Dear Life Im Ready to Be a Kid Again

Brendan Benson Is Holding On with New Album "Dear Life"

The Raconteurs guitarist/singer reflects on his seventh solo album, his fear of dying, and preventing insanity during a lockdown.

It's iv:xx p.m., Central Fourth dimension, and Brendan Benson is a little nervous. He's been practicing and is about to go live for whoever volition listen. When the COVID-xix pandemic hit, Benson was preparing to release his seventh album, Dearest Life. Instead, he'south domicile in Nashville, and—for just a few moments each twenty-four hours—he'southward a "Male child in a Chimera." Coincidentally, Benson does experience similar he'south trapped in some sort of illusory, encapsulated dream, merely "Boy in a Bubble" is the moniker for his Instagram Live series, an essential reprieve from the coronavirus lockdown.

"Information technology'due south something to do every solar day and something to ready for," says Benson. "A lot of times, I accept to pick the song and learn it, and I become nervous, so it'south a kind of whole arc to my day. It'south a great style to break up the mean solar day and the monotony. If I didn't have this, I recall I'd exist going fucking crazy."

Benson, founding guitarist and co-writer for the Jack White–led troupe The Raconteurs, hasn't gone stir crazy (yet) thanks to IG live—broadcasting with special guests or just going solo—but being dwelling house with his seven-twelvemonth-old daughter Adeline and nine-year-old son Declan has its challenges.

"The rest of my family are going crazy. Kids need your attention mean solar day a mean solar day from the second you wake up, like, earlier you wake up."

He's living through what most parents are facing during the shut-in. "The residue of my family are going crazy," says Benson. "Kids demand your attention twenty-4 hours a 24-hour interval from the 2nd you wake up—similar, before y'all wake up. Nosotros're doing OK, though. Information technology's a good risk for us to get closer."

Playing tracks off Dear Life, also as older songs—fifty-fifty leaving his 1996 debut One Mississippi open for more exploration—Benson is merely warming up for when life gets back to normal and he can tour again.

His kickoff release since 2013's You Were Right, Dear Life is Benson'southward transfixion on domestic life, relationships, and the realization of his mortality. For nearly five years, Benson was hanging on to Dear Life since he started writing it. So, The Raconteurs regrouped, and he stepped back into the ring'southward third anthology—and first in eleven years—Assist U.s.a. Stranger in 2019. "I stopped, I did The Raconteurs, but I was actually anxious to get this tape out," says Benson. "So, this fucking virus hits."

The route leading to the anthology has had its U-turns and swerves. It was even birthed from a complete upheaval of Benson'due south Readymade Studios, which he started in 2012. When he was forced to vacate the studio afterward the building where it was housed was sold and converted into a parking lot, Benson was forced to pack upwards all of his equipment and put it in storage. Left without a identify to record, he created a makeshift studio in his home, at outset experimenting without guitar and drums and more software and drum machines, which all have their identify on Honey Life, dusted over sharp riffs and penetrating lyrics on the knowns and unknowns in life.

Sequenced by Jack White, Love Life drives down a winding route of reflection—practiced and bad, fear or moments of tranquility—that only Benson could steer, from frenetic opener "I Can If You Desire Me To" to the more elevated "Good to Be Alive."

Reflecting on family life, "Richest Man," which received an animated video treatment by New York cartoonist Michael Wartella, Benson confronts his fear of dying every bit matter-of-factly as he can singing "I gave you lot your proper name, just you gave me my life … And later I'thou gone, you'll carry on / And then you'll have a family of your ain."

Exploring domesticity and the delicacy of life, Benson covers all corners of emotion, gently crooning the title track through blusterous "Baby's Eyes," the latter the but Dear Life track that features a co-writer and outside musicians, including Dynamites drummer Jon Radford, and on to a more enraged "Freak Out."

Opening up most family, life, and expiry is likewise something new for Benson, but it's been lingering on his mind more since having children. "I don't think I always thought much about my bloodshed, and then it's kind of come every bit a daze I guess," he says. "When my kids were built-in, I call back, is when I started to fright death. I started getting afraid of leaving them. I was only confronted all of a sudden with, 'Holy shit, I'm not going to exist here forever.' Your kids continue growing up and they keep getting older. I'm seeing it and I'one thousand like, 'Stop!'"

He jokes that he'south aging slowly, but there'due south still a nostalgia every bit he gets older. Information technology's something Benson, now 49, just can't shake. "When you take a family, you start thinking about life and death and what happens when yous exit," he says. "I remember it'due south something that I'm even so thinking about. It'due south something that is new to me as well."

Departing from the cadre subjects, "Evil Optics" confronts a plethora of toxic relationships. "Let's only say information technology'southward a composite," says Benson. "Peradventure it's different people—not necessarily all female, or a girlfriend, either." On "I Quit," Benson borrows from Peggy Lee's melancholy 1969 hitting "Is That All There Is?" "It's sort of an homage, merely otherwise it'south merely one of those songs that kind of came out exactly as you hear it," says Benson. "There are no chord changes. It's just, similar, three chords over and over, and lyrics that are sort of improv or freestyle, and impromptu."

"I think I'one thousand half conscious when I'm writing songs. It's not like consciousness. It's similar I'1000 speaking in tongues."

Mostly, songs evolve over time for Benson since he says he'south non fully cognizant when he's writing. "I think I'thou half conscious when I'one thousand writing songs," he says. "It's not like consciousness. It's like I'm speaking in tongues. It'south non some sort of, like, meditative land where I'm channeling or tapping into my deepest feelings, and I understand it, and I tin sort of transcribe it in this poetic way. It'southward more often than not meandering thoughts."

Vocal meanings tend to come afterwards on. Information technology'due south as if he's unconsciously confessing or revealing things as he goes forth. "What's interesting about this record is that when I look dorsum on it, having been then out of it while writing it, it's all really kind of focused," says Benson. "It turns out it's a lot almost life and death and family, you know, and so I did it sort of unconsciously."

Writing for himself is i thing. He'due south acclimated to his own, internal cacophony of fragmented words and melodies. Unconscious or not, it's his ain sinuous process. He's tried working the Nashville co-writing matter but says he's not that skilful at it. "I don't retrieve people are using producers really anymore, so it simply doesn't pay the bills," says Benson. "I kind of screwed myself, because I left my solo career by the wayside."

Writing for The Raconteurs is another matter. "We're meant to write together," says Benson. "It's piece of cake. Nosotros don't talk about information technology. We don't analyze it. Nosotros merely know what sounds good, or cool, like, 'Oh yeah, that sounds like it belongs in the song.' [Jack] understands when I go meandering, and he gets it."

Now, Benson has a record he wants everyone to hear. "I'thou having to start over," he says. "The Raconteurs helps a fiddling, just it doesn't help as much equally people think, because people don't know me from The Raconteurs. They know Jack. Brendan Benson is non a household proper noun."

It's also Benson'due south first album on 3rd Man, which he says was a "no-brainer." He's not certain why he never worked with White'south characterization prior to Dear Life, simply admits he may have been too proud to ask. "I didn't want to ride his coattails, but information technology just makes sense now, considering in that location are no labels left," says Benson. "And he's actually adept at information technology."

Benson is ready for Dear Life, and admits that he hasn't felt this proud of one of his albums since 2002'south Lapalco.

"I recall I made information technology for all the right reasons," he says. "Those reasons were just for the fun of it, and the enjoyment of it, and the therapy of it—not because I had to contractually, or because it was expected, or that it's been too long since my last record. It only comes straight from the centre."

In the meantime, as he waits for the globe to open back upward, he'll remain a Male child in a Bubble.

"It keeps me sharp," says Benson of his ongoing IG Live sessions. "Normally when I go on bout I take to learn a agglomeration of new songs, or ones that I've forgotten. This way, I'g kind of just keeping them fresh. When nosotros leave of this, whenever this is over, or when things open up and we get out of jail five years from now, I'll be set up." FL

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Source: https://floodmagazine.com/77312/brendan-benson-is-holding-on-with-new-album-dear-life/

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