Raconteurs co-lead singer Brendan Benson is dropping his seventh solo album, “Dear Life,” on Friday, but there’s no doubt which one of his gigs has his heart.
“The Raconteurs is, like, my ultimate fantasy,” says Benson, 49, of the rock band he fronts with Jack White. “That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I always imagined myself being part of a band, probably the singer .?.?. playing rock music that’s really fun to play and fun to hear.”
But less than a year after the Raconteurs released “Help Us Stranger,” Benson is back on the solo grind with “Dear Life.” “It’s a lot of work being a solo artist. It’s a lot of work and not a lot of play,” he says. “I gotta do it all. In the Raconteurs, I can step back sometimes and take a breath — and I like that.”
Benson displays more of a power-pop sensibility on “Dear Life” songs, such as the singles “Richest Man” and “Good To Be Alive.” The latter tune is a dreamy ode to being — and staying — alive that has taken on new meaning in “the COVID-19 life now.”
“I didn’t plan on that song to be happening now during this [crisis], but in light of it, it’s interesting,” says Benson. “You can play that song right now, and it’s very pertinent. I like when a song can sort of bend a little bit and take on new meaning.”
Benson released his first solo album, “One Mississippi,” in 1996, but his career took a fortuitous turn when he saw the White Stripes — the “Seven Nation Army” duo featuring Jack and Meg White — play for the first time in his Detroit hometown.
“I actually saw their first show at the Gold Dollar,” he recalls. “I was there to see some other band, but I was just floored by them. I had some friends who knew [Jack], and so I was like, ‘Yo, introduce me, ’cause that guy’s f–king dope. I gotta know him, and I gotta write with him.’ And so I just kind of made it my business to do that.”
After meeting White, Benson invited him over to his house. “I said, ‘Why don’t you come over to my place because I have a recording studio in my house and I’d love to record you?’ And so the next day, he and Meg came over, and we just kind of hit it off.”
But it wouldn’t be until years later that Benson and White wrote their first song together: “Steady, As She Goes,” which was released as the Raconteurs’ debut single in 2006. After making the band’s first album, the Grammy-nominated “Broken Boy Soldiers,” Benson then moved to Nashville with the rest of the Raconteurs. “We all bought houses and stayed,” he says.
Benson still lives in Music City with his wife of 10 years, Brittany, and their two kids, son Declan, 10, and daughter Adeline, 7. But there’s a part of him that will always belong to Detroit, where the Raconteurs made “Broken Boy Soldiers” in his attic in the summer of 2005.
“It was hot as s–t, but it sounded really good,” says Benson. “So we stripped down to our undies. We were, like, rocking out in our undies. But I don’t think Jack wears undies. I think he might have had to borrow a towel or something. It was awesome.”