Online Exclusive: Tour Talk

Jack White and Brendan Benson of the Raconteurs

Touring with: Kelley Stoltz
Tour starts: July 16th in Denver

You pulled out a new song at the New York show a few weeks back. Do you have a bunch of songs you're going to be play that aren't on the album?

[Brendan] There might be, yeah, if we feel like it, but the problem with it nowadays is that the Internet pretty much ruins that type of fun. You can't really do that. We did that -- we played so much live in England that by the time the album came out, it was like, 'Oh, these aren't the same as the ones we heard.'

[Jack] But it's like, 'Yeah, if it was back in the day, you wouldn't have heard them at all.' That's the joy-slash-pain of living in the age of the Internet, you can't really do everything you want to do because you kind of distort yourself if you do too much, because everything is instantly available worldwide. Times have changed. Back in the day, if you went and saw the Who, you didn't know where they were playing the next night or the night before or what the set list was. Now, you look out in the crowd, and everyone's filming you.

[Brendan] A sea of cell phone lights. How romantic.

Does that make you want to switch it up more from show to show?

[Jack] It makes you want to safeguard what you have ready to come out next time. It's hard to play songs from the next album, the ones we have cooking now, because it would almost feel like you were throwing them away, because of the Internet. What can you do, you have to make decisions based on what's smart. There were times when we bumped into each other, me and Brendan, on tours and stuff before this album came out, and we'd say, 'Let's play "Steady, As She Goes" onstage,' but it wouldn't have been a good idea.

In these latest rehearsals, have things popped up that seem new compared to what you were playing onstage in the shows you already did?

[Brendan] Yeah. All the ways we're playing the songs, they already aren't like the album anymore, and they're going to keep changing over and over again. I can only hope for that. I think everyone else in the band hopes for that, too. The last thing I want to do is play songs like they are on the record.

Next Tour Talk: John Mayer