Brendan Benson sounds a little subdued and distracted when Clash catches up with him at home in Nashville. His basement has just flooded, he’s waiting for an electrician to come to his house and he’s getting phone calls simultaneously on his mobile and landline.
Back to his solo stuff after two incredibly successful albums and a fistful of tours with best buddies and band mates The Raconteurs, he’s trying to readjust to life on his own as he’s promoting his fourth solo album, ‘My Old, Familiar Friend’, written during his time with the other band. “I think that it will become apparent or a little bit of a shock to the system when I start touring. It’s not going to be as comfortable or decadent or glamorous,” he says in his relaxed twang.
The Raconteurs were a pretty tight-knit bunch, so returning to record a solo record must have been an odd feeling, and a hard saddle to get back into. One of the main things about being in a band is that the members can bounce off each other, give feedback and create things instantly. As a solo artist, Benson had to get used to trying things out, putting them together and then going back to square one if it didn’t sound right. “Being able to hear ideas come back at you immediately… that was the best part of being in The Raconteurs for me,” Brendan says, almost wistfully. And, when he adds, “I always wanted to be in a band, I never wanted to be solo. It just kinda…happened that way”, you almost feel sorry for him that The Raconteurs are taking a break and Jack White has moved on to his new project, The Dead Weather.
Perhaps with this thought in his head, and contrary to his first three albums, Benson doesn’t play all the instruments on this record. In fact, with the help of super-producer Gil Norton (The Pixies, Foo Fighters, Echo And The Bunnymen), he took a real step back from the whole process, preferring instead to be a cog in the wheel. It was with someone like Norton that he had the freedom to play his music, instead of being in charge of production and direction. “He brought a discipline and a strict work ethic to the record. He’s kind of famous for being so strict and cracking the whip a bit,” Benson explains. “It was total freedom for me with him in charge. It was almost too much! I found myself a lot of times asleep between things. He was calling the shots sometimes. I really liked that. It was like that with The Raconteurs too – someone would always take the lead. It was usually me or Jack and we’d produce or direct. It’s nice to have partners that you can tag team with so you can share the work.”
Although being released this summer, Benson was sharing demos of some of the album’s songs on his MySpace page way back in March 2007, to sate the hungry appetite of his fans. “During The Raconteurs it was in the back of my mind that I had the record done. It was a weird thing to pace myself with. To know I had to finish that one and then revisit my record. That’s why I called it ‘My Old, Familiar Friend’. It was like I felt almost like a stranger to the songs and the whole concept of the solo thing. But yet it was like when you can pick up with an old friend where you left off and not have small talk and awkwardness.”
Written mainly on tour, and recorded half in Nashville and half in London, Benson personally chose the legendary Dave Sardy to mix the finished version of ‘My Old, Familiar Friend’ in LA. A big fan of his work already, it was a no-brainer to choose the famous man behind bands such as Oasis, Rage Against The Machine and LCD Soundsystem.
“He’s super creative. He’s a great musician and a great writer and you can tell. It’s nice to have that when you’re working with someone. If someone’s engineering your record you want to know that they’ve got great taste and are also artistic.” As you’d expect with a Brendan Benson record, his upbeat, cheery, almost summery goodtime melodies and sounds are juxtaposed with tear-jerking, heart-rending lyrics, underpinned by the boy-meets-girl, love, struggle and loss theme that is recurrent in his earlier three albums. Tracks like ‘A Whole Lot Better’, ‘Poised And Ready’ and ‘Don’t Wanna Talk’ really emphasise his poignancy.
Brendan Benson is a standalone, successful solo artist in his own right – four excellent albums under his belt are testament to this – but you can’t help thinking when you talk to him that he really feels at his best when he’s surrounded by a full-time band. Maybe the taste of The Raconteurs has sharpened this desire, but in the meantime he’s going to be taking to the road with his old, familiar friend. Himself.
Words by Josh Jones
