Ben Folds is riding a busy subway in Brooklyn, doing interviews on his cell phone. The connection cuts in and out and the rhythmic clamor of the tracks is strangely invigorating, the constant movement mimicking his first-ever solo tour this year. Folds recorded about 60 shows during his "Ben Folds and a Piano" outing, and then pored over the tapes as he drove between gigs from state to state, picking and choosing the best performances for his new solo album Ben Folds Live, released October 8.

"We just wanted to capture the dynamics and the feel of the live shows, because we knew we kind of had something cool," Folds says. "There was something special going on, it was like a big living room sing-along. It seemed so completely un-rock and roll in one way, but it was just a bunch of kids. It's not an easy thing to capture on tape."

The resulting album is just over 70 minutes of edgy, rollicking magic. The audiences, at the behest of Folds, sang harmonies on several songs including "Not the Same" and "Army" and the effect, at times, sounds like an energetic barroom choir. The recording process was fairly simple and the clean, vibrant piano tones reflect that - the crew set up a Baldwin SF10 Artist Grand, miked the piano and Folds, and the shows were captured on an eight-track recorder.

"It's an aggressive sound - the sound you get, I suppose, when you close the lid on a piano like that and put two Shure microphones in it and you're playing at 100 plus decibels out in front of the house," Folds explains. "It just gets that sound - I don't think we could get that in the studio.

"Also, we used these Charlie Helpenstill [piano] pickups - they're antiquated, old electromagnetic pickups. Those are in the piano to beef up the sound out front," he continues. "Basically, all you're getting is a five-track recording - there's two piano mics, my vocal mic and two front-of-house mics. That's the album."

Folds has been a solo entity since 2001's critically-acclaimed Rockin' the Suburbs. With his previous band, Ben Folds Five - a misnomer, as the band's members included Folds, drummer Darren Jesse and bassist Robert Sledge - he released four albums. His new live album contains radio-friendly hits from his days with the Five including "Army" and "Brick"; deeper album cuts such as "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces" and "Song for the Dumped"; as well as songs from his solo album, "Rockin' the Suburbs" and "Zak and Sara." All told, there are 17 tracks including a cover of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer," which Folds worked up so that when John came to his show, he could play it. While he counts John as a major influence, he marches to the beat of his own drum - literally. A multi-instrumentalist, he was a session drummer in Nashville early in his career, as well as the bassist for the late '80s band Majsha.

"I've always tried to separate myself from [Elton's] career as best I could, so that I can have some pride in what I do, that I'm not ripping the guy off," Folds explains. "In the last year, he's been nice enough to call up and tell me he likes what I'm doing, and if I need any help [to call.]"

Like John, Folds composes the majority of his songs, although there's no lyrical partner like tunesmith Bernie Taupin to temper his muse - he says he usually writes the music first, and the lyrics come later. Unlike John, the ironic, often quirky character studies that become the center of Folds' songs haven't consistently found their way to mass popular appeal yet. His second album with the Five, Whatever and Ever, Amen, achieved platinum status, and he seems destined to break out as his solo career gathers steam.

Though he likely finds a lot of fodder for his songs as he travels, Folds says he needs time to process it all and doesn't write on the road. "I never write unless I've set aside time to get the vibe going. I tend to need a couple of months to walk around and think about things, and it eventually starts to come," he explains. "Then I begin to book studio time when I think I might be armed with enough raw material to go in. That puts pressure on me to actually finish the stuff."

Folds composes in a variety of ways, not necessarily marrying his ideas to the piano. He sometimes writes on the guitar, or more frequently in his head, and then sits and finds the chords at the piano, using it primarily as a performance medium.

"The music comes first, but it's more of a melodic chord thing," he says. "I have a little vocabulary of chord changes in my head - if you really studied it, you'd probably find that I write the same chords over and over again.

"I play the piano when I go out and tour, and when I'm home I don't play, and when I'm writing it's usually more that I'm taking inventory of melodies that stay in my head a long time that start to mean something. The lyrics come last."

Lately, Folds has been hearing a song in his head around a single note on the upright bass, and he's really excited about the idea. "That pulse of the bass never changes, and everything else changes all around it. So it gets to go places, and as it goes places, it's going to tell me some lyrics and that's going to move it around. And it wouldn't inspire me if it didn't mean something, so I'm going towards it." He leaves room for creative deviation on every album, for a song or two that might throw his fans some sonic curve balls, just to keep things interesting.

In a move that seems uncommon, Fold's record label decided to release two versions of the Ben Folds Live, album, the original with a "parental advisory" warning, and a censored, "cleaned up" version with bleeps and an alternative cover. He chooses his words carefully when discussing the issue, but as a proponent of free speech, it's obvious that it chaps him.

"If [major chains] don't buy your record, then you're in trouble. Budgets get cut, you ship a quarter of the records you were going to ship - they're very powerful," Folds quietly fumes. "It's a little scary actually. I started thinking about it, and you know, the problem isn't in our government, the problem is in our corporations and people censor themselves. And I don't think that laws are in danger of being overturned, I think people's thinking needs to be overturned. That's something you can't do through a law; people have to grow some brains and some spines."

Folds plans to stretch his creativity in a number of ways after his current tour is over. He'd like to make another solo album, and he's been working with an Irish band, The Divine Comedy, in England, and would like to collaborate further. "The guy [Neil Hannon] is a genius and I'd love to record him or help him out in some kind of way," he enthuses. Folds has also been tossing around ideas for a musical with a couple of collaborators, but says it would have to be the right kind of vibe before he'd commit to doing it.

Folds is featured in a new print ad campaign for Baldwin, themed "Where will my Baldwin take me?" He's been playing since the age of 9, and the ad shows several images of him in action at the piano and on the drums. He's somewhat dubious when asked what advice he'd give to up-and-coming pianists.

"God, I don't know. You just have to follow your gut on the instrument," he says. "There are still things to be discovered in it, you don't have to play it like they did 100 years ago. I think that lets someone keep an open mind as to what they can do on the instrument."