According to the band's official website, "The seed was sown in an attic in the middle of a hot summer when friends Jack White and Brendan Benson got together and wrote a song that truly inspired them.

The Raconteurs' full-length debut, Broken Boy Soldiers, was recorded at Brendan Benson's in-home studio located in Detroit.

The first single was "Steady, As She Goes/Store Bought Bones" and was released as a limited-edition 7-inch, 45 rpm vinyl record in Europe on January 30, 2006,[8] and in North America on March 7, 2006.

The Raconteurs first performed live at the Academy in Liverpool, UK, on March 20, 2006, launching a short British tour.

In November 2006, the Raconteurs played eight dates as the opening act for Bob Dylan on the Northeastern leg of his U.S. tour.

On November 3, 2006, the Raconteurs performed the song "Store Bought Bones" and the title track, "Broken Boy Soldier" on Later with Jools Holland.

According to Planet Sound (who had reporters in attendance), during "Store Bought Bones," White's guitar malfunctioned and they had to re-play the song.

They have also performed an old Blues song written by Big Joe Williams in 1935 (popularized by Van Morrison's "Them" in 1964), "Baby, Please Don't Go."

[9] The intro and ending of "Steady, As She Goes" is often used to play out Saturday Live, a long running radio programme on BBC Radio4.

"[12] On April 17, 2010, Benson and Keeler performed Raconteurs songs as The Racontwoers at Jack White's Third Man Records venue to coincide with a repressing of Broken Boy Soldiers on copper-colored vinyl.

In April 2012, Third Man Records released two songs that were supposed to appear on Consolers of the Lonely: "Open Your Eyes" and "You Make a Fool Out of Me".

[16] Benson and Lawrence joined White onstage during the encore of his January 28, 2015 concert at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TN.

[17] On October 8, 2018, Third Man Records announced a deluxe reissue of Consolers of the Lonely through the label's Vault quarterly subscription service[18] would feature two newly-recorded songs, "Sunday Driver" and "Now That You're Gone", on an accompanied 7-inch vinyl.

Musical collaborators included Dean Fertita of The Dead Weather and Queens of the Stone Age and Lillie Mae and Scarlett Rische of Jypsi.