Ben Kweller

By 1997, Ben Kweller’s fabled band Radish was doomed to failure by overzealous music critics who saddled the 10th-grade frontman with comparisons to Kurt Cobain. Since then, Kweller has been able to beat the rap and show off his versatile songwriting with a series of poppy, folky records grounded in unfussy piano and tambourine jangle. 2009’s Changing Horses marked Kweller’s first full-on dalliance with country, an inevitability his Texas twang always hinted at. Kweller recently self-released his fifth album, Go Fly A Kite, through his label The Noise Company; its title is presumably based on the amiable frontman’s parting words with ATO.

Updated 04/19/2012