Brendan Benson is ‘embracing who I am’ on new album
Brendan Benson, musical chameleon? Sounds about right.
The songwriter-producer-engineer and co-founding member of “Steady As She Goes” Nashville rock ‘n’ roll staple The Raconteurs shapeshifts again on his new LP, “Dear Life.”
An 11-song concoction of power pop experimentation flavored by unabashed fatherhood (more on that later) and sprinkled with punk rock, the album released via Nashville-based Third Man Records.
Melodic through each left turn, “Dear Life” fits the self-described “malleable” musician. Writing the album — an onand-off seven-year process where Benson said he found the fun in making music again — meant “embracing who I am,” he said.
“I was like, ‘wait, I don’t have to be cool anymore,’ ” Benson said. “I think I can just be me now. And we’ll see what happens.”
It’s an album Benson said he never set out to make — and that’s why he thinks it works. Restless from producing and co-writing, he found a needed excitement in writing with no strings attached.
“I was trying to produce and co-write with other people and stay home and be with my kids. Not go on the road, not make a solo album,” he said. “I lost the whole (expletive) fun part that I like about it. It just got too serious.”
Benson recorded and produced all but one song on “Dear Life,” including sporadic opening number “I Can If You Want Me To” and his upbeat ode to domestication, “Richest Man.”
“Richest Man” finds Benson singing, “I got two beautiful babies/ And one hell of a good looking wife/ Got twice the love and half the money/ And I feel like the richest man alive.”
He turned his pen to a “more realistic direction” with the album.
“Everything that comes out of my mouth when I was writing was like ‘I love my wife and I love my kids,’” he said, with a laugh. “Then I just decided to embrace it. Like, (screw) it. This is the new subject matter. There’s plenty of people out there like me, right?”
He continued, “I think I’ve just been more real with myself and I’m being honest with myself.”
And the album dives into programmed instrumentation, a by-product of Benson temporarily relocating his Nashville studio and writing from home, where he couldn’t be as loud as his permanent work space.
With a studio in-transit, he wasn’t thinking about collecting enough songs for a full-length release — the shapeshifting just happened.
“I was just doing this stuff ... because I couldn’t really get loud, Benson said. “Along the way I was like, (shoot), this is fun as hell. It’s a totally different style of writing, but I love it.