Fear of Pop is the name of an experimental recording project by Ben Folds and Caleb Southern , along with John Mark Painter , William Shatner and others. Their only album Volume 1 was released in 1998. Folds and Southern began recording music for the "Fear of Pop" project during 1997 in various locations around the United States as an outlet to make music away from Ben Folds Five. In an open letter to fans on Frank Maynard's quasi-official Ben Folds Five website, Folds said that Fear of Pop had "helped satisfy my need to express some things musically - textures, orchestration, rhythms -... things that don't always naturally fall into the standard three minute singer/song format. I love to paint sounds in an abstract way, discovering their effect after it's all put together. Once you’ve sold a million records, you've earned the right to experiment self-indulgently at the expense of your record company." In 1998, 550 Records released Folds' Volume 1.
more