for Jeff Tweedy, Evan Dando or somebody, people would come up to me after the show and say ‘hey, we never heard of you before, but we downloaded some songs off Napster so we were able to sing along.’

So for me, that was cool, where Metallica was pissed off and trying to sue them. But for me it was nice, everything is just relative, it just depends on where you are in your career.

But I embrace technology in a lot of ways. When it comes to communication and keeping in touch with my fans. I’m building a new website right now, which is pretty killer, because I don’t like how everything is so compartmentalized, with Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, it’s so much to keep up with.

And I just think that for me, as an independent artist, I want to be truly independent, I don’t wanna rely on all these third parties. So this new Web site is going to be very much just for my fans to live on, and they’ll have profiles and it’s gonna be pretty fun.

Dailyer: Do you think that music is better off because of all the changes that have gone on the past 10 years?

Kweller: I think, with social media, I don’t know so much, but I would say that with technology and recording, I think that music is actually worse off. With digital recording and how anyone can make a record in their house, I mean in a lot of ways it’s liberating and really cool.

I made my first record in my apartment, it’s called ‘Freak out! it’s Ben Kweller,’ but at the same time, nothing replaces going into a real studio, and I still record on tape, I just love the art of recording and not looking at the music on a screen, just listening to it through speakers, and really making my records that way.

But as far as social media, I suppose it’s better off for bands that are unknown to get heard.

Kweller: Did you hear about how I got here today?

Dailyer: I was gonna ask you about that, actually.

Kweller: So I had a gig last night in Richmond, Va., opening for Old Crow Medicine Show, just a solo acoustic and my flight was out at 7 a.m., Richmond to Chicago to Omaha.

I was laying in bed when the phone rang, it was American Airlines at 2 a.m. saying that my flight was canceled.

So I get out of bed, open up my laptop and totally went into MacGyver mode, and started calling the American Airlines platinum desk and just trying to figure shit out. But there were no flights that would get me (to Omaha) out of Richmond.

So I ended up having to call a town car to drive my ass two hours to Norfolk, Va., and then took a flight to Dallas and then ended up on the same flight as Spoon and Superchunk, so we were all in the same plane over here. It was pretty funny.

But I made it, and the Old 97’s were so sweet to swap slots (at Maha) with me, because we just arrived as they were going on. So, I’m gonna go write a setlist and figure out what I’m gonna do.