The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner- Ben Folds Five

It’s possible that the most interesting thing about this very interesting record is its name. Ben Folds Five drummer Darren Jesse says “Reinhold Messner” is the name he and several high school buddies used on their fake ID’s to get into bars. A friend had a posterboard of an AZ drivers license with that name and they all took their picture standing in front of it. Once Darren was arrested after being beat up, and the cop called in the whole name before realizing the 17 year old in front of him claimed to be 34. It turns out Reinhold Messner is also the name of a famous mountaineer. And the name of the album had to be changed from “The Biography of Reinhold Messner”.

This was Ben Folds Five’s 3rd and final full length album, made following the explosive and unanticipated success of the single “Brick” from their previous album, “Whatever and Ever Amen”. While the first two ‘BFF’ records were made in the trio’s home studio in a very expeditious all at once method with little in the way of overdubs and touch ups, Unauthorized Biography was made over the course of several months in 4 of Sony’s largest US studios including most initial tracking at Sound City in Los Angeles and RPM in New York. The album was produced by Caleb Southern and mixed by Andy Wallace, both personal friends of the band and players on the album. The trio didn’t just step up into big studios, they beefed up the instrumentation to include extensive arrangements for Strings and Horns, orchestral tympani, Moog Synthesizer Bass, Fender Rhodes, and huge vocal passages reminiscent of Queen.

The album opens with an incredibly dynamic wake up track called “Narcolepsy”. Leading into the first single “Don’t Change Your Plans” where Ben’s lyric indicates for the first time a fatal disease. The theme of death and references to disease reoccur throughout the album (which honestly has as many ups as downs), and consequently many fans began to circulate rumors that Ben was dying, citing evidence that he had recently married for the first time in his life and had a kid. It turns out, rather that Ben and the boys had actually written a sort of concept album. Inspired by the diagnosis with Leukemia of a fairly regular muse of his, a man named Fred Jones, Ben wrote Don’t Change Your Plans, Hospital Song, Regrets, Jane, and Mess. Darren wrote the most haunting track of the album, “Magic” (a song I love dearly) about his recently deceased mother. And Ben’s dad left an odd answering machine message that turned into the ethereal “Your Most Valuable Possession”. But then there’s the moments of sheer stupidity and bliss like the second single “Army” that you listen to BFF for, that don’t fit nicely into the concept album formula. “Grew a mustache and a mullet. Got a job at Chic-fil-a.” I love the album because it represents what Ben had never done before (or since), and that’s really get down to the business or recording his phenomenally good music phenomenally well. I love his raw aesthetic, but it is a beautiful and rare pleasure to hear his music polished and clean. This is a meticulously arranged and recorded album, and a stunning one at that.