April 8-14, 2004

music

Second Time Around

Ben Kweller finally gets to second base.

by John Vettese

The first time he almost made it as a rock star, Ben Kweller didn't even get to see his second album hit the shelves.

It was 1998 and a small swarm of hype had developed around the young Texan’s spirited punk trio Radish. At the tender age of 17, Kweller and his bandmates were coasting on a deal they inked with Mercury Records the year before. With gobs of press resulting from the bratty Restraining Bolt, the kids juggled the standard schedule of touring and promotional appearances for a while, then retreated from the limelight in an Alabama studio to commence work on a follow-up called Discount Fireworks. At least until the ball got dropped.

"When Mercury was bought by Universal, all the stuff we had been working on was just shelved," the scorned songwriter explains, still bitter that he didn't snag the master tapes when he had a chance. "It's never been released and the recordings are somewhere out there in limbo."

Perhaps it was for the best. Radish split up shortly thereafter and was quickly forgotten, Kweller moved to New York City, reinventing himself as a singer-songwriter. His 2002 debut Sha Sha became an unlikely hit among mall-rat teens and hipster 20-somethings.

Today, as he chats on his tour manager's cell phone in the lobby of a Cleveland hotel, Kweller has once again almost made it as a rock star. He had the hype, the TV appearances and the nightly gigs. His album was widely embraced, or at the very least noted as a show of promise and potential. Now he's sharing a co-headlining tour of midsize venues with indie rock darlings Death Cab for Cutie.

The chief difference this time is that the follow-up actually got released. Appropriately titled On My Way (A.T.O.), the record dropped on Tuesday and Kweller is not a bit worried about his direction from here.

"I just feel like everything worked out for a reason," he says. "When I came to New York and didn't know anybody, didn't have a band and became a solo artist that felt right, you know?"

The success of Sha Sha stemmed from its eclectic blend of styles -- power pop, country, piano ballads -- coupled with Kweller's inexorable tour schedule. The musical variety gave him a cunning ability to play to a range of crowds as an opening act, pulling in the older fans at early gigs with Juliana Hatfield and Jeff Tweedy and charming the younger set on a lengthy tour with Dashboard Confessional.

That exploratory spirit continues on the new record, and while there is some overlap, Kweller mostly tackles sounds on Way that were untouched the first time around; "Hospital Bed" begins with a strangely clanging piano at burlesque waltz speed before kicking into full-band double time for a surf-inspired chorus.

Fearless leaps from style to style between tracks and within tracks are a testament to the songwriter's youthful enthusiasm -- in the middle of the interview, he actually breaks into a verse from "The Rules" upon being told that the cut seems to have a Violent Femmes thing going on.

"I do/ what is right/ I try to win/ without a fight," he sings in a staggering monotone, then chuckles, "Yeah, I guess that is kinda like a Gordon Gano melody."

While Way heads in markedly different directions than its predecessor, Kweller looks at the wandering as a reflection of the place he was in emotionally -- as well as where his listening tastes were at -- while writing new material in 2003.

"Whenever I work on songs, all I'm trying to do is express myself at that time," he says. "My albums are all going to be different since they are all going to be compilations of the previous year's thoughts."

Unfortunately, not all of those thoughts make for pleasant listening. Starting out like a tame Foo Fighters rocker, the lusty "Down" quickly devolves into a coda of obnoxious shrieking. The caustic AC/DC riffs and roars on "Ann Disaster" clash with everything surrounding them, making the cut, well, a disaster.

"I had those feelings in me when I was making Sha Sha, but not in the form of those songs," he says when asked where the anger came from. "Shit just pops out differently. I've got a lot of albums in me, they're all going to have different stuff on 'em."

The tracks are two of Kweller's first utter misfires, making Way measure up slightly below the solid through-and-through Sha.

But that's only slightly, mind you, since diving with such abandon into brave stylistic trial-and-error still makes him a hell of an intriguing artist. In fact, between two albums and an EP, the one consistent trait defining what a Ben Kweller song sounds like is his wispy, plaintive voice with its ever-so-slight Southern accent. The music is constantly in flux, and that's how he likes it.

"I could not tell you that I see myself settling into a set "sound,'" he says. "Unfortunately -- or fortunately, I don't know which -- I think I'm more along the lines of someone like Beck or Neil Young or David Bowie. I'd like to do a full-on country record eventually. Or a piano ballad record. Or a total fuckin' hardcore punk album, where every song is 50 seconds. I just want to keep exploring."

And if he doesn't get much further into his quest, at least he made it to a solid second album.

Death Cab for Cutie with Ben Kweller and Willy Mason, Mon., April 12, 8 p.m., sold out, Ben Kweller with Death Cab for Cutie and Willy Mason, Tue., April 13, 7 p.m., $16-$18; The Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-LIVE.