Detroit Rock City

Unlike quite a few musicians of his standing, Detroit songwriter Brendan Benson doesn’t quite jump for joy when he sees his name in a certain UK rock weekly.

“All I see is my name attached to Jack White’s in the press,” he fumes. “It’s the NME who are annoyingly lame about it. Okay, he lives a block away, we’re friends and we make music together, so it’s unavoidable. To the NME though, I’m just the friend of Jack White. It pisses me off that there’s no article about me in the NME where they don’t mention them. It’s so pathetic. It’s insulting to anyone reading it. There’s no intelligence about it.”
In addition to the tabloid-like nature of his kinship with White, Benson is also chagrined about recent reports that he has recorded ‘Detroit’s answer to Nevermind’ with the White Stripes frontman.
“There are rumours that he worked on my record, which he didn’t,” he states. “I had nothing to do with his record. We did do a separate album together which the press says I have called the Detriot Nevermind. What happened was; someone asked, ‘What’s this album sound like?’ I said, ‘Never mind’, as in ‘I don’t wanna talk about it’. In saying that, it’s a cool record. We work amazingly well together, though I don’t think I’d like Jack White if it weren’t for the music!”
It’s not surprising that Benson is displeased with these reports, not least because there are many newsworthy aspects about his own career. Like the fact that he was dropped by a major label…and ended up releasing his subsequent work, a work born of heartbreak and rejection, on said major’s imprint.
“I didn’t think I wanted to put records out anymore,” he says of being dumped by Virgin Records. “Afterwards, I was writing and recording with no real plan, with no idea what to do with these songs. I went back to waiting tables at that time, which was hugely depressing. I had no experience when I was signed to this major label, so it was a huge thing for me, and consequently, a huge disappointment when it didn’t work out. I lost some self-esteem. It became clear to me there’s nothing else I want to do, which is why I ended up signing the licensing deal with V2.”
The happy outcome of this dark chapter, aside from all those hard-learned life lessons, is that Benson managed to kit out his home studio from the advance he received from Virgin.
“Yeah I got a bunch of guitars and stuff, but what I would trade it for would be for a better shot in the first place,” he admits. “Nowadays, I sit there at the mixing desk, get drunk, my friends come over, drink wine, and we play music and have a good time.”
Despite the acres of critical acclaim showered on Benson’s previous album Lapalco, it's yet to translate into unit sales. In a just world, Benson would be as commercially successful as his friend and neighbour; in this world, the release of Benson’s sparkling new album Alternative To Love could well be the beginning of a new phase.
“Yeah, it’s pretty maddening that I don’t sell records,” he laughs. “Then again, there are exceptions, where some bands rise to the top based solely on the fact that they’re undeniably good, like The White Stripes and The Strokes. I think that The White Stripes, you couldn’t deny them their place at the top. I’m envious sometimes of their success, but not jealous. Above everything, it makes me feel hopeful.”

Brendan Benson plugs his Alternative To Love album at Whelan's on April 22.