One For The Weekend: Ashley Monroe

Check out "Hot Rod Pipe Dream" which Ashley Monroe wrote and produced with Brendan Benson below. Get it right here. 

Brendan Benson shares "Ain't No Good" from new album, Low Key

Brendan Benson recorded his forthcoming Low Key album – out December 2 – at his Readymade Studio in Nashville.

Here's the scoop...

Not every two-year period measures out the same, noted Brendan Benson, the 51-year old Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and co-founder of The Raconteurs. Benson had just finished his well-received seventh album, “Dear Life” in 2019 when his world came to a stop.

“I was rehearsing for South-By-Southwest and gearing up for a tour and had a band ready and then, of course, the world shut down,” he said in a recent interview. The lockdown then began to reroute lives, societies and ambitions worldwide.

“Everything changed,” Benson said. “I went to work on some songs so I’d have new material when things opened up.” Over months with minimal interactions, those songs coalesced and took on lives of their own, he said. Two years of semi-isolation, of fading relationships, of the natural inward turn that comes with less human contact unexpectedly pushed Benson’s song-writing into new places.

Instead of being an afterthought, Benson’s solitude evolved into, “Low Key” the eighth album by the idiosyncratic songwriter who has enjoyed both world-wide popularity with the Raconteurs and a devoted cult following for his numerous solo projects. Low Key, the Nashville-based artist said, was his chance to explore how lives and relationships changed during the lengthy isolation from the normal interactions of everyday life. Benson might not have written songs such as “People Grow Apart” and “Whole Lotta Nothing” prior to 2019, he said.

“The lockdown afforded people the opportunity to cut ties – or maybe it caused people to do that,” he said. “Whatever the case may be, a lot of people fell out.”

“But then relationships ending is one of my favourite topics for song writing,” he said with a laugh.

This isn’t to say that the 8-track effort recorded in Benson’s own Readymade Studio in Nashville is a grim look at the state of human condition. Just the opposite. The catchy, upbeat lead track “Ain’t No Good,” pokes fun at destructive self-absorption while the guitar-heavy “Whatever’s On My Mind” skewers Benson’s own hyperkinetic, stream-of-consciousness thinking.

And then there’s the most unlikely track of all: A cover of Gerry Rafferty’s smooth 1978 hit, “Right Down the Line.” The cover was suggested by a friend.

“She’s always been saying I should do that song. I don’t normally pay attention when people say that stuff. But then I happened to hear it one day and I said, ‘Dang. This is good.’ ”

Low Key concludes with “Something A Little Like Home,” a song that surprised Benson because it turned to the loneliness of being on the road and what people will do – one-night-stands, bad behaviour — simply to stave off the solitude of their environment.

But that said, Benson added that he is excited to tour again, not just in support of Low Key but Dear Life as well. Low Key, he said, works as a coda for “Dear Life,” almost a sequel. And because Dear Life never had its own tour moment in front of a live audience, he’d like to build some shows around supporting both. Or as Greg Calbi, the album’s mastering engineer at Sterling Sound put it: “Brendan combines the classic 80’s style song-writing in the Squeeze, Crowded House vein with some incredible contemporary sonic magic, the kind of album which entices the listener to get tickets to a live show immediately.”

The fact is, it’s been a long, rough two years for everyone, Benson said. He knows that this wait for normal times, whatever that is, might be a long one. But he’s hardly new at this. Benson has been in the industry for decades and has produced his own eight solo records as well as many others. The lockdown that left him mostly with himself, professionally speaking. Confined to his Nashville studio, Benson played every instrument on Low Key and handled all of the initial production. Michael Ilbert then mixed the album at Hansa Mixroom, Berlin, Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone mastered it at New Jersey’s Sterling Sound.

The end result was exactly what Benson had been searching for – even if he didn’t know it at the time. Those years spent honing his craft as a songwriter, producer and touring musician, turned what could have been a liability of isolation into something far deeper, a body of work he described as the best of his career.

“I have nothing to prove anymore,” he said. “With age and experience comes a certain wisdom and freedom. I feel comfortable, confident. I don’t need validation. That’s why I am so excited for everyone to hear this.

“I think I’ve finally figured it out.”

You can pre-order Brendan Benson's Low Key album right here. 

Check out the skateboarding clip for "Ain't No Good" and Brendan's Rig Rundown segment for Premier Guitar from 2020 after the track listing below. 

Low Key – Brendan Benson 

Aint’ No Good

I Missed The Plane

People Grow Apart

Right Down The Line

Whole Lotta Nothin

Whatever’s On My Mind

All In

Something A Little Like Home 

Happy 50th Birthday Brendan Benson!

Celebrating Brendan's birthday with clips of his Dear Life album launch which he'll reprise with a full band livestream tonight.

 

Watch Brendan's full-band performance of his Dear Life album livestreamed from The 5 Spot tonight at 5:20 pm Eastern. 

The Raconteurs announce new album and tour with Toronto date September 12th

Brendan Benson, Jack White and crew are playing Toronto's Sony Centre on September 12th – tickets on sale Friday.

Here's the scoop...
Hot on the heels of announcing their new album Help Us Stranger (out June 21 via Third Man Records), The Raconteurs – Jack White, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler – have announced an extensive run of North American headline tour dates. These new dates, spanning from July to October, include US festival appearances at Woodstock 50 and Railbird. The band will kick off their world tour with their first trip to Australia and New Zealand later this month, as well as stops in Japan, Europe, and the United Kingdom before returning to North American with a Toronto stop at the Sony Centre on September 12th.

The Raconteurs - Help Us Stranger

Tickets to the North American dates go on sale to the general public on Friday (April 12) at 10 am local time. Third Man Records Vault members will have access to the very first pre-sale starting on Tuesday, April 9 at 10 am local time, running through Thursday, April 11 at 10 pm local time. Those who sign up for the Vault Package #40 subscription service will get an exclusive limited edition version of Help Us Stranger on electric green/black/copper swirled vinyl with Vault-only lenticular cover art, and gain ticket pre-sale access first. For tickets and more information on all tour dates, visit https://theraconteurs.com/tour.

Additionally, every online ticket purchased in North America for the new headline shows will include a physical copy of Help Us Stranger on CD. Fans will also have the option to upgrade their CD to the standard black vinyl LP.

Out on Friday, June 21, Help Us Stranger – The Raconteurs third studio LP and first album of new material in over a decade – sees the combo reassembled, stronger and perhaps even more vital than ever as they continue to push rock 'n' roll forward into its future, bonding prodigious riffs, blues power, sinewy psychedelia, Detroit funk, and Nashville soul via Benson and White’s uncompromising songcraft and the band’s steadfast musical muscle. With Help Us Stranger, The Raconteurs have returned right when they are needed most, unified and invigorated with boundless ambition, infinite energy and a collectivist spirit operating at the peak of its considerable powers, once again creating a sound and fury only possible when all four of its members come together. Check the current list of tour dates following a few recent performance clips from Nashville including a cover of Donovan's "Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness)" which they recorded for Help Us Stranger.









THE RACONTEURS 2019 WORLD TOUR
April 16: Powerstation – Auckland, New Zealand (SOLD OUT)
April 18: Regent Theatre – Melbourne, Australia (SOLD OUT)
April 20: Big Top Sydney – Sydney, Australia
April 22: Bluesfest Byron Bay – Byron Bay, Australia *
April 24: Akasaka Blitz – Tokyo, Japan

Brendan Benson plays a new song

Brendan Benson's new single Half a Boy (and Half a Man) is out soon on Third Man. Here are two versions of it.