Ben Folds has been living in Sydney, Australia since the COVID-19 pandemic started sweeping the world. And it’s probably going to be there for a while; The number of cases in the United States has recently increased in states that attempted to reopen prematurely. However, Folds is not hopeless, at least not more so than the rest of us. Instead, he’s taking this time to work on a new album and escape the stress of the road.
Folds, until recently a resident of New York State, first came to Australia in March to play a series of shows with orchestras from across the country. Soon, however, his streak of dates was canceled and he found himself on the other side of the world indefinitely. Always tech-savvy (remember his stint on ChatRoulette?), Folds jumped into the live stream at full speed and even wrote a song about this damn year, “2020.” “It doesn’t seem like it was decades ago / in 2019 / when life was slow,” he sings on the track, which fell in late June. “We are halfway / 2020, are we having fun? / How many years will we try to get into one?”
The abandoned musician spoke to Rolling Stone about COVID-19, the policy of facial masks and new music.
Are you living in Australia now? Where are you staying?
I’ve been increasingly incredibly private and I love that. I mean, everyone knows I’m in Sydney, but that’s about as far as I can go. I showed the inside of my apartment on the little transmission I’ve been making. We found it super last minute, trying to figure out if we were going back to the United States. I feel a little guilty because I am not there suffering with others.
Tell me how it was the first time you realized that you were going to have to stay there.
Trying to look to the future and discover what is canceled in the world of a musician is still difficult. The extent to which music, arts, and entertainment have really been affected; I really haven’t seen it. I think the reason is probably because it is not a very attractive part of being a band, a musician or an artist to show how suddenly you are broken. There is some dignity involved; no musician wants to appear as a bankrupt musician.
I know of three or four musicians that you would not think that they would have financial problems and that they were fighting; they probably have to sell most of everything [they own]. … And in the United States, it is getting worse. I don’t think I thought about it for a second [that concerts would have resumed by now]But you still have to be on conference calls with people waiting to start their business. But I think most musicians should probably go ahead and bet they have no income for a year. There is nothing in the numbers that says otherwise. And how does the musician feel about it? Well, it’s pretty scary, because you can’t promote an album without going through it.
How do you personally handle all of this?
I’m pretty flexible. I started moving my own piano, which I was in debt to, and the collection agencies chased me. Even when we were famous and we made records, I kept doing that shit. I still am. As if he were a construction worker. I always wanted to wake up and think that it could be my own team. This is how i tried [making music during lockdown]. I am doing my own tech work when I am doing broadcasts. Some broadcasts I do because I think people need music. Others for which they pay me bits. I have about 80 things open on my screen at any given time.
I’m going well. Part of me enjoys it because I love things and abundance, but I’ve never been mentally comfortable with it. Now I sleep at night, which is good. …
Why do you have less to worry about? Do you have control over your concerns?
I have many little concerns now. I worked in all kinds of jobs before I turned 27; We did it in the music business very late. I was waiting tables, delivering wine, lawn maintenance, all kinds of things. Running a musician’s business, you don’t sleep. I have not slept since I am a professional musician. People can level out all that Republican nonsense about elite musicians and if I say something I have an opinion about, they tell me to shut up, shut up and sing. Because I don’t know what people’s problems are like because I’m “elite”.
Well, now I’m living hand in hand, counting the change to go to the grocery store, have something delivered. I’m happy as shit right now because I don’t have as much pressure. With that said, I also know that my future is probably brighter than it was when I was doing lawn maintenance and that maybe for years to come, that accumulates. Everything is perspective, you know? I feel really good about living honestly.
Is there a way for you to leave or are you stuck?
I think there might be a way to go, but now it is very uncertain in the United States, with borders and rules going in and out. I have to play here for some orchestra makeup shows in January, and it’s not clear to me that it would be easy for me to go back [if I left].
There is no community broadcast here at this time. So there is no way they are going to say, “Yes, go back to the United States and come back and play your shows, bring a team or whoever you bring.” He would have to do two weeks of mandatory supervised quarantine in a hotel. I mean, I could do it, but I have nothing to do in the United States except try to dodge a terrible virus and feel sorry for everyone.
Yes, there are so few cases there. I am in New Jersey and I think there were around 400 new cases today.
But they realize that 30 cases can turn into 400 really fast. So they actually have something called a “plan,” you know, and nobody here sees wearing a mask as a political statement. Everyone here thinks it’s crazy there. For example, why wearing a mask, to protect everyone, should be a political statement? They are really enforcing things here and I am really happy. I mean, it’s a headache, but I’m glad.
I know you just released a song, “2020”. So it seems you feel creative.
I feel like I have time to be creative, you know? And now I’m giving myself that time when I would have been on tour. That is an old problem for musicians. I mean, that’s why Rachmaninoff was depressed when he moved to the United States, because it was a commodity. He was on tour the whole time and didn’t compose for four years and thought he was going to commit suicide.
So right now, there is something really good about being locked up, even if for terrible reasons. I always feel creative, but I feel like I have time to be creative. This morning Sarah Silverman posted a fun Instagram of her and her friend playing one of those terrible shooting games. And it’s like singing these Broadway improvisations: “I killed her! I killed her! “So, just a few minutes ago, I threw down a piano and sent it to him. And that’s the kind of thing I find myself having time to do. But most of all, I’m thinking of songs in terms of an album.
Is the registry informed for 2020?
Well, what happens with 2020 is that the news cycle is so fast that it’s stifling for a musician: it moves faster than you can physically launch a song. The song “2020” can be as old as the hills in a week, and it’s still fucking 2020. People used to say, “That song is so 2010 or 2008.” Now it’s like, “That song is two o’clock.” Then something else happens at six and we have new coronavirus numbers. Now there is a civil war and China is preparing to bomb. It’s so fast
In the sixties, there are all these songs with social changes in the background. Even just a love song, you can hear the era because they lived in it. But when you jump through so many vibrations during the day that if you try to write about it, it’s old news: I actually think that shuts down an artist because before you can express yourself, everyone has changed. I’m not sure people are made for that. You’d almost have to have free jazz 24 hours a day to interpretively dance the shit that’s happening.
Meanwhile, the other things I’m writing have what’s going on in the background, I’m sure, but they’re not particularly or specifically now.
