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Brendan Benson — What Kind of World (Readymade Records)
As much as the story behind Brendan Benson’s fifth solo album is the story of making a record, it is also a story of finding a family — of love, and marriage, and the birth of a son, and of another kind of family too: one made up of all of the musicians, music-lovers and friends, who have helped to make these songs and build a label to carry them.
Over the years, Benson had grown accustomed to doing things alone, releasing four solo albums to date, starting with. Since 1996’s One Mississippi and followed by, through 2002’s Lapalco and, 2005’s Alternative to Love Love. There was a brief hiatus when he co-founded The Raconteurs and spent a few years touring and releasing two albums, with them, but he made a return to solo work onand 2009’s My Old Familiar Friend, he had been a solo outfit. A brief hiatus — the three years and two albums he spent as co-founder of The Raconteurs, perhaps marked the beginning of a change: it would prove the catalyst that led himIt was around this time that he also decided to relocate from Detroit to Nashville – a move that would set in motion events and relationships that form the backbone of his latest offering, What Kind of World (Readymade, 2012) .
Over the years, Benson grew accustomed to doing things alone, releasing four solo albums to date, starting with 1996’s One Mississippi and followed by 2002’s Lapalco and 2005’s Alternative to Love. After a brief hiatus when he co-founded The Raconteurs and spent a few years touring and releasing two albums with them, he made a return to solo work with 2009’s My Old Familiar Friend. It was around this time that he also decided to relocate from Detroit to Nashville, a move that would set in motion events and relationships that would eventually form the backbone to his latest offering, What Kind of World (Readymade, 2012).
“Marriage and having a kid was the big thing,” Benson says of the years between this record and My Old Familiar Friend. . Having welcomed his son, Declan, in the spring of 2010, the effect on his music was tangibleapparent: “I think it’s given me a whole new motivation, a new vigor,” he says. . “If I was having a doubtful moment, I could think of Declan and think ‘I’m doing this for him.’ He’s like my band.”
The songs on What Kind of World reflect this new clarity. . “I think on this record I’m saying a lot of things I never thought I would say,” is how Benson puts itsays Benson. . “Maybe I’m just getting older, but I don’t want to hide now in my songs, I just want to be truthful. . And I’m realizing that the truth is really interesting — I’m more attracted to honesty these days than to convolution.”
It’s a sentiment that surfaces on the refrain of the album’s title track: “I take it to heart,” Benson sings, “I take it too hard.” Aand rings out again on the album’s showstopper, “Bad For Me” — a dazzling, irresistible tale of a destructive kind of love. . “Lyrically on this song, I’m going out on a limb,” Benson says. . “I’m out of my comfort zone, and speaking really plainly. . It’s a song where I realized the truth is far more compelling.”
“A lot of the time with me songs are random ramblings and word-play, but I’m proud of these songs, lyrically,” he says. He cites “On the Fence” as a particular personal triumph: “it’s concise, and it makes sense,” he says. “I think it’s a song that has a specific point, and I think I conveyed a specific feeling, which is something I always admire in other songwriters.”
But there are bursts of familiar Benson jabberwocky here too: “Met Your Match”, for instance, which Benson recalls beginning as a melody and a mumbling of lyrics. “And the only reason lyrics are there now is because I decoded the mumblings.” Or the “bunch of innuendos” of “Come On”; or “Light of Day
But mMany of these songs are also a testament to the friendships , and a newfound musical family Benson has cultivated in Nashville as well. . . Some were egged on by the talents ofMusicians such as Jon Auer (The Posies, Big Star), and Ken Stringfellow (The Posies, Big Star, REM), both of whom Benson met at a concert to honor Alex Chilton., and Benson also invited Brad Pemberton (Ryan Adam’s Cardinals), Mark Watrous (Loudermilk, Gosling), and Sam Farrar (Phantom Planet) are members of his newfound musical family who to take part.have contributed to the creation of Benson’s album. He’d missed the camaraderie that came with writing and recording with The Raconteurs, and was able to capture that energy during the (ADJECTIVE) sessions for What Kind of World.
The spur of inspiration came from elsewhere as well: songwriting collaborations with rising talent Young Hines and country singer Ashley Monroe (Pistol Annies), which eventually led to the creation of “Keep Me” and “Pretty Baby”, respectively. Another track, “Thru the Ceiling,” was written with local writer-producer Jay Joyce, and for “No One Else But You,” Benson tracked down a couple of horn players after a half-remembered conversation at a recent party.
The friendship evolved into a tour with The Posies, and the tour would not only bear new material, but also rekindle Benson’s excitement about some of his own songs
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The spur of inspiration came from elsewhere too: songwriting sessions collaborations with rising talent Young Hines and country singer Ashley Monroe (Pistol Annies), that sparked a half-thoughts and that would bore bare themselves out as the songs “Keep Me” and “Pretty Baby”, respectively.” Another track, “Thru the Ceiling” was written with local writer-producer Jay Joyce, and for “No One Else But You,” Benson succeeded in tracking down a couple of horn players after a half-remembered conversation at a recent party.
“Here in the Deadlights,” meanwhile, was a song originally written for The Raconteurs, but which Benson reclaimed. “With their blessing, I changed it a bit and included it here,” he says. “I do miss the camaraderie of when I wrote with them, the help of guys that I trusted and respected to write with.” Thankfully, Benson found a new camaraderie with the friends who contribute to this record, including Auer and Stringfellow, as well as Brad Pemberton (Ryan Adam’s Cardinals), Mark Watrous (Loudermilk, Gosling), Sam Farrar (Phantom Planet).
These external forces, from country to power-pop stars, horn-players and his own son, triggered in Benson a new verve for songwriting, and a new joy in looking elsewhere for inspiration. “It’s a great exercise to write outside yourself,” he says. “It’s so different to writing all those personal, heavy-duty songs. There are certain songs where you get on a roll, where you’re in another place, and you get all frenzied. I love it when you get consumed by a song.”
Recorded at Welcome to 1979 in Nashville, engineered by Joe Costa and produced as well as and mixed by Benson himself, What Kind of World is being releasedwill be released on Benson’s own label, Readymade — a venture that has proved new and exciting, while simultaneously restoring a little faith in the power of good people and good music.
A year ago, Brendan was in the process of finding a new label, which led to a disheartening discussion with his manager concerning the matterdiscussing the process of finding a new label with his manager (or rather, “doing the usual whinging about the music business” as he puts it) he bemoaned the fact that Benson was wary of the process. . Wwith each new record he had been forced to find a new label and, acquaint himself with a new group of people, from managers to marketing departments. . When his manager suggested that they put the album out themselvesinstead they form a co-op or collective of sorts and put the album out themselves, Benson was elatedit felt like the right move.
The idea for the name of his label dates The label name nods back to 1995, when Benson was newly-signed to Virgin Records and putting out a limited edition EP. . “I was doing the artwork, and I just stuck my own imaginary label on there — the name came from Marcel Duchamp, and his readymades objects.”
Although his solo album was the impetus for the foundation of the label, it has also allowed Benson to work with and produce a number of other artistsThe creation of Readymade not only creates aled to the hand-picked selection of a ed and passionate team for What Kind of World, but it also allowss the option for artists Benson has a produced to have a home underwith the same family as wellthe Readymade family as well. . In 2011, in addition to producing his own album, Benson helmed 2011 sessions forproduced for , including The Lost Brothers (Ireland), Young Hines, , Leah Mason (UK), and Cory Chisel, with many more to comeadditional producing projects already scheduled for 2012. . “I’ve never done this before,” he says with evident delight, “but it’s cool to do it totally on my terms.,”
The multiple outside sources of inspiration and the support from family and friends along the way have left Benson truly excited with how the What Kind of Worldd has come to form. . It also helps that it passed the test with thehis ultimate critic. . “When I got my record back from mixing, I knew I had to listen to it,” Benson recalls. . “My wife, and Declan, and I were all in the room, and we cranked up the volume. . Straight away Declan started dancing. . He was throwing it down, he just wore himself out by the fourth or fifth song. . And then he fell asleep in my arms. . I walked around the room with him like that, and it was the coolest, most perfect thing. . I knew, then, that I loved my record.”
And of course the family is delighted with it too. “When I got my record back from mixing, I knew I had to listen to it,” Benson recalls. “My wife and Declan and I were all in the room, and we cranked up the volume. Straight away Declan started dancing. He was throwing it down, he just wore himself out by the fourth or fifth song. And then he fell asleep in my arms. I walked around the room with him like that, and it was the coolest, most perfect thing. I knew, then, that I loved my record.”
- –Laura Barton
Brendan Benson
Late afternoon, Miami, and Iggy Pop and I were standing watching for a manatee that occasionally swims up along the river at the end of his garden. Pop was bare-chested in cerise trousers, talking about Brendan Benson. “Well you know Brendan,” he said, “you how Brendan is, how Brendan sounds…” and as he spoke he waved his hand, stirring the warm air.
He was telling me why he had invited Benson to sing on a track on the Stooges’ 2007 album the Weirdness. “I wanted a sweet, clean, effortless American voice on that particular chorus,” he explained, as we looked down the river. “And Brendan had the voice.”
It wasn’t until this moment that I truly realised the Americanness of Brendan Benson. I’d long had him pinned as an Anglophile; heard in the glint of his lyrics, in the texture of his music, the influence of Elvis Costello, the Beatles, Bowie.
But as Pop pointed out, it was an Americanness lay in that voice. Benson’s voice has a gleam to it, a West Coast shimmer, the shine of a sleek new fender. When I hear Brendan Benson sing I think of the furl on a Coca Cola bottle, of broad Midwestern skies and bright yellow mustard.
It was there in the biography of course: a lifetime spread across four states, from a childhood spent on the outskirts of New Orleans, to his years in Detroit, Michigan, sojourns in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and a more recent relocation to Nashville, Tennessee.
Inevitably this has brought an itinerant quality to his songwriting, a geographical and emotional search for somewhere to belong. It is there in many of the titles: One Mississippi, Lapalco, Metarie, House in Virginia, Life in the D. But it is there, too, in the songs’ tale of perpetual quest, both literal and emotional: is this the place? he seems to be asking. Is this the girl? Is this What I’m Looking For?
Somehow Benson has shaped these restless-hearted stories into songs that fit together with near-mechanical neatness, that carry the delicious clunk-click of rhyme: ‘hop’ to match ‘shop’, for example, or ‘shade’ for ‘esplanade’. These are songs that arrive perfectly formed, immaculate, well-polished, songs that are musical Model Ts.
It is a style he has honed, of course. On 1996′s One Mississippi, the songs came rough-hewn but charged with hooks and with wit; 2002′s Lapalco brought a perfect pop ripeness, and by The Alternative to Love in 2005, there was something quite brilliant, quite burnished about his songwriting. Along the way he has co-written and recorded two spectacular albums with the Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers and Consolers of the Lonely.
For Benson, The Raconteurs was not just an opportunity to play with close friends Jack White (The White Stripes) Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler (The Greenhornes) but also an chance to roll around in the rock, psychedelia and blues that had shaped his musical taste. He once told me how he fell in love with the Blues when he first heard Cream playing Rollin’ and Tumblin’ on the radio; how this led him to Howlin Wolf and to a guitar style that is “scuffed, scruffy, flappy.” “My stuff is all chords and melody,” he said. “And so playing with the Raconteurs is so liberating because, when you play the blues with other people, you’re all on common ground, you all know the same basics.”
This year’s offering, My Old, Familiar Friend, gathers together all of these influences – the Americanness, the Anglophile twist, the geography, the rock and the pop to create something truly exceptional. Recorded in Nashville and London, mixed in LA, produced by Gil Norton (Pixies, Echo & the Bunnymen, Foo Fighters) and mixed by Dave Sardy (The Rolling Stones, LCD Soundsystem, Oasis) it is a marriage of passion and perfectionism, an illustration of all that is special about Benson – from the glimmer of “Feel Like Taking You Hom”e to the “Motown” swoon of Garbage Day.
The key to Benson’s talent has always rested there in the music itself. Through all of his songs ribbons a delight in melody. It was there in One Mississippi’s Bird’s Eye View, just as it is there in My Old, Familiar Friend’s Poised and Ready. For Benson, words themselves are musical instruments; feel it flutter through t he rhymes of Don’t Wanna Talk: “I hear you loud and clear/ But now I fear this ear/ I’m lending/ Is falling off/ And all is lost/ And it seems never-ending.”
Benson’s musical approach is detailed, craftsmanlike, fastidious. Take for instance A Whole Lot Better from the My Old, Familiar Friend, in which harmonies, hand-claps, guitar are layered to produce a work of such heart-filled buoyancy, a work that culminates in the sweet, dove-tailing swoop of its refrain: “I fell in love with you/ And out of love with you/ And back in love with you/ All in the same day.”
Down by the river we waited for hours, but the manatee never came. The lights came on in the houses over the water, and someone started playing Nat King Cole. There are many things I remember from that afternoon with Iggy Pop, a buff-coloured lizard on the table, a Head & Shoulders bottle in the bathroom, but there are three memories that always burn brightest – the warmth of the air, a shade of cerise, and that perfect description of Brendan Benson’s voice: Sweet. Clean. Effortless.
