Ben Folds Says 'F#*k It' To Elton John Comparisons

NEW YORK (Ben Folds Five Fans Website) - He's heard it before, and he'll hear it again, but singer-songwriter-pianist Ben Folds doesn't care about the comparisons he gets to Elton John. In fact, he even covered one of the classic songwriter's songs on his new album, Ben Folds Live.

Of all the covers he could've done, why "Tiny Dancer"? "Well, part of me wants to say, 'Fuck it, who gives a shit? It's a great song,'" Folds explains: "He really had some encouraging, good stuff to say and do for me over the past year, so I thought, what the hell? I'll tip my hat to him and do it.

"I was actually going to do it at a gig that he was going to come out to, but the gig got cancelled," continues Folds. "It was this weird scene in Australia. I thought I'd learn 'Tiny Dancer' and dedicate it to him; he'd dedicated a song to me the night before. So I worked it up and played it, not at that many gigs, maybe six gigs. We just had a good performance of it, so we thought we'd put it on the record. Now the trick is keeping that from being the focus of the entire record."

Ben Folds Live - yes, very similar to his former group, Ben Folds Five, with the L in Live actually an upside down F for Five - debuted at No. 60 on The US Albums this week.
Folds is currently on tour, his next stop is Thursday (Oct. 17) in Geneseo, N.Y.