The Voyage of Brendan

Long before Brendan Benson became the second most recognisable face in The Raconteurs, he’d carved himself out a nifty little career as a solo artist, producing immaculately crafted records somewhere between the The Posies and Big Star, with a touch of 70s-centric melodicists like McCartney and Rundgren.

“My career makes no sense at all,” Benson admits. “When I started to play guitar I learned to play in a hardcore band. I have no idea why, I just went through different phases. Todd Rundgren was one of them.”
Did he have a big brother who handed him down records?
“Naw man, I didn’t. I always wished I had that. No, it was just me groping around. I mean, my dad had a really cool record collection. When I was born he was 18, so he was still way into music and going to concerts in Detroit, he was going to see the Stooges and Cream play. When I was born we moved to Louisiana, and my Mom and I moved back to Michigan when I was 11 or 12 or something like that.”
Ah, Michigan. Has he been to the rinky-dink wonderland of antique arcade amusements that is Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Farmington Hills?
“Oh yeah, that place is hilarious. Mid-westerners are good people, and not unlike the Irish. I think practical is a great way to describe them. We’re kind of slow but deliberate. I think also our values maybe different from the coastal cities, I think we’re more family oriented, whereas I think the coast is more self-serving, self-centred.
“My family is Irish, my Mom was born in Youghal in Cork, and that whole side of the family were the best storytellers, and in fact some of my favourite authors are Irish, JP Donleavy and Flann O’Brien, The Poor Mouth is fucking brilliant. But they’re dreamers, they just love to make shit up. I do that myself, I have it in me, I can tell. When I re-tell things I hear myself completely making shit up, trying to make it sound better!”
Benson’s fourth full-length solo album My Old, Familiar Friend features a feast of glistening tunes garnished with piano, weird phaser effects, dampened down drums and soul strings.
“This record was kind of different,” he declares, “because it was produced by Gil Norton, who’s really, I dunno, what’s the word... obsessed, possessed, fascinated with detail. He’s always taking notes too, the whole time he was scribbling in a notepad. I think that’s what you hear on the album, different sort of detail work I guess. When we were doing this record everything had to be perfectly in tune and perfectly placed.”
Norton is a notorious taskmaster in the studio. Did that rub up against Benson’s garage sensibilities?
“Yeah, sometimes I felt like it wasn’t even music that I was making (so much as) some sort of concoction, tuning notes up on the fretboard of my guitar and stuff. That’s where I sort of lost it, ‘cos I had these beautiful old guitars that are not intonated all that well, but I like that sound. For me in the past I always fell in love with the shortcomings and imperfections and flaws, the terrible tempo or those happy accidents and bad tuning.”
Maybe he was spoiled with the last couple of Raconteurs records.
“Yeah, the last couple of solo records were played, produced, written and performed by me. It sounds sort of gross, but that’s what I really enjoy, I love all facets of music, but to be totally honest I was kind of burnt out on it. Having been in the Raconteurs, I realised how nice it was to be able to just relax and play the instrument and sing and focus on the song. So what I really wanted from Gil was someone to come and take charge, which is exactly what I got, and I’m glad for it too. It is what it is, this record, maybe I wouldn’t have done it that way (alone) but that’s kind of the whole point.”
Two of the tunes, ‘You Make A Fool Out Of Me’ and ‘Garbage Day’, reveal a hitherto unexplored penchant for West Coast soul, plush string arrangements and all.
“That was Gil’s idea. I always imagined horns in ‘Garbage Day’ but he was set on strings. I couldn’t hear it when he was describing it to me, I thought it was going to turn into this kind of Burt Bacharach thing, which I didn’t really want, although I love Bacharach. Most people are saying Motown and stuff, just that beat, but Motown is all about the singer, and it’s not meant to be that way. I always like to juxtapose darker lyrics over happy sounding music.”
The rather paranoid ‘Feel Like Taking You Home’ does that in spades.
“Yeah, yeah – a polka! That song is supposed to be about having racked nerves. Looking at the title you might think it’s some sort of innuendo. I think I take poetic license and embellish and try to make it more appealing to people. It’s reality and fantasy.”