Ben Kweller has been making music since the early ’90s, when he was still a teenager in Greenville, so the 31-year-old knows there’s really nothing anyone can do to make the whole “new album” cycle of promotion, interviews, and hype less mundane.
Except perhaps be deliberately mundane. And almost imperceptibly droll.
In this video called “Poolside Chattin’,” the dryly waggish actor and musician Jason Schwartzman questions Kweller about his new Austin-based independent label and his new album, Go Fly A Kite. But lest Kweller himself seem boring, he gets help from a stunt double, the more charismatic (but still chronically laid-back) snowboarder and skateboarder Shaun White.
White as Kweller says the album is “smooth jams for the ladies,” while the real Kweller explains he named his label the Noise Company because “it’s a music company. It’s a company that releases music, and uh, noise. And I like noise. Musical noise.”
It’s more funny-wink than funny-LOL, but that’s Internet comedy for you.
