It’s been a little over two months since The Raconteurs released Help Us Stranger, their third album overall and first in a decade. It’s been quite a comeback summer for the rock outfit made up of Jack White, Brendan Benson, “Little Jack” Lawrence and Patrick Keeler: 2008’s Consolers of the Lonely and 2006’s Broken Boy Soldiers both peaked in the Top 10 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, but Help Us Stranger scored No. 1 spots on the Billboard 200, Top Rock Albums and Rock Album Sales charts (in addition to the top spot on Rolling Stone’s new Top 200 Albums chart) as soon as it hit the racks.
The band also made its return to the stage, beginning with a well-received set at the 10th anniversary party for White’s Third Man Records and including a three-night run at the Ryman on Labor Day weekend. They also stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday, where White jokingly referred to the group as “The Back-on-tours” in an interview that you can see above. He and Brendon Benson sat down and talked with Fallon about the album’s conception, the band’s hiatus — not a break-up, to be clear — and an illegal FM transmitter they used while making the album. The whole group (augmented by keyboardist Dean Fertita) took the stage to perform two songs from the album: Below, see the Benson-penned “Only Child,” and below including “Only Child,” as well as the song that sparked the album, the piano-driven “Shine a Light on Me.”
There are still plenty of U.S. dates left on The Raconteurs’ US Tour, which you can find on the band’s website. You can also stream the album on all platforms, buy a copy just about anywhere you find music — or, if you want to be really authentic, you can go to the storefront at Third Man’s Nashville headquarters and get the album straight from the source.
