Ben Kweller

Ben Kweller
Kweller performing at the 2006 Austin City Limits Music Festival
Background information
Birth name	Benjamin Lev Kweller
Also known as	Ben Kweller BK
Born	(1981-06-16) June 16, 1981 (age 35) San Francisco
Origin	Greenville, Texas, US
Genres	Indie rock, indie folk, country rock
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, Recording Artist, Record Producer
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, bass, piano, harmonica, drums
Years active	1993–present
Labels	ATO, RCA, Practice Amp, Noise Company, 679, MapleMusic Recordings (Canada)
Associated acts	Radish, The Bens
Website	www.benkweller.com

Benjamin Lev "Ben" Kweller (born June 16, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.

A former member of Radish, Kweller has released five solo albums and appeared on several collaborations.

Ben Kweller was born in San Francisco in 1981. In 1982, his family relocated to Emory, Texas, where his father, Howard Kweller, became the town's first doctor. In 1986, the Kwellers moved to the larger Texas town of Greenville.

Kweller was exposed to music at a very early age. Howard taught Ben how to play the drums when he was seven years old. For the next year, they would play together almost every night after Howard got home from work. Howard sang and played guitar while Ben played the drums. The duo played songs by The Beatles, The Hollies, Jimi Hendrix, and other artists of the 1960s. Howard is also a longtime friend of Nils Lofgren, a neighbor of his. Kweller has mentioned in interviews that meeting Lofgren greatly helped his exposure to music. When Kweller turned eight, someone showed him how to play "Heart and Soul" on the piano and the youngster immediately began to create his own songs using the same chords. By the time he was nine, he had a dozen original compositions under his belt and entered a songwriting contest sponsored by Billboard magazine, where he won an honorable mention.

Kweller married his girlfriend, Liz Smith (the subject of the song "Lizzy") and they have two sons, named Dorian Zev Kweller, born in May 2006, and Judah Evan Kweller, born April 3, 2010. At the time of Dorian's birth they lived in New York City, but they later moved back to Kweller's home state of Texas and currently reside in Austin. Ben's middle name, Lev, means "Heart" in Hebrew and his son's middle name, Zev, means "Wolf". Ben has said in interviews, "Together we're Heart of the Wolf..."

In 1993, Kweller became friends with a local musician, drummer John Kent, and formed the band Radish with bassist Ryan Green. The trio played locally in and around Greenville and recorded two independent releases, Hello (1994) and Dizzy (1995), with Martin Baird at Verge Music Works recording studio in Dallas, Texas. Around the time of the release of Dizzy, Green left Radish to focus his attention on school. Lorin Hamilton stood in for Green for a few months until Bryan Bradford, also known as Bryan Blur, joined on for most of the band's career.