After the breakup of Ben Folds [ tickets ] Five in 2000, pianist-singer Ben Folds wrote much of his first solo album, "Rockin' the Suburbs," in Australia. He penned the mocking title track after his daily drives to the studio informed him about the state of modern radio.

Folds will open his latest round of tour dates in Rochester, N.Y., on Monday (11/19).

Wearing a green T-shirt with the words, "Jesus said unto Burt Bacharach, I am the way to San Jose" in red letters across the front, Ben Folds ate a lunch of spinach and fries at a Hollywood restaurant as he talked about the new album, the band break-up, living in Australia with health ailments and the joy of swapping gripes with Cake's John McCrea.

Did you see the split of Ben Folds Five coming?

Everyone in the band did. I think we knew our days were numbered for three years. Who's to say? If ["The Unauthorized Biography Of Reinhold Messner," the band's last album] had been a big success, maybe I would have counted it a little differently, I don�t know. It was like, "This isn�t the Beatles or anything, so I don�t have all this cash coming through for it. The only reason I�m going to stick with it is for business' sake." Despite what all the people were telling me I should do, everyone in the band felt that way, it was a mutual thing.

I�m continuing with my career, the guys are doing different things, and you may hear from them shortly. But for right now, I�m the one with the mouth. I�ve got to figure out a way to paint them in a fair light, because they don�t have the advantage of being able to answer back--they�re not going through that at the moment. Make them look good.

All the characters in the songs on the new record seem to be in transition. Can you talk about that a little bit?

That�s the vantage point I write from, for some reason. It�s like, climb the hill, sit down for a second, scroll out at some stuff, "S---, where am I?" keep going. That�s kind of the nature of my writing. I can feel a mood and musical air, so I go with it.

I was listening to the new Cake record ["Comfort Eagle" (Columbia)] thinking, "Wow, that�s such a different point of view he writes from, than I do." He looks at something, he observes it, he backs up from it and he paints a picture of something. Mine tends to be a little more of a blur, and I tend to be in the middle of it. This album is probably written from the perspective of the realization that no matter how far you think you�ve come, you�ve still got some s--- to deal with.

Actually, I think it�s like everything you deal with is a prerequisite for the next thing you have to deal with. [When] you�re 70 years old, you've got to deal with, "I�m going to die. Is it going to hurt?" I�m probably going to be wetting my pants a lot before it happens. You couldn�t take that at 20 years old. You gotta learn to put a little more weight on your shoulders so you can learn to accept that. God knows what you�ve got to learn to deal with after that. So that�s in there with all the songs.

What was your mindset as you were recording the album?

I was really relieved about being on my own and excited about the possibility of hearing something through the speakers I didn�t expect. So I was happy about that. I was well rested because I wasn�t on tour all the time. And I was living in Australia, so I was isolated from everything. It was a pretty good position. All I really had to do was run to a studio and scribble down ideas.

We were living in this house that used to be a school building around [U.S.] Civil War time, and it was monstrous. That place totally had a ghost hanging out. It was the coolest place to sit down at my old 1920 Steinway. At night, I could pound as loud as I wanted to and no one would care.

The other side of it was that I had a stomach condition that caused me chronic pain for about a year and a half, which took about four or five hours out of my day, beginning in the morning. I would get up and have to go back to bed. So that kind of tinted things, too, because everything was great, but there was that. There�s nothing like being in severe pain for most of your day. I remember reading about Kurt Cobain. I completely understand why he wrote from the angle he wrote from. You can�t get away from something, and I thought about that the whole time. Usually, I would for some reason be able to get some rest towards the end of the day. I had some surgery and everything�s cool.

That�s what I remember that year of writing and recording the album. All this freedom and a s---load of pain. Having to bend over to pick up one of the monkeys--we call our babies "the monkeys," just out of habit--and being like, "F---, I can�t do this." Or I�d want to go into the studio, get this idea, get in the car, go two blocks, sweating my brains out, pull over and walk back home. It�s like every day seemed like, "OK, I gotta make it." I usually got my best work done at night. I would usually be good at night.

The title track seems to condense everything that's been on rock radio over the last few years into a three-minute song. Are you worried you're going to have to pay royalties to Eminem, Limp Bizkit and Rage Against the Machine?

I have to say, with that song, I made it a point to abide by all the suburb-rockin� rules. One of the rules is, "Just go ahead and kiss the radio�s ass. What they want, you do it." So I figure, if I just do whatever they want, I�ll be in good hands.

I got the sense you were making fun of yourself as well as these other bands.

Absolutely. That�s what I�m doing. I just worked with the suburb-rockin� producer who does, like, Fuel and Filter, and I used all the methods that one uses to try and get on the radio. It�s like, really, if I was going to be a purist about it, this record�s a total sell-out. And so in the midst of it, I want to make it real. In that song, that�s my little note-to-self that says, "This is Folds, this is exactly what I�m doing."

You do a duet with John McCrea from Cake on the song "Fred Jones Part II." Did you write that song with him in mind?

I�ve written a couple waltzes for his voice, and he and I have talked about doing an album of waltzes before. We�re both big waltz fans. ["Fred Jones"] is a waltz, and I was like, "This is our opportunity to actually do it."

He�s been my number one rock-star commiserator. Almost-rock-star commiserator. B-level rock-star commiserator. We have all the same musical and business issues: big-selling artists with a couple minor hits under our belts. Everything lines up the same way. If I�ve got some kind of problem, he�s probably got it at the same time, so my wife calls us "the old ladies," because we just sit and go off.

Click here for an interview with former Ben Folds Five member Robert Sledge.

Click here for an interview with John McCrea of Cake.