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Ben Kweller
New York
My name is Ben Kweller. I was born in San Francisco, CA on June 16th, 1981. I grew up in Greenville, TX. My whole life I have loved music. My dad taught me how to play the drums when I was 7. I wrote my first song on the piano when I was 9. I got my first guitar on my 11th Birthday. It was a Red Fender Stratocaster that was made in Mexico. Soon after learning how to play guitar I formed the bands Mirage, Fox Glove and Digitalis. When we were teenagers, John Kent and I formed the group Radish. Eventually we left High School to pursue Rock and Roll for good.
From floors to fancy hotels, we got to see a lot of the world. We played Reading Festival, we saw the Eiffel Tower. We played guitar with Joe Strummer and hung with Brian Wilson. We walked away with countless stories and memories. Radish made 4 albums - Hello, Dizzy, Restraining Bolt and Discount Fireworks. Discount Fireworks was never publicly released. When I was 19 I moved to New York City with my girlfriend Liz Smith. We lived in a small apartment on Smith St. in Brooklyn. In that apartment I wrote many songs. I recorded them on my computer and made a CD called Freak Out... It's Ben Kweller. Thats when my solo career officially began. I played in the city as much as possible. One acoustic guitar, one keyboard and a microphone (and harmonica, glockenspiel, shakers, and whatever else I could find). before each show I would make a big sign out of glitter and markers bearing my name, Sometimes just write "BK". I'd walk on stage with it and set it up behind me as my back drop. after that I would play my music which people later called, "Anti-Folk".
  
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