Brendan Benson Breaks our Hearts
By Auren Suicide
Jan 24, 2006
Brendan Benson is rummaging though a bunch of jackets at an empty bar in Silverlake, CA. 'I need my thing' he keeps saying, and apologizes twice for holding us up. 'Here’s my thing!' Finally he smiles, very relieved to have found his first of about a trillion cigarettes.
Brendan is a classic heartbreaker; what's more, this boyish man (or mannish boy) with blonde curls to spare has never written a bad song in his life. His most recent album, The Alternative to Love, is out on V2.
Brendan Benson’s official website.
Brendan Benson: I’ve just been recording in the van, with one of these between my legs, [takes my digital recorder and holds it between his knees]; I’ve been playing, trying to get ideas down.
(L)Auren Suicide: No way!
BB:
Yeah. I’m pretty familiar with these.
AS:
Is that how you usually write? While you’re on tour?
BB:
Yeah, I went through a creative burst, or spurt, or whatever you want to call it just recently and everyday when we got in the van – this was in Europe – when we got in the van, in the morning, I was just writing like mad, for hours. So now I’ve got a ton of material. I’ve got like sixty songs.
AS:
Sixty!?
BB:
They’re all at various stages of completion. I’m thinking maybe I’ll put out a double record or something.
AS:
Well, that would make a lot of people very happy.
BB:
I've actually heard that it’s sort of foolish – well not foolish – but if you put out a record with fifteen songs on it you’re not collecting [royalties] for five of those songs. [dramatic pause] Okay, I totally don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m in way over my head with this. [laughing]
AS:
[laughing] Well, it sounded good! So, I got One Mississippi [Benson’s first album, released on Virgin Records, 1996] when I was in high school and lost my mind. I had never heard anything like that besides The Beatles or The Beach Boys, stuff my parents had played for me. It was the first time I had heard anything melodic in any sort of modern context.
BB:
And it’s all happy…
AS:
[laughing] Yeah! And it felt so right!
BB:
How old were you? What were you into at the time?
AS:
I was...[we are interrupted by a guy bringing ice backstage and taping an note to the counter that says ‘Brendan Benson’s Wine’]
BB:
Um, is there like, somewhere private we can go?
AS:
[looses train of thought] Um...
BB:
What were we talking about?
AS:
Oh yeah, in 1996 – I was sixteen and I was just really into all that punky girl music that was really popular. I don’t know what it is, you get into high school and all of a sudden you’re like ‘I’m very angry!’
BB:
Right, right!
AS:
Kids really identify with those feelings.
BB:
[laughing] Totally! I was the same way.
AS:
What were you listening to at that age?
BB:
I was also listening to a lot of punk, DC Punk. It was tough and that made it exciting. Some of those records I can’t listen to now, some I can. [more loud noises] We keep getting interrupted, it’s our thing.
AS:
We have a thing! So...
BB:
I was like that too coming out of punk music – I heard The Kinks, Village Green, Todd Rundgren and The Turtles, stuff like that, The Zombies. Of course I was also turned on by the chords I didn’t know. I had learned how to play all these punk songs, but then these songs had, like, major seven chords, minor chrords and stuff that I didn’t know at all. Just a different vibe. And The Beach Boys, too. The California stuff I didn’t know at all. My life changed.
AS:
So how long did you work on One Mississippi for? ‘Cause I heard that you made The Alternative to Love very quickly.
BB:
Yeah, I did. Well One Mississippi gets kind of complicated because first I recorded it first with [solo artist] Jason Falkner – you know Jason?
AS:
Yeah!
BB:
We went to New Orleans. It took about three months down there and in the end I decided that I didn’t like it, so I scrapped it and started again and made it in about a month in San Francisco so it’s kind of hard to say how long it took. It’s just that Jason had a real heavy hand in it and it sounded more like Jason. So I thought, I can’t do this, I can’t put it out. I mean it’s a good record...
AS:
Oh my God! Yes!
BB:
Well, this version, I mean Jason’s version [laughs].
AS:
I would love to hear that.
BB:
I would love to put it out. But Virgin [Records], they say they lost the tapes.
AS:
Conspiracy!
BB:
[laughs] I think they just don’t want to go look for it. You know?
AS:
You own those songs though?
BB:
Yeah, I mean I think – here I go in territory I don’t know again – I think they own the tapes. I couldn’t walk in there today and take the tapes and put that record out without their permission.
AS:
And then you went to Startime [indie label, released the critically-acclaimed Lapalco in 2002] and then finally on to V2 where you are now. Those are crazy-different labels you’ve jumped around from.
BB:
It’s funny because Startime is like the tiniest [label], I mean it’s run by one man, but he handles it so well, he’s so efficient and productive it’s just impressive. And then you have V2 which I think is like a small major or a big indie, they're not quite huge. But also they are like…it’s kind of like Keystone Cops.
AS:
[cracks up]
B [laughing] You know what I mean? So yeah, they are very different, but maybe not in the way you think like ‘tiny label, big label.’ Virgin was a big label. And comparatively, actually not that big! In retrospect back then I thought it was this huge corporate thing. I actually had a choice. I was contacted by Virgin, Columbia and Atlantic. I chose Virgin because they were the smallest and they seemed into it. They were less corporate then the others. I went to meetings at Columbia in New York. It was this skyscraper, I couldn’t relate, I was terrified. And then Virgin was just in, like, Beverly Hills, a really small complex. Everyone was cool and young.
B [laughing] You know what I mean? So yeah, they are very different, but maybe not in the way you think like ‘tiny label, big label.’ Virgin was a big label. And comparatively, actually not that big! In retrospect back then I thought it was this huge corporate thing. I actually had a choice. I was contacted by Virgin, Columbia and Atlantic. I chose Virgin because they were the smallest and they seemed into it. They were less corporate then the others. I went to meetings at Columbia in New York. It was this skyscraper, I couldn’t relate, I was terrified. And then Virgin was just in, like, Beverly Hills, a really small complex. Everyone was cool and young.
AS:
But then right after that what happened? I mean, I didn’t see you tour for One Mississippi.
B I didn’t. Well, I did, but no one saw me. We played little bars and we sucked. I sucked. And I got friends to play and they weren’t always very good, they were just, you know, friends. People stopped coming to the shows. Well, the fans came but the people in the business stopped coming. It was like ‘wow, you need some work,’ which I did. I could barely stand up and play the guitar. I was signed based on a tape that I gave them, I had never played these songs live. And I hadn’t played live since high school - small shows, little punk shows.
B I didn’t. Well, I did, but no one saw me. We played little bars and we sucked. I sucked. And I got friends to play and they weren’t always very good, they were just, you know, friends. People stopped coming to the shows. Well, the fans came but the people in the business stopped coming. It was like ‘wow, you need some work,’ which I did. I could barely stand up and play the guitar. I was signed based on a tape that I gave them, I had never played these songs live. And I hadn’t played live since high school - small shows, little punk shows.
AS:
I was actually going to ask if you’ve ever been in a band that wasn’t your name.
BB:
Yeah, I mean, but nothing you’d know. High school stuff. I wish this wasn’t my name. I didn’t want it to be. I didn’t know what to call it. I was in a panic. I had a month to figure it out [before The Alternative to Love came out], I just couldn’t think of anything good enough. In the end I was like, ‘fuck it, it will just stay Brendan Benson.’
AS:
Might as well.
B I’m sorry I did. I think it’s a turn-off. I mean the name itself is kind of hard to remember, hard to say.
B I’m sorry I did. I think it’s a turn-off. I mean the name itself is kind of hard to remember, hard to say.
AS:
Um, no. No it’s not.
BB:
[laughing] Ok, yeah you’re right. And I think being a solo artist is not very advantageous. People just think, ‘oh singer /songwriter’ or ‘folk guy’ or whatever.
AS:
Right.
AS:
Which I’m not, I mean…I don’t think…at all.
AS:
I think you’re pretty rock.
BB:
I just think I write songs to be played by a band. I’m not, like, pouring my heart out or saying I have a message. I don’t sing or play guitar very well. It’s got to be the whole thing, you know?
AS:
It’s funny that you say that because I think the definite perception about your songs is that you’re pouring your heart out, like, all the time, that’s like across the board – people who know your music really well and people who don’t.
BB:
It’s true. Just 'cause I think a lot of times my songs tend to be about girls. Or they look at titles of songs, or the title of my record having ‘love’ in it. I think people then just assume or kind of guess ‘it’s just some real heartfelt confessional’ or whatever. I mean sometimes it is confessional but most of the time its just stream of consciousness, words that rhyme [laughs].
AS:
The lyrics are so crazy and random but then all of a sudden it feels like ‘oh okay that’s what going on.’
BB:
That’s how I feel too! I don’t know what’s going on and then it’s like suddenly ‘ok this makes sense’ or I’ll just think of something that makes sense. I mean, thats how it is for me. I don’t know really.
AS:
Yeah.
BB:
It’s coming out of me and I don’t know what it means.
AS:
I think it's so cute, and it just ends up working in the end and it feels so real because it is real.
BB:
I don’t think ive ever heard anyone call my music cute before.
AS:
Stop it!
BB:
No, im serious! I like that – that’s cool!
AS:
Oh my God, it's so cute.
BB:
I'm serious. I mean it would be different if a dude was saying that.
AS:
[laughing] Well it’s got some of the best hooks ever. Do you feel that there is sort of a desire [amongst your fans] to keep you as a secret?
BB:
Yeah, I think that’s a common thing. No one has ever said that but I have gotten that impression – they would be sorry – a lot of them would be kind of pissed or resentful if I became popular or more successful. I've seen it happen with other bands too – like The White Stripes. I saw that audience desperately holding on, clinging to them, and it was not a pretty sight [laughs]. I was on tour with them at the time when they were just sort of breaking and we were opening up and the audience was so tense and sort of not very nice – there was like the front part of the audience, the die hard fans, and there was this tension between the people up front who were just bitter and kind of jerky. I hope they don’t feel that way about me.
AS:
Even if you’re not singing about girls, the way that your songs make people feel…I think everyone should have that.
BB:
Wow, thanks. Thanks a lot.
AS:
Hey, and I hope you like the SuicideGirls book! [a gift from Missy Suicide, also a fan]
BB:
[smiles] Oh, I’m sure I will.
AS:
There are some naked girls in there.
BB:
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