Through music, 'I am going on.' Ben Kweller remembers son Dorian in emotional ACL Fest set

Onstage and off, Dripping Springs singer-songwriter Ben Kweller exudes easy charm and genuine warmth. He considers his audience a family of friends who showed up for a group hang. On Oct. 7 during the afternoon at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, a few thousand besties took it back to the beginning. They celebrated the 20th anniversary of Kweller’s debut album “Sha Sha,” with a set that was thick with nostalgia and haunted by hurts that never quite heal.

Fans sang every word as Kweller’s muscular guitar propelled them toward the finish line on “Commerce, Tx.” When he effortlessly switched to piano on “How It Should Be (Sha Sha),” imaginations took flight with the whimsical chords. And when he broke down at the end of the set, talking about his 16-year-old son “Dorian Zev, the coolest dude in the world” who died in a car crash in late February, the crowd cried with him.

“I can’t believe I can even go on without him, but somehow through music and his music I am going on,” he said, before playing ZEV’s song “How I Am,” while a montage of images of the young musician and skateboarder played on the screen behind him.

‘They're getting me through the hardest time of my life’

“The crowd was incredible,” Kweller said backstage later that evening.

Kweller’s debut album, written when he was just 18, is a surprisingly astute collection of observations about growth and learning. Emotions were thick and people were in their feelings, singing songs like “Falling,” a song that reminds us that a tumble from above is an opportunity to “say hello to the ground,” and the 2006 ode to unbreakable love “Thirteen.”

“One of my favorite things about this life that I'm living is when people come up to me and say, ‘BK, like, your songs got me through the hardest time of my life. It got me through my breakup or my dad died, or whatever it is,’” he said.

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Sometimes people name one of his tracks as their wedding song. “I'm a very nostalgic person and that comes through in my songwriting. And so yeah, that is the best compliment I ever get as an artist is when (my music) really touches someone on that level in their life,” he said.

Music is “a time capsule. It's a document of a time and a place … it's a marker for our lives as artists,” Kweller said. He’s grateful that his son left his songs behind. Playing them at shows has been “incredibly healing, also incredibly sad and heartbreaking,” he said.

He feels his son’s spirit with him when he plays ZEV’s songs. “That was a big reason I wanted to play one of his songs today was because he'll never get to play ACL. So he did kind of play today in some ways,” he said.

On this tour, the fans who were willing to stand with him as he grappled with grief became his support system.

"They're getting me through the hardest time of my life. So it's like this real reciprocal love that's happening. I feel so fortunate to have that,” he said.

Dorian Zev Kweller memorial skate park to break ground this year

In the months after Dorian Zev Kweller’s death, his friends from the local skateboard community and high school band have remained close to the Kweller family. Dorian is buried on a plot of land adjacent to the family ranch. It is open to the public and “a lot of times, we'll be leaving the property and there'll be cars there and friends of his sitting with him or playing songs with him,” Kweller said.

The family is building a facility for the skate community, the Dorian Zev Kweller memorial skate park, in Dripping Springs.

“They're breaking ground this year,” Kweller said. In addition, the family has started a nonprofit called Zev United to help young musicians and skaters. He hopes to provide two micro-grants of a few thousand dollars each year for young artists “to go and pursue their dreams,” he said.

These grants won’t target the classically trained musicians who normally compete for scholarships, but instead they will go to someone who is a true creative the way Dorian was. Someone who “really feels the music, and expresses themselves in a really unique way,” Kweller said.

The next Ben Kweller album is on the way

Back at his ranch, Kweller has been building a new studio. It will be “the version 2.0” of the old barn that's been a home base to his Noise Company record label for years. He’s also working on a new album that should drop in early 2024.

While “the expected thing” would be a collection of songs about Dorian and grief, Kweller said that loss only haunts some of the tracks.

“You sit down to write a song and you might strive to write about something specific, but a lot of times words come to you that you don't even expect and you prefer those to staying on the narrative,” Kweller said. “I try to go with that stuff, the stream of consciousness stuff that interests me the most as a lyricist.”

Some of the songs are upbeat and fun. “That's Dorian too, like, coming through and speaking to me,” he said.

His daily visits to the grave site where he will one day be buried alongside his son have given him perspective. Having "a special place where we'll be for eternity" puts him at ease, he said. It also pushes him forward.

“Our time is gonna come at some point," he said. "And we have to make the most of what we got while we’re here."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: At ACL Fest, Ben Kweller plays songs from 'Sha Sha,' honors ZEV