Ben Kweller started playing music when he was a little kid, when his dad taught him to play the drums. Almost immediately, Kweller started writing his own songs, and by his mid-teens, he was showing up on late-night television playing with his band Radish.
When Kweller became a dad himself, he passed that love of music along to his kids, including his son Dorian, who was a budding musician on the cusp of success when he was killed in a car accident in 2023 at just 16 years old.
Today, on what would’ve been Dorian’s 19th birthday, Kweller releases his first album since his death. The Texas singer-songwriter joins us in the studio to reflect on the years that followed his son’s passing, how music helped him find a way through the grief, and how Dorian’s memory helped him find his way through the music on Cover the Mirrors.
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.