Ben Kweller: The Godfather of Lo-Fi
For the first time in 14 years, Ben Kweller is heading down under. Promoter Gareth Lewis talks musical influence, grief and radical optimism with the indie rock figurehead ahead of his Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival performance
Words Gareth Lewis // Image Liz Kweller
Texans and Australians share a lot in common. Perhaps it’s the similarities in climate and landscape, or perhaps our shared carnivorous diets. It’s from his home in Dripping Springs, Texas, that Ben Kweller appears on screen in his NoiseCo Studio – about a half hour from the self-anointed “Live Music Capital of the World”.
Kweller’s career in music spans over three decades; from his early days as a child post-grunge prodigy fronting Radish, through his indie-darling era while based in New York City in the early noughties, and his stint as part of a quirky songwriting ménage à trois with fellow Bens (Lee and Folds). He is now a kind of enthusiastic patriarch or, in sports vernacular, a “playing-coach” of the resurgent lo-fi indie-alt-rock-countryslacker-Americana (not a real genre) scene that has seen the likes of MJ Lenderman arrive with the comfort that comes in a sound attached to a time past.
Reflecting on this now well-documented resurgence, Kweller gushes like a proud uncle or godparent, “You know, when you’re in it this long, you see a lot of crazy things. And one of the most beautiful things for me has been this new generation of artists, guys like Jake [MJ Lenderman].”
The comparisons to Lenderman aren’t new, but when I mention the tangible pathway I have witnessed first-hand when young folk dive into the origins of MJ and land with Ben Kweller in their Spotify algorithm, I’m taken aback by the authenticity of Kweller’s reaction.
“Man, I just got goosebumps. I’m at a point now where I’ve been doing it long enough where it’s literally generational. So like, first of all, I have fans that have been with me since the beginning that are now bringing their kids with them. You know, I don’t have grandparents yet, but I look forward to having three generations of Kweller-heads.”
The resurgence of Kweller has also seen him land back on main stages at major festivals like Adelaide’s own 2026 Beer & BBQ Festival, and in May, featured prominently at Salt Lake City’s revered three-day indie-festival, Kilby Block Party. Kweller sat comfortably on a bill alongside the most important guitar-music-making artists of this decade; Turnstile, Alex G, Father John Misty, and the likes of Lorde, The XX and Modest Mouse. “It’s just one of the best [festivals] we have here in the states.”
Testament to his influence, Kweller “was watching Alex G side stage, and after the show, he just like ran up to me and hugged me. He was like, ‘dude, I love your music so much. Can we hang out?’ I’m like, ‘yes’, and we just hung out by his bus. He was like, ‘do you want to have a cigar? I got two cigars.’ I don’t really smoke cigars. I told him, ‘All right, we’ll have a cigar.’”
“We just got to talking, and he told me, ‘You know, growing up, I had an older sister. She had two CDs, Elliott Smith, XO and Ben Kweller, Sha Sha. And I wore them out. And like, you’re one of the reasons I do this’.”
With a boatload of on-point contemporary artists name-checking him; Waxahatchee, Alex G, MJ Lenderman, Ed Sheeran, Joel Madden, Evan Dando, and producer Jack Antonoff branding him “one of the great American songwriters,” Ben Kweller-starved Australian audiences should justifiably be eager for his return down under in July. Adelaide will be his sole festival date alongside a trio of East Coast club shows.
Kweller hasn’t played Adelaide since 2010, and that night at The Gov, he closed his set covering Boyz II Men’s classic ‘End Of The Road’. A lot has happened since then, in a global and personal context, for Kweller.
Ben and Liz Kweller lost their firstborn son, Dorian, in a road accident in 2023. He was 16. From “every parent’s worst nightmare,” rose a deep connection with their community and eventually spawned a deeply personal album, Cover The Mirrors. The title itself a reference to the Jewish custom observed during Shiva (the week-long mourning period following a relative’s death), Cover The Mirrors was released on what would have been Dorian Kweller’s 19th birthday. It is a record bursting with heartbreak, love and hope. A roller coaster of thoughts, the record features collaborations with, amongst others, The Flaming Lips and a song named ‘Trapped’, penned by Dorian himself. He was already an emerging musical talent at the time of his passing. It’s one of the highlights of the excellent record.
Cover The Mirrors isn’t strictly an album about grief in the traditional Nick-Cave-coded sense, but in Kweller’s own words, he “can always find Dorian in everything [I do] now, even if it’s not intentional. So, there’s that baseline, you know? Your boy, he’s part of you no matter what, right? I was playing some of my new songs for Liz the other night, and it’s interesting because Cover The Mirrors sort of shattered me open. But this new album that I’m working on (which is called Agarita – a plant that grows in Central Texas). It’s a prickly motherfucker.’ It’s like thorny and gnarly, but it has a beautiful flower.”
Kweller’s default mode seems unwaveringly optimistic, especially when viewed in context. He speaks as openly about Dorian as he does about Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain or our mutual acquaintance, Aaron Franklin (owner of the ubiquitous Franklin’s BBQ in Austin) and those similarities between Texans and Australians. There’s an even closer kinship between Austinites and Adelaideans. More than just our shared progressive-leaning politics and relative scale, Austin and Adelaide have officially been ‘sister cities’ since the early 1980s, our municipalities sharing reverence for creative arts and music, and both home to arguably the best food cultures in our respective nations. “Because you know, we’re brothers, in a lot of ways, Texas and Australia.”
Catch Ben Kweller performing at Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival on Friday July 10, alongside TISM, Speed, Tropical Fuck Storm, and more. Tickets on sale now via beerbbqfest.com.au.
