The Raconteurs member and solo artist talks Rhys Buchanan through a collection of pivotal songs, and why he gravitated to the outsiders and misfits who wrote their own dialogue.
From picking up a decaying guitar as a child and realising its potential, to his father broadening his musical horizons, Brendan Benson has been in love with music his whole life.
Now into the third decade of his career – the Raconteurs singer and guitarist is in fine form as a songwriter.
Guiding us passionately through a collection of songs that have had an impact on him as a person and songwriter, it’s very much like talking to a friend you’ve known for years. It also quickly becomes clear there’s a pattern. With a clear early love of glam rock and boundary-pushing artists like DEVO and Bowie, he details the impact his father has had on his tastes - even recalling emotional flights back home after visiting him and returning with fresh musical discoveries.
He also picks out other key moments that spoke his language, ultimately impacting him as a musician later in life - like hearing Minor Threat for the first time on a cassette and then ditching school for the day to spend the day listening to it - or trigger moments like discovering The Stooges unrelenting riffs for the first time.
At present, Benson has just rediscovered his spark and joy for songwriting with his latest solo record Dear Life. Inventive and vibrant, it's the sound of a man excited to be back in the studio. He explains, “I got these three songs in a row then I thought, ‘Man, these are good. I’m feeling this.’ After writing the first tranche of songs, the floodgates opened. “I vibed on that, I stopped answering the phone - which wasn’t ringing much anyway - and I got back into music for fun."
Picking up a phone to his warm and reclined voice, he lays down a quick disclaimer about his choices before we get stuck in, where as with his songwriting, Benson went with his gut instinct. “Let me just start by saying this. I got this question and I answered it off the top of my head. So, these songs are among so many others. There have been so many pivotal songs to me and I just want to make that clear.” Well, nobody said whittling down a lifetime love of music was going to be easy.
“Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen
"I remember the exact moment I learned to play this song. It was at my great aunt’s house in Dunstable, Massachusetts. She lived in this old house on a farm and there was this old mouldy, mildewy, acoustic guitar there.
“There wasn’t much else to do and I learned to play “Wild Thing” on the guitar. My cousin showed me how to play it and I was hooked, I could sing and play it at the same time and it was like ‘This is amazing.’ I rode a 300cc motorcycle around the backyard and played that guitar.
“But the one that really changed the game for me was “Louie Louie”, which was E, A, B Minor. It’s got this sinister, evil vibe to it but it’s very subtle, and the artist in me responded to the drama of the B Minor. Also, it was the fact that the lyrics are incoherent. Apparently, nobody really knows the true lyrics to that song and with “Louie Louie” you can mumble the words, so that was great.
“I’m always thinking back to the moment where I realised that was what I wanted to do, ‘When was it and what happened?’ I think it was much later, when I had a cassette deck that had this mic mix feature, where you could plug a microphone in and overdub onto your song. When I started screwing with that, that’s when I think I got the bug. I became obsessed with it and it felt like there was endless potential there.
“Louie Louie” is a very historical song, so I chose that as my first. I like to think it’s the first song I really liked to play, because “Wild Thing” was too easy maybe. ‘Mythical’ is a great word for “Louie Louie”, it’s got that folklore to it.”
“Just What I Needed” by The Cars
“This song was a whole other cool factor for me. There was something so cool about it - the sound of it, the synthesiser and what he was singing about. It made such an impression on me, and I’m in love with Benjamin Orr’s vocal performance, it’s incredible.
“A lot of these songs are based on vocal performances and guys that I idolise as having a vocal quality, but I also loved the guitar solo. It was the first solo I ever learned to play and it’s a pretty bitchin’, advanced, badass solo. It’s one of the best, so I was pretty stoked about it, but don’t ask me to play it today! I also learnt a bunch of Squeeze solos, Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford are two more of my favourites and the solo on "Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)” is unbelievable.
“With “Just What I Needed” it’s the solo because I’m a guitar player, the sound of it because I’m an engineer and producer and the lyrics because I’m a songwriter. People who aren’t musicians might be surprised by these songs, but they’ve had a big effect on me. I picked these songs based on being pivotal and this was one of those songs for many reasons. I’m still trying to write that song.”
“Beat My Guest” by Adam and the Ants
"Following on nicely from “Just What I Needed”, I went to see my Dad in Florida and he had the 12” of “Stand and Deliver” which had “Beat My Guest” on the B-side.
“I was into rap at that time, Run DMC and that kind of stuff, so for a ten-year-old it was ‘What the fuck is this?’ I was blown away. I was floored by the riff and “Beat My Guest” has the ultimate guitar riff, it’s so badass. I was into the make-up as well because I was into KISS too, so I thought that was cool. I was mesmerised by the whole look.
“My Dad was always one step ahead of me. I remember being with him in Michigan once, we had this cottage we’d go to with my grandparents and he joined us one year, which was really fun. He was looking in the paper to see who was playing in Detroit - which was two hours away - he found out The Dead Kennedys were playing in some tiny little club and he left to go and see them.
“I remember thinking my Dad was the coolest, I was ‘What the hell does that mean? He’s into some weird shit.’ He taught me everything. He spoke to me about music, but he doesn’t play music. I acquired a lot of his records when my parents split up, he gave me that Adam Ant record and I was bawling on the plane.
“The next time I went to visit my Dad I’d discovered more Adam and The Ants and I wanted to talk to him about all of these other songs I’d heard, but he was already onto the next thing, which was Devo.”
“Girl U Want" by Devo
“There’s a story behind this song. My parents were divorced and when I was little and I’d go to visit my Dad, out of state in Florida. We lived in Michigan, I was really young and I remember flying all by myself with the captain's hat, the wings and all that.
“My Dad turned me onto this song. He was super hip, super cool and way into music, and I think that’s where I get it from. He showed me Devo, and I was ten because that record was out in 1980. I thought ‘What? These guys are goofy...’ but by the end of my next trip to his I was loving it.
“I don’t know why I liked "Girl U Want", but it had this bizarre and cool edge to it. I think sonically it was a big deal to me too, it sounded weird and processed, it wasn't like Rock and Roll, it was that New Wave thing and I liked the sound of it.
“It’s hard to talk about these songs. I’m trying to make sense of the feelings I have about them, but they’re elusive feelings. People might not think of these songs as huge, monumental songs but I like the fact they’re fun and they disguise themselves as silly, almost comedic songs. But dude, that shit is for real and Devo’s songs are for real. "Girl U Want" blew my mind and continues to blow my mind thirty-five years later.”
“Diamond Dogs” by David Bowie
“Diamond Dogs was another one from my Dad’s record collection. That record and Ziggy Stardust had a huge impact on me, I liked the glam aspect and the production was so cool. I liked the cover of Diamond Dogs, with the half-dog, half-man and I listened to “Rebel Rebel” - which I loved - but then I got into ‘We Are the Dead’ and that was some next-level shit.
“That song showed me some of the theatrics and drama that you could do with music and how you could create such a mood. It’s not just about plugging in the guitar and singing a song, it’s also about the production work and choosing the right instrument for the purpose. “We Are the Dead” literally scared me to death as well, I’d put it on just to torture myself because it was so creepy.
“Diamond Dogs is such a theatrical record. It’s so diverse and dramatic. It changes throughout the record and every song sounds different - it’s like a storybook or something. It had a gatefold sleeve that the lyrics were printed out on and that was the kind of shit that I loved to look at and read while he sang.
“Bowie’s my hero and I’ve cited him in every interview I’ve ever done. I met him once when I was just starting out on Virgin Records. I was backstage with my manager and they arranged for this meeting, he came out and sat with me, we spoke about being on the same label and me having a record coming out. It was so cool, it was like meeting a president or something, he was still so otherworldly and unattainable.
“It was very brief, and it was very formal. I maybe could have met him in different circumstances at some point along the line, but I’m glad I didn’t. He remains this ever-changing mythical character. I love him.”
“Death or Glory” by The Clash
“Again, it was my Dad who turned me onto The Clash. I fell in love with Combat Rock first and then I ate my way through that band. It was like a goldmine or a candy store.
“So many of their songs have changed my mind about music lot, but I picked “Death Or Glory” because it was one of their better sounding songs that seems a bit overlooked. I was impressed by the sound of it, there’s acoustic guitars in there and the fidelity sounds good, that was really smooth and appealing. With the acoustic guitars and electric guitars, it was almost pre-dating some of that Americana stuff. It’s so powerful and it’s not super punk.
“Death Or Glory” is like a call-to-arms, it sounds triumphant and I love that. The lyrics are great as well – ‘Now every cheap hood strikes a bargain with the world’ it’s great stuff man, Strummer was insane in that way.”
“Filler” by Minor Threat
“When I was in Junior High, I met this guy and he had a cassette with Minor Threat on one side and The Exploited on the other. He left it at my house, and I had a Walkman, so I popped it in as I was walking to school. I heard the first chord of “Filler” and then I stopped and turned around. I didn’t go to school that day.
“I listened to that cassette and I was ‘What is this? This is awesome, this is what I need right now. These people are speaking my language, and they’re young like me as well.’ That’s when I thought I could maybe write a song, record it and put it on a record.
“That’s all I thought. I didn’t want to be a famous rock star but maybe I could do that DIY stuff. Not like the rock stars who were bigger than life - it was hard to aspire to that - but this other stuff? Yeah, I could do this. Plus, I thought that girls would think it was pretty cool if I played the guitar and I was in a band.
“So I started a band and this song and the first Minor Threat record was a game changer for me. It also started my record collecting phase. After I got into Minor Threat, I got into Dischord Records - I wanted everything on that label, so I spent years collecting that stuff. I still have all the singles; I might still have it all of it.
“That band had a huge effect on me that led me to want to write and play music, but also it was a club I could belong to. I was part of something with it – I could put on a leather jacket and help my teenage angst.”
“Down on the Street” by The Stooges
“My Dad also turned me onto The Stooges and their record Fun House. “Down on the Street” was another one of those songs that had me mouth agape, drooling and not knowing what I was listening to exactly.
“It was like sound effects. He was making a sound from that guitar - that reverb on that riff is the sweetest reverb in Rock and Roll history - and Iggy is singing through an amp which is all fucked up and distorted. “Down on the Street” is something that’s strange and I like it that way. It’s not something I analyse or geek out on, it makes you feel a certain way and makes everything tougher and cooler. Talk about swagger, that song is the epitome of swagger. It’s like performance art.
“My Dad turned me onto them but listening to bands like The Damned and Nirvana led me back to them. I’m always coming back to that record, it’s so raw and so punk, it’s a masterpiece. Fun House is fucking incredible, song after song too. It’s unrelenting until the end, finally, you get a nice long jam.
“I’ve always been interested in whatever Iggy does. He’s one of those real freaks, he’s a true, true artist, who feels his way through life and I like that. It’s one of those things, but I wish I was in that band. I would have loved to have been in that band!”
"(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" by Elvis Costello
“Elvis Costello changed everything for me. I had to have everything he made and I had to hear it all. I loved everything about him and I think I modelled myself after him a little bit.
"He was a solo artist and I loved the way he incorporated a band like The Attractions, it was a cool concept. I thought his whole vibe was so cool - this cool guy in the shades, kind of goofy looking and awkward, but it was all part of his aesthetic.
“Red Shoes” is a great example of how he could write an instant classic, that song sounds like it’s been around forever. I really started getting into the cracks of songwriting when I heard it and it opened more technical doors for me as well. I’m definitely a fan, though, not just a scholarly fan.
“A lot of people I know don’t like him or don’t get it, and maybe that’s true in a grander, bigger scale - either you like him or you don’t. I love his voice and he’s a singer that I’ve tried to emulate a lot, even though I have no business doing that. He’s inspired me to write so many songs of my own and that’s helped to motivate me.”
Dear Life is out now via Third Man Records
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