Ben Kweller

Ben Kweller biography

Ben Kweller (born June 16, 1981, San Francisco, California) is an American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.

Biography

Early life

Ben Kweller was born in San Francisco, CA in 1981. In 1982, his family relocated to Emory, Texas, where his father, Howard Kweller, became the town's first doctor. In 1986, the Kwellers moved to a much larger city, Greenville, TX. Kweller was exposed to music at a very early age. Howard taught Ben how to play the drums when he was seven years old. For the next year, they would play together almost every night after Howard got home from work. Howard sang and played guitar while Ben played the drums. The duo played songs by The Beatles, The Hollies, Jimi Hendrix, and other artists of the 1960s. Howard is also a longtime friend of Nils Lofgren, a neighbor of his. Kweller has mentioned in interviews that meeting Lofgren greatly helped his exposure to music. When Kweller turned eight, someone showed him how to play "Heart and Soul" on the piano and the youngster immediately began to create his own songs using the same chords. By the time he was nine, he had a dozen original compositions under his belt and entered a songwriting contest sponsored by Billboard magazine, where he won an honorable mention.

Adult Years

Kweller married his girlfriend, Liz Smith (the subject of the song "Lizzy") and they have two sons, named Dorian Zev Kweller, born in May 2006, and Judah Evan Kweller, born April 3, 2010. At the time of Dorian's birth they lived in New York City, but they later moved back to Kweller's home state of Texas and currently reside in Austin. Ben's middle name, Lev, means "Heart" in Hebrew and his son's middle name, Zev, means "Wolf". Ben has said in interviews, "Together we're Heart of the Wolf..."

Radish (1993-1999)

In 1993, Kweller became friends with a local musician, drummer John Kent, and formed the band Radish with bassist Ryan Green. The trio played locally in and around Greenville and recorded two independent releases, Hello (1994) and Dizzy (1995), with Martin Baird at Verge Music Works recording studio in Dallas, Texas. Around the time of the release of Dizzy, Green left Radish to focus his attention on school. Lorin Hamilton stood in for Green for a few months until Bryan Bradford, also known as Bryan Blur, joined on for most of the band's career.

Kweller sent a copy of Dizzy to guitarist Nils Lofgren who grew up with Kweller's father in Maryland. Lofgren was impressed with Radish and recommended them to Roger Greenawalt who was producing Lofgren's album Damaged Goods at the time. Greenawalt took Radish to a studio to record a demo tape which was subsequently sent to record labels nationwide. After an unexpected bidding war for Dizzy, Radish signed to Mercury Records to release the full-length Restraining Bolt.

Radish made appearances on The Weird Al Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Late Show with David Letterman, but despite a much-hyped signing, the band failed to strike success. Radish earned a cult following in the United Kingdom with its top-40 hit "Little Pink Stars". The band went on multiple European tours, including opening slots for Faith No More and Main Stage at Reading Festival in 1997. Radish released two singles.

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