{"id":149730,"date":"2025-08-16T05:38:25","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T05:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/149730\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T05:38:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T05:38:25","slug":"ben-folds-on-his-snoopy-musical-unfunny-music-and-billy-joel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/149730\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Folds on His Snoopy Musical, Unfunny Music, and Billy Joel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBen Folds<\/a> is \u201cRockin\u2019 the Suburbs\u201d for your kids these days as Charlie Brown\u2019s main songwriter (all due respect here to composer Jeff Morrow). <\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday, Aug. 15, Apple TV+ released the first new Peanuts musical in 35 years<\/a>, Snoopy<\/a> Presents: A Summer Musical. This time around, the gang has to save their beloved summer camp from being closed \u2014 bring in the guy who wrote that abortion song. (Kidding, of course: both \u201cBrick\u201d and Folds\u2019 Peanuts work are terrific in their own right.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year marks the 75th anniversary of Peanuts. Apple TV+ became the home of Peanuts in 2019 (the\u00a0deal was first\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0in 2018).<\/p>\n

\n\tProduced for Apple TV+ by Peanuts and WildBrain,\u00a0Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical\u00a0is directed by Erik Wiese and is written by Craig Schulz, Bryan Schulz and Cornelius Uliano. Executive producers are the Schulzes, Uliano, Paige Braddock, Josh Scherba, Stephanie Betts and Logan McPherson.<\/p>\n

\n\tRead The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s wide-ranging (from Charlie Brown to Bill Burr to Billy Joel) Q&A with Folds below; we previously published an excerpt from the same Zoom interview in which the former Ben Folds Five frontman discusses his exit earlier this year<\/a> as artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra, a program overseen by the Kennedy Center.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tClassic rock-and-roller move here \u2014 I\u2019m trying to understand how you got involved with Snoopy and the gang<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou and I wonder the same thing. I don\u2019t really know. I did another TV special with them, I guess two years ago and got an Emmy nomination for [\u201cIt\u2019s the Small Things, Charlie Brown\u201d], and everything. We all worked together really well. And I don\u2019t know, I feel like I understand that world Charlie Brown\u2019s mentality is very familiar to me. It feels comfortable, you know? But, the Schulz\u2019s are great, and I think we might have done some stuff with them years ago for other projects.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey\u2019ve got Schroeder.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t[Laughs] Yeah.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ll probably get nomination(s) off the new musical, and as we speak, a kids movie called KPop Demon Hunters is dominating Netflix, in large part because it has great original songs. Why are so many of the best pop songs coming (first) from movie soundtracks today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s interesting. Well, I think some of it is because pop music<\/a>, in and of itself, is not really all that relevant. Comedy probably took the place of rock and roll at some point. It did the same things. It was rebellious in that way, and it defined lots of things about culture. And now it\u2019s like everything is sort of eaten up into content. I don\u2019t really know the landscape enough; I\u2019ve never been a real student of any of that, but that\u2019s the feeling that I get.<\/p>\n

\n\tI think that one thing I could do for [Apple TV+] with this show was just to bring a real, old-fashioned craft of songwriting, which is dying out. That doesn\u2019t mean that there\u2019s not good songs these days, but there are different kinds of songs, far less about the craft, which is a good thing. But it makes me think of something specific: David Bowie and Bing Crosby sang that famous duet (\u201cPeace on Earth\u201d\/\u201cLittle Drummer Boy\u201d). Well, the story, roughly, behind that was that Bowie walked into this whole thing and was like, \u201cI\u2019m not singing ba rum pum-pum-pums.\u201d And they were like, \u201cWell, what if we made it something\u2014 a little bit expanded?\u201d So a staff writer just wrote the half of the song. They call it a mashup, but the song didn\u2019t exist. So the other one, where it says \u201cPeace on Earth,\u201d or whatever, the other they\u2019ve mashed up, the staff writer pulled that out of his ass And that\u2019s the kind of craft that existed in that era, where people who were just writing on staff were writing better than stuff that people make now.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSnoopy Presents: A Summer Musical<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Apple TV+<\/p>\n

\n\tSo how do you apply that to Charlie Brown<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s an established, iconic personality. We know he\u2019s not the dude that elbows his way to the front of a choir. He\u2019s not, like, effusive, big, loud. So then, him breaking into song has its own sort of constraints, and the way he expresses himself has to be real solitary. And since he\u2019s been with us forever, he\u2019s an old soul. \u201cWhen We Were Light\u201d\u2026he\u2019s singing like a middle-aged dude singing back about something [that] he shouldn\u2019t actually know about. I think those things require a little thoughtfulness, a little craft that you just kind of got to know, [or] even have a bag of tricks as far as writing songs goes. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe first two (songs), I didn\u2019t write. I know one of the guys that was part of the team that wrote the first two songs, and they\u2019re great. They set the whole thing up for me. But as soon as my three songs come in, you know, [Charlie Brown\u2019s] been thrown in a hole. So it\u2019s like, Chuck in a hole, now we\u2019ve got to dig out. I didn\u2019t really have scripts to explain how they get from a day where they\u2019re supposed to save camp with a rock concert, and it\u2019s raining, and then the sun comes out. But, this is one of the things about good songs and musicals, is they\u2019re supposed to punt to the song and let the song dunk.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou didn\u2019t have a full script to work from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThey didn\u2019t really have anything in there. So it\u2019s like, \u201cWell, look, you know this it rains, and then they\u2019re not going to have the concert. And then, the sun comes out, then yeah, they\u2019re gonna have the concert.\u201d The song that I wrote was there so it would obviate the need for script that would fill out.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo in some ways the screenwriters get more from you than you do from them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWell, that\u2019s the point of a musical, and actually good book writers, like them, know that. I\u2019m not making up for a deficit. I\u2019m actually stepping into the role of the column there that is required of the song. That\u2019s another reason why I have to think that someone like me finds himself in an unlikely gig. That\u2019s not for all songwriters.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs there a challenge in music as in comedy where frankly so much has been done \u2014 written, sung, said \u2014 that there is also just less original stuff less to do?<\/strong> Like, literally fewer topics and word combinations<\/strong> available?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWell, I think (what) good music and good comedy have in common is that it\u2019s about a unique view on what\u2019s happening to us all. So, to the extent that history repeats itself, or rhymes, and to the extent that we have things you can and can\u2019t say \u2014 they\u2019re different now than they used to be. George Carlin used to go through the seven words you can\u2019t say on television. Well, you almost have to say them now, right? What can\u2019t you say (now)? Well, listen to a 70s a comedy album, just put the needle down, and you\u2019ll hear something you can\u2019t say now.<\/p>\n

\n\tEspecially in Peanuts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t[Laughs] Yeah.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn music more than comedy\u2026if everyone just keeps on expressing roughly what they\u2019re feeling, just technology alone is enough to move it into the next decade.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tYou were among those \u201890s bands and musicians that combined comedy within their otherwise good, solid, straightforward music. I\u2019m not sure that happens these days \u2014 why is that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWhat I\u2019ve felt over my lifetime has been that it\u2019s\u2014 I think it\u2019s increasingly not encouraged to take a real solid stand of \u201cWho are you?\u201d I just imagine there\u2019s no there\u2019s no shape, gender, color, you can grow up in this moment, come purely from that place, and somehow not incite something hateful. I\u2019m not going to try to imagine being in anyone else\u2019s shoes, I\u2019m just southern white guy \u2014 but I imagine right now that maybe one home for that music that you\u2019d feel safe really being yourself, would be some kind of dreadful country music. And I think that if you joke, you\u2019ve got to watch out what you\u2019re joking about. I\u2019m not being grumpy about some kind of \u201ccancel culture\u201d thing. I\u2019m just actually talking about societally\u2014 it\u2019s just much sexier to be mysterious.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf you\u2019re mysterious, and we don\u2019t know exactly who you are, then we can\u2019t exactly attack you. Because everyone\u2019s got faults\u2026I think those differences should be celebrated. Let\u2019s just say you\u2019re growing up a white girl in the suburbs, upper-middle class, and you just kind of feel like, \u201cI think I need to, you know, kind of affect a little bit more of a vocal fry, that\u2019ll keep them off of me.\u201d Just a certain kind of sexy, not any kind of jokes. They don\u2019t have any real functions like eating or sleeping or having a bad day, it just has to come from the sky or something. I think that\u2019s a lot of pressure on kids. If I were the the boss of them, I would make them come out from behind\u2014 like, even online, you just call yourself some stupid handle, and one has to see who you are. I just think, \u201cWho are you?\u201d That\u2019s what I\u2019m interested in. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhen someone comes out and they\u2019re just who they are\u2014 and think that\u2019s true in comedy too. That\u2019s why we love someone like Bill Burr. He\u2019s obviously flawed. He\u2019ll tell you that, he doesn\u2019t try to hide it \u2014 he\u2019s been through stuff. And I think that\u2019s probably where humor went, because humor shows you that you have to take a little bit of stand on who you are, you have to have an ethnographic position.<\/p>\n

\n\tHave you watched the Billy Joel documentary<\/a>, (Billy Joel: And So It Goes)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBeautiful, loved it. It\u2019s just so moving. When I was coming up in the 90s, I was compared to him \u2014 but only in bad reviews. See, this is the way that they treated him, was so badly, that an up-and-comer like me, if I was going to get trashed, it would be by taking one of our great songwriting geniuses and comparing me to the guy. That\u2019s how stupid they were.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Folds is \u201cRockin\u2019 the Suburbs\u201d for your kids these days as Charlie Brown\u2019s main songwriter (all due…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":149731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[4964,31759,171,975,88083,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-149730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-apple-tv","9":"tag-ben-folds","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-snoopy","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115036835573450252","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}