JustArts: So does that happen to you a lot, the piano breaking?Folds: That's only the second time it's ever happened that bad. My piano doesn't break like that, sometimes rental pianos do. We had to fly in to do this one, and one in Williamstown, that were just completely separate from - we're starting on the West Coast in a couple days, so I had to use a rental.

justArts: How long have you been playing piano?

Folds: Since I was nine.

justArts: Is that around the same time you started writing your own songs?

Folds: Yeah, I started writing my own songs before I played piano. I played piano so that I could hear what I was writing.

justArts: So how is it being without "Five" anymore, your old band?

Folds: I really enjoy it. I think it's good. I mean, it's tougher because I have to carry it all, but at the same time it can go anywhere. There's a vibe that happens that just cannot happen with a band. On the best nights of what I do - you just can't get that with a band because by nature it's more structured and formal. I like that all the places I'm playing are turning into big living rooms, instead of taking small places and turning them into amphitheaters. That's really the thing that strikes me as the coolest thing about playing solo.

justArts: So you've been enjoying the "Ben Folds and his Piano" tour?

Folds: It's the only time I've really enjoyed touring.

justArts: So when you toured "Rockin' the Suburbs" with a backing band at first, was that not as good?

Folds: It was a little relief that I had different people and we didn't have the same old kind of patterns, but I didn't really dig being the president, I didn't really dig being the Dude, the Man, it didn't sit with me very well. Things about it were really excellent, and those guys are great, they're great players, but I prefer what I'm doing now.

justArts: I know you just came out with a live album, but are you going to make another solo album?

Folds: Yeah, very soon. We go in in December to start working on an album.

justArts: I was kind of surprised that on the live album you only included stuff from just you and you didn't have anything with a backing band - what kind of decision process was that?

Folds: It's a better album that way. It's more succinct. Albums are kind of offerings, and they're big deals, when you make them it's something you're leaving behind. That record, once it's taken out of context, in years, will be like some kind of old jazz blues guy sitting at a piano. That's really the way it will be looked at, and I think that's cool. Convoluting the issue with a rhythm section to kind of try to sustain hits or whatever completely takes me out of the fairy tale. I like the Robert Johnson on a wire recorder vibe, and nobody does that these days. It gives it continuity, is what it is, and I'm a big fan of that.

justArts: Yeah, I think it is better because it makes it very different from the album you just released.

Folds: Yeah, that's true. And also, the point behind the album for me was that, I've written a lot of songs that were well-written songs, and they're not always portrayed that way. I spend a lot of time on the rhythm section, and arrangements, and the lyrics are funny, or whatever, but as far as the structure of the song goes - a song that you can just take and play on the piano, it has to be pretty good. You know, you can't take "Woomp, There It Is" and just play it on the piano. For me, (the live album) kind of catalogs a lot of the favorite songs I've written and puts them in someone's ear the way that I wrote them - at the piano, by myself.

justArts: So are you playing at other colleges now?

Folds: Yeah, this is kind of a Uni tour.

justArts: How was Brandeis?

Folds: Brandeis was great! Actually, they were much more of a listening crowd than I would've guessed. They were a great crowd.