How did three separate projects — The White Stripes, The Greenhornes and Brendan Benson — merge to create The Raconteurs?
It was all at Greenhornes shows. We started playing shows together. Before The Raconteurs, I was a huge fan of Brendan. Once we met we became friends, so I was hanging out with him a lot. Same with Jack. I think one weekend The White Stripes weren’t doing anything and it was like, “Let’s try this.” And we just kind of made a record. We didn’t sit down and plan out a band. It just happened. Respectively, The Greenhornes are rooted in a more independent market, whereas The Raconteurs are considerably more mainstream. Was it a difficult transition to make? We haven’t played shows in probably five years. We stopped touring when The Raconteurs started only because we wanted to take a break anyway. “Little” Jack and I were busy and Craig had some other stuff he wanted to do. But leading up to The Raconteurs, we had gone on a pretty long, extensive tour with The White Stripes around the world. So I think it was kind of, like, a nice way to ease into it. And then going out with The Raconteurs
