Ben Folds has revealed that leaked tracks, supposedly from the singer-songwriter's forthcoming album Way To Normal, were fakes. And he should know - he wrote and leaked the tracks himself.
The fuss started when anonymously posted tracks appeared on fan sites in July, causing webmasters to panic and delete them for fear of reproach from the Folds camp. Fans who did manage to steal a listen were left baffled at the suspect quality of the new songs, which, as Folds explains, were recorded for a bit of fun:
"You see so many rock bands in the studio and it's serious, serious business," Folds told Rolling Stone. "They got the making-of camera up their ass the whole time and they're on the BlackBerry the other half of the time. I just think that we all need to remember how to have fun."
The six leaked tracks were recorded in just eight hours at a studio in Dublin, and are largely re-workings of real album tracks. You can hear all the fake tracks, plus snippets of the real tracks, over at Rolling Stone's website. We've had a good listen to the real tracks, and from what we've heard, Way To Normal will be Fold's most piano-bashingly rock album for years. It arrives 30th September.
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