Catching Up With... Brendan Benson

It's been more than a decade since Brendan Benson debuted with his first solo release, 1996's One Mississippi. The Michigan-born, Nashville-based musician jumped from record label to record label as a solo artist before forming the Grammy Award-winning Raconteurs with buddies Jack White, Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler. Now Benson is returning to the solo game, offering his brand of power-pop, reminiscent of the crafty arrangement of classic rock 'n' roll.

Paste caught up with Benson in his hometown of Nashville after returning from his holiday overseas, which included stops in Berlin and London to promote his fourth solo record, My Old, Familiar Friend, which hits stores Aug. 18. Preparing to kick off a North American tour, which includes an appearance on the Late Show With David Letterman on Aug. 21, Benson talked about recording in Nashville and London, how his approach to playing live has changed and what he's learned playing with The Raconteurs.

Paste: Talk about, if you could, the recording process on your new album and how that went?
Brendan Benson: Well, it was cool. It was different for me. Firstly, Gil Norton produced it. I’ve never worked with a producer like that; he’s kind of a heavyweight producer. So that was kind of different. And then of course working in Nashville, well, I’ve worked with The Raconteurs and we’ve made a record in Nashville, but I guess doing it on my own in Nashville was a different sort of thing. Also playing with Nashville guys, I mean the band was made up of a couple guys from The Features here in Nashville and then some other guys who play with Ben Folds. It was cool.

And then the second half of it was done in London at RAK Studios. And that was just mostly for overdubs, so I was kind of alone. I mean, it was just me and Gil there singing and doing some guitar overdubs and stuff.

Paste: You mentioned The Features; did they work as a backing band or did they help with the songwriting process at all?
Benson: It was just the drummer and the bass player. I was just looking for a band and they were recommended to me, I can’t remember who recommended them, so I went and saw them play and liked them. It was Rollum Haas, the drummer, and Roger Dabbs, the bass player, and I didn’t know them very well at all. I still kind of don’t know them, but I liked the way they played.

Paste: What’s it like going in and using musicians whose style you're familiar with but you don’t know very well, as opposed to playing with The Raconteurs who you’ve grown comfortable with?
Benson: With The Raconteurs, we were all friends for a long time. Yeah, so it was very different. It’s a gamble really. You never know what you’re going to get. You’ll see them play, but yeah, you spend a lot of time with each other and luckily those guys are totally cool. They were fun to hang out with and I think we all got along very well. That’s always a scary thing; you never know what you’re going to get.

Paste: Where did you record in Nashville?
Benson: At Ocean Way.

Paste: Have you worked there before?
Benson: No, it was my first time. It’s a really cool place too, it’s an old church and they’ve kept it like a church. The tracking room there is huge with big stained glass windows. It was cool, man. It was a good vibe.

Paste: What do you prefer, hashing things out in the studio or playing live or a little bit of both?
Benson: I think it’s a little bit of both. I have an easier time in a studio and kind of think of it as my natural habitat. But playing live has also become, I think actually since The Raconteurs, it’s become a real joy for me instead of necessary. I haven’t always been very comfortable on stage. I think I’ve always focused more on the sound of things and live the sound is sort of an x-factor. You never know. So it can be great or it can suck. But I think in The Raconteurs I learned not to care so much about what it sounded like and it was more about the performance and getting into it.

Paste: Was that a tough transition?
Benson: Yeah, kinda. I mean, it wasn’t even something that I think I was conscious of at the time. But now in retrospect, I think, why did I have so much fun in The Raconteurs? And I think the answer is I became more interested in performing live. It can be really fun, it can be great. Um, I just don’t think I ever really appreciated it like I did. But we’ll see now with the solo record. Hopefully it’ll be a better live show.

Paste: The thing I like about the new record is the arrangement. After the third listen or so, things pop out that you didn’t notice before. Can you talk me through the arrangement process?
Benson: Well, on this record it was different because of Gil Norton. He had a heavy hand in that part of it, the arrangement, which is actually what I wanted. I’ve been making records myself with really no one else’s input and no one there to give me any other ideas or tell me, "That sucks," or "That’s cool."

But I think that’s his thing, his specialty. He would tell the drummer, for example, he would be telling Rollum what kick-drum pattern to play. So I think a lot of the arrangement is his doing. I mean, I think that’s where his expertise came in.

Paste: But would you say, "I’m going for this feel," or would he say, "I think this would go well over your song," or was it a little of both?
Benson: Well, it was definitely a collaboration. We did like a week or so of pre-production. So we went into a rehearsal space and we’d play the songs for him and he would pipe in every once in awhile and say, "Well, this seems to go on too long," or "We need something here."

I don’t know, I actually don’t remember that well. [laughs]

Paste: You’ve been in the music business for so long [20 years]. Looking back, starting off solo and then playing in The Raconteurs and now going back and doing a solo record, what have you learned?
Benson: Well, I don’t know. I think I’ve learned a lot. I think I’ve learned to play with others because I’ve been going it alone most of the time I wasn’t sure if I was capable of collaborating with other people. And surprisingly, it came easy. I mean it was really fun and exciting to do it. I kind of love it. There’s almost a sadness about going back to being solo and bearing the burden or weight.

Then I learned sort of technical things. For example, I learned the value of arranging songs, or writing songs that could be pulled off live.

A lot of times in the past, I’ve gone crazy and just overdubbed so many things or whatever. There’s so much happening that it’s almost impossible to pull off live. The Raconteurs didn’t do that at all. Every step of the way, we were always asking ourselves, "Can we do this live? How do we pull this off live?" And I think it’s an important thing, and I was always like, "Hey man, we should fuckin’ get bagpipes." And of course it was, "Well, we can’t do that live, so what else could we do?" It was a good lesson for me.

Paste: Let’s talk about your tour that's starting in a few days. What do you have planned for it? Are some of the guys from The Features and Ben Folds going to be backing you up?
Benson: Well, The Features guys got kind of busy, so they weren’t able to come out. So instead I’ve got Brad Pemperton, who played with Ryan Adams, and then this guy Jared Reynolds who plays for Ben Folds and then Mark Watrous who played with The Raconteurs [on tour], actually. It should be cool.

This is sort of a first run. You have to play New York, Chicago and Detroit. It’s just to kind of work the bugs out. Unfortunately, we’re working the bugs out in New York, which I’m not too pleased about. But then after that, it’s a world tour; we go to Europe and then come back to the west coast.

Paste: How do you like recoding in Nashville?
Benson: I love it. Everyone here is very ambitious and there’s a good work ethic. Detroit isn’t really the case. I like to stay busy so there’s plenty of people here to write with.

In fact, I’ve made a record with this girl, Ashley Monroe, who’s a Nashville singer-songwriter. She’s amazing. She’s got a great voice.

We met on The Raconteurs video shoot ("Old Enough") and we just hit it off and, in fact, starting writing a song on that shoot and it kind of blossomed into an album. We’ve got like 14 or 15 songs. So that’ll probably come out soon, which I’m excited about. That’s really going to be a cool record. I’m very proud of it.

Paste: Is there anything else in the works?
Benson: We had a bunch of songs that were not chosen for my new record that I’d demoed sort of at home and I want to put that record out, I think eventually that will come out too. I think it might be called just The Other Record.

Maybe it will be sort of a smaller release or whatever, kind of coincide with this record a little bit just to show the difference. Like there’s songs that Gil didn’t want to do but I really liked, so I hope that’ll come out.

Paste: I’ve heard of some artists who seem to wish they could clone themselves and play all the instruments on tour. Did you ever feel that way?
Benson: I really like playing with other people and I think music is sort of a cooperative thing. It’s a group effort. I mean, rock music especially. I think it’s better that way.

I never wanted to be solo, in fact. I kind of got stuck being a solo artist and I wanted to be part of a band for forever, since I was a kid. I don’t know, I think it’s more interesting when there’s personalities that are kind of coming together to make this music, instead of one guy doing it all. I mean sometimes that’s cool, I don’t know, it’s also sort of one dimensional.

Especially the kind of music I want to play. It’s rock and roll. It’s meant to played by a band. I’m not out there like Bob Dylan, I’m not like a singer-songwriter, contrary to what people believe. I do sing and I write songs, but I very much want it to sound like a band.

I get stuck, like [people[ tell me they want me to go play acoustic.

Paste: Oh, really?
Benson: Always. And I do it sort of begrudgingly, but I mean the songs, a lot of them, don’t translate like that. [Just] because it’s Brendan Benson or I’m solo, doesn’t mean I can go out solo. I want to hear the bass and I want to hear the drums, it’s important to the songs.

Paste: It’s the prep time for the album; are you getting worn out on it? I’ve read past interviews where you’ve recorded albums and then you promoted it a ways down the road, and you’ve been like, “I’m sort of over that material." How’s this time compared to the past?
Benson: Oh, the same. It’s always the same for me, it has been the same. Every record is a new record label, new bunch of people. I don’t think I’ve ever put two records out on the same label. So each time around I’ve had to find a new label, shop for new labels, then there’s negotiating the contract, all this crap, all this promo to do and a lot of times it takes a year to do. As opposed to, if, say, if it was the same label, it would just go quicker. It would be more ideal. The songs wouldn’t be very old and I wouldn’t have to go through all those steps. But again, it’s how it happens to work out for me.

I mean, The Raconteurs, it was great being able to put out a second record so quickly on the same label. Everyone’s in place and ready to go, so it’s easy. And then when we play, the songs are still fresh and they’re still new.

But it’s cool. I kind of have to reinvent songs when I play them live to make them fun for me and I don’t think people mind much.

Paste: Do you have anything extra planned for the show?
Benson: Yeah, they’re new songs almost when you do them that way. When you play them live they kind of take on a whole new meaning.. .Playing live is a chance to reinterpret songs and have fun with them. So it doesn’t matter how old they are.