Benson Burner
Raconteurs-man Brendan Benson on his foray back into solo artistry, his adopted home of Nashville and why it might not be the end of the worlad for the Jack White supergroup...
Roisin Dwyer, 02 Nov 2012
Benson’s album also includes a duet with country ‘n’ western starlet Ashley Monroe.
“We met on a Raconteurs video shoot for ‘Old Enough’,” says Brendan. “She and I started writing on the set. By the end of the day we had a song! We decided to get together and keep writing. We wrote a bunch of stuff.”
Now the R word has been mentioned we feel it appropriate to enquire about the status of the White/Benson collective. So are The Raconteurs finished now or is it just that you’re all very busy and it might be revived again?
Pause followed by nervous cough and guarded response. “The latter!” (laughs)
On a related note what did Benson think of Adele’s cover of ‘Many Shades Of Black’?
“I love it, I loved it then – and that was before she took over the world!” he enthuses. “It was all arranged through management. I always thought a woman could sing the hell out of that song. Maybe now since she’s been so successful it will be revived.”
Although now settled in Nashville Benson still has a close affinity to his birth city of Detroit, so was obviously delighted when one of his Michigan heroes requested that he contribute vocals to an album.
“That was surreal! I was touring in Europe and Iggy Pop just asked me to sing on the next Stooges record!” he beams. “I was over the moon so I flew from Europe to Chicago for the night. I was in and out just to sing four lines! It was surreal driving back to the hotel with them in their van, Ron Asheton driving, Iggy in the passenger seat, I’m sitting in the back closing my eyes and thinking to myself ‘I’m on tour with The Stooges’ (laughs). They were hilarious, they were so funny together.”
Did Iggy have any words of wisdom to impart?
“Pretty much everything out of his mouth in my mind are words of wisdom!”
What Kind Of World is out now on Lojinx Records.
©Hot Press 2012. Why be a member? | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | About Us Jobs @ Hot Press