THE UNOFFICIAL WHITE STRIPES FAQ Version 6

The FAQ that USA Today calls "exhaustive" and currently the only FAQ on the White Stripes. Actually I can't say 'only' anymore...theres a couple others out there...but they just steal the work that I rightfully stole from others.

Maintained and Updated By: Twitch.

Ok, here is the sixth update to the White Stripes FAQ. Obviously this is the definitive source of information of the band, which rings even truer with all these fancy writers with research budgets and book contracts running around these days. I've just compiled info from a multitude of interviews, articles, and many people encountered along the way who could help out. Special thanks to Johan (Astro) for basically doing the entire release info section as well as the great members of the Little Room that send me info all the time. And please keep in mind,

this will always be a work in progress. Of course I am open to suggestions about additions / corrections to the FAQ. You can submit them to me at the following address: xtwitch2000@aol.com

CONTENTS: SECTION 1 - CURRENT INFO
1.1 When is the new album coming out?
1.2 When are they going to play in my town?

SECTION 2 - BAND INFO AND HISTORY
2.1 Who is in the White Stripes?
2.2 What are their date of births?
2.3 Are they brother or sister or husband and wife?
2.4 Jack and Meg's history up to now.
2.5 Jack's Upholstery Shop Days
2.6 Have they ever thought of adding another member?
2.7 How did they come up with the name The White Stripes?
2.8 Is that the only colors they wear?
2.9 Jack's fascination with the number three
2.10 What are "Candy Cane Children?"
2.11 What is the Third Man that I see in a lot of their liner notes?
2.12 Who are they dating?
2.13 Do The White Stripes smoke or do drugs?
2.14 The Bands Political Stance
2.15 How does the band feel about bootlegs and Napster type sites?
2.16 I Heard From Ben Blackwell that the band was breaking up!
2.17 Jack's car accident
2.18 The Jack and Jason fight
2.19 Jim Diamond suing the Stripes
2.20 Jack and Meg's On Tour Survival Guide
2.21 Jack's Malt recipe
2.22 Meg's Grandma's Corn Souffle
2.23 Jack's interest in Taxidermy
2.24 How do I contact or meet Jack and Meg.
2.25 A Little About Their Contract
2.26 Is the band online?

SECTION 3 - THE LIVE EXPERIENCE
3.1 What are the current tour dates?
3.2 Do the tickets ever sell out?
3.3 Are the opening bands scheduled typically worth it to see?
3.4 A list of known opening/headlining bands for the Stripes:
3.5 How long is each show?
3.6 Does the band stick to a set list?
3.7 Does the band allow taping at the shows?
3.8 Is there any place to find setlists for particular shows?
3.9 They played some song I've never heard before - what was it?

SECTION 4- SIDE PROJECTS & MISC.
4.1 What other releases do Jack and Meg appear on?
4.2 Loretta Lynn's Next Album
4.3 Becks Next Album
4.4 Brendan Benson project
4.5 Cold Mountain
4.6 Cold Mountain Soundtrack
4.7 Mutant Swinger From Mars
4.8 Coffee and Cigarettes
4.9 Rosemary's Baby
4.10 Nobody Knows How To Talk To Children
4.11The White Stripes Movie
4.12 The Michael Gondry DVD
4.13 The Gap commercial
4.14 The Nissan sponsored Union Square gig
4.15 The Virgin phone fiasco
4.16 Tampon Lawsuit
4.17 The Stripeout Game
4.18 TV Appearances
4.19 When are they going to be TV again?
4.20 Songs used in the movies
4.21 Newbie Concert collecting guide
4.22 Import versions of the albums
4.23 Unauthorized releases
4.24 The Books

SECTION 5 - INFLUENCES
5.1 Influences by Jack and Meg [From Mojo issue 106]
5.2 Son House
5.3 Blind Willie McTell
5.4 Blues Music
5.5 Jeff Beck
5.6 The Rolling Stones

SECTION 6 - SONG INFO
6.1 The ever growing list of cover songs
6.2 What does ______ song mean?
6.3 Unreleased / unrecorded songs
6.4 Other bands covers of White Stripes songs
6.5 Other cover bands and releases

SECTION 7 - VIDEOS AND AWARDS
7.1 Death Letter Video
7.2 Hotel Yorba video
7.3 We're Going To Be Friends video
7.4 Fell In Love With A Girl video
7.5 Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground Video Interpretations
7.6 Seven Nation Army video
7.7 I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself video
7.8 Black math video
7.9 Hardest Button to Button video
7.10 Portland Oregon Video
7.11 Miss Being Miss Video
7.12 Jack's finger surgery video
7.13 Nominations and Awards

SECTION 8 - THE RELEASES
8.1 Let's Shake Hands
8.2 Lafayette Blues/Sugar Never Tasted So Good (double B-side single)
8.3 Flying Bomb X-mas Surprise Package Vol.2
8.4 The Big Three Killed My Baby
8.5 The White Stripes
8.6 Multiball Magazine #19 single
8.7 Hello Operator
8.8 De Stijl
8.9 Lord. Send Me an Angel
8.10 Party of Special Things to Do
8.11 White Blood Cells Bonus Tracks CD-PROMO
8.12 White Blood Cells
8.13 It Takes Two, Baby PROMO
8.14 "3" CD-PROMO
8.15 Hotel Yorba CD-PROMO
8.16 Hotel Yorba
8.17 Hotel Yorba CD
8.18 Fell In Love With A Girl CD-PROMO
8.19 Fell In Love With A Girl
8.20 Fell In Love With A Girl CD1 (White cover)
8.21 Fell In Love With A Girl CD2 (Red cover)
8.22 Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground CD-PROMO
8.23 Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground US-Radio CD-PROMO
8.24 Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground
8.25 Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground CD
8.26 Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground DVD
8.27 We're Going To Be Friends US-Radio CD-PROMO
8.28 Red Death at 6:14
8.29 Merry Christmas from the White Stripes
8.30 Elephant Sampler PROMO
8.31 Elephant
8.32 Seven Nation Army US-Radio CD-PROMO
8.33 7 Nation Army
8.34 7 Nation Army CD
8.35 I Just Don't Know What To Do with Myself CD-PROMO
8.36 I Just Don't Know What To Do with Myself
8.37 I Just Don't Know What To Do with Myself CD
8.38 I Just Don't Know What To Do with Myself DVD
8.39 The Hardest Button To Button US-Radio CD-PROMO
8.40 The Hardest Button To Button DVD-PROMO
8.41 The Hardest Button To Button CD-PROMO
8.42 The Hardest Button To Button
8.43 The Hardest Button To Button CD
8.44 Jolene Under The Blackpool Lights CD
8.45 Jolene Under The Blackpool Lights 7"
8.46 Under The Blackpool Lights DVD

SECTION 9 - TECHNICAL INFO
9.1 Jack's Instruments
9.2 Meg's Instruments
9.3 Various other equipment
9.4 The Triple Tremelo

SECTION 10 - RESOURCES
10.1 Where can I find out more info on the White Stripes?
10.2 Where can I buy White Stripes merchandise?
10.3 Where can I find tabs of their songs?
10.4 Where can I find the lyrics?



SECTION 1 - CURRENT INFO

1.1 When is the New Album coming out? [top]
No official word on a new album but there have been some hints that recording may start sometime early next year. Jack has hinted that he's started writing - "I wrote a song yesterday, the last couple of weeks, i've just been endlessly thinking about this title: Let's Play the Victim. I definitely have a lot, a lot of songs together for another White Stripes album. I just don't know when we're gonna record it yet. I just have to take a break from the band for a second, because it's just been consuming -- all-consuming, you know? I need to take a step back, and get reinspired, and take a breath."

Meg: "We've been thinking a bit about what we might do on the next album, but we never plan too far ahead or work out a concept. We just go into the studio, play the best we can and let the songs shape the sound of the album."

JW: I've been writing a lot at home. I finally got a little hand-held recorder to start recording my ideas whenever I think of them. I kept thinking of melodies and then forgetting them. I finally got smart and bought a recorder. It's nice that way - you remind yourself. There was one song for this new record, there was a melody I'd been whistling, two years ago I whistled it for like a week. I kept trying to whistle it to remember it. That was how I used to do it. But I forgot it completely after that, suddenly I was at a friend's house, and it came back. I whistled it again. I couldn't believe I'd remembered it from two years ago! So I think that's turning into something really interesting now. It takes a while.

Don't worry…we got the DVD and Jolene single to hold us over until they go back into the studio. During the recent string of shows no new material was played, which was typical of past tours and how we first heard titles like Hypnotize and Ball & Biscuit.

1.2 When are they going to play in my town? [top]
Check www.whitestripes.com or www.whitestripes.net for any new tour info.


SECTION 2 - BAND INFO AND HISTORY

2.1 Who is in the White Stripes? [top]
The group consists of Jack (aka John Anthony Gillis) and Meg White. That's it.

2.2 What are their date of births? [top]
Jack - July 9th 1975
Meg - December 10th 1974

2.3 Ok, the million dollar question, are they brother and sister or we're they married at some point? [top]
Holly Golightly: “They’re brother and sister as far as I’m concerned ~ and husband and wife.”

Jack: "Some people come up to us and say, "God, you guys really look like you're brother and sister." And we say, "That's because we are!"

Officially, the pair are the youngest two of 10 children. Alternatively, one John Anthony Gillis and Megan Martha White were married in 1996, then divorced four years later. Once this rumour seeped from the Detroit grapevine - fueled by a story in the Detroit Free Press that casually mentioned the "fact" of the pair's marital status, along with documents that appeared on the internet, purporting to be the Whites' marriage and divorce papers - it was all anyone wanted to ask them about.

Jack: "There was a lack of information coming from us, but a lot of need for copy. The one thing the fucking media hates is not being able to dissect someone, so that every little part of their existence can be written as a soundbite in a paragraph. What they want is, 'Jack White, 26 years old, likes race cars and soccer, grew up in the inner city of Detroit and is now top of the world. Can't stand chocolate ice cream.' Everyone wants the inside scoop. No, that's not what you need to know about, that's got nothing to do with the music we make. What we create, you can talk about. What the songs are, how we present them live, and what the aesthetic is, art-wise, to what we're creating. It's the same thing as asking Michelangelo, 'What kind of shoes do you wear?' It doesn't really have anything to do with his painting. In the end, it doesn't really matter, because I always think, in 20 years' time, the only thing that's going to be left is our records and photos. If we're doing something meaningful with those, that's what will live for ever, so that's what's really important."

Jack: "We will be brother and sister till the day we die,"

Jack: “Everything apart from the music is a trick.”

2.4 Jack and Meg's history up to now: [top]
Jack grew up in a large catholic family with ten siblings in the southwest Detroit house of one of Detroit's worst neighborhoods. He attended a mostly black high school, but he didn't embrace the prevailing hip-hop music. "I had too much pride to say, 'OK, I'll just like what everybody else likes so I'll have more fun.' I wish I had, I would have had a happier childhood. People have been asking about my childhood a lot since! It was a pretty normal childhood. I was very, very shy. But back then, I was shy to the point where I didn't speak. [laughs] I guess I'm just not so good at socializing. Other than that, it was pretty normal." The house he grew up in is "a wooden house, three floors, I think it was built in 1911 - my whole life I grew up here."

While a music student at Cass Tech in 1992, John (Jack) Gillis landed an apprenticeship at Muldoon Studio, an upholstery shop run by family friend and hobbyist drummer Brian Muldoon. At no fault of his grades, he did not last long in college, “I thought people would have grown up some by the time they go to college, but it was just full of jerks. People had the same attitude they had it high school. Small-minded stuff. Nobody was serious about what they wanted.”Some of Jacks older brothers, casually performing as Catalyst kept the house full of music and instruments which is probably which led to an environment ripe for a young Jack to start learning drums and eventually guitar. "I was a drummer for a long time, from 11 on. About 15 or 16 I picked up the guitar - I used to play guitar with my friends after school. We'd record Bob Dylan songs on 4-tracks. I remember when I first started playing guitar, I was like, "I never want to be a guitar player," because everybody on the block plays guitar. Everyperson! You know, how are you gonna stand out? You're just gonna be one of a million people. I hink being a drummer is the best thing for a guitar player. People like Eddie Van Halen and Dick Dale started out as drummers, and look at them. It just puts you so in tune with rhythm and changes. And all those rhythms start coming out through your hands when you're playing. It's a great thing. When my parents moved out, they left a piano and I taught myself how to play it. I don't really know what it is I'm doing."

Meanwhile Meg grew up in the suburb of Grosse Pointe. Meg used to bartend at Memphis Smoke, a barbecue restaurant in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak. "I could never do an office job. The only job I could think of was one of those Elvis impersonators that drops from a plane.”At this point Jack had started his own upholstery shop, Third Man Upholstery - which he once bedecked in just two colors. "Everything was yellow and black, all based off of my hand tools." Jack had also become close friends with Megan White, a Grosse Pointe native still living on the east side. They would marry in 1996 in South Lyon, and Jack would take his wife's surname.

The following timeline is a bit shady because Jack was with multiple bands during certain periods, so if I have any mistakes just contact me and let me know. Jack: "I was a drummer from the time I was five till I was 20’s. I started playing guitar when I was a teenager 'cause I got a hold of a four-track and I wanted to be able to play drums to something. I taught myself guitar just so I could record something to play drums to. And I just ended up learning it." The earliest band of major importance that Jack seems to have played for as a guitarist was Two Part Resin, "and we only played out one time" Jack says. Brain Muldoon: "He told me one day he was starting to play guitar. Within a year, he got really good. At the time we had another kid from Cass Tech -- Dominic Suchyta -- and we played together. Then Dominic went off to school in East Lansing, so Jack and I went on as a two-piece, from the fall of '93 through '96. It was just the two of us -- guitar and drums." They ended up releasing a 3 track album under the name The Upholsters in 2000, long after The White Stripes formed. Jack: "It was a 2-piece, too. We had to stop because the drummer couldn't play out anymore. He didn't have time. So one day my sis comes up when I'm practicing one time. I said, 'OK, sit behind the drums.'" Though she had next to no experience on the instrument, the two penned Screwdriver before the day was out, and they decided to keep at it. It sounded really nice. "We were just messing around, kind of as a joke, but it ended up being perfect. She played like such a child; it was something fresh. Coming from that Upholsters thing. That was like a full on drummer, to someone who played so childlike, like Meg does, that was nice." "The legendary story is, one day, Meg just sat down at the drums while Jack was playing guitar and they started playing `Moonage Daydream' by David Bowie or something like that," says Greg Baise of Detroit club the Magic Stick. "That's the thing -- the people making this kind of music, they ain't chops-oriented. It's all about the feeling. It's all about the feeling. So much of the stuff is self-taught; so much of the music they're creating can't be taught. It's people making the music they want to hear. It's raw and intuitive. It's not technical, and it shouldn't be."

So on Bastille Day, 1997, the White Stripes were formed. As for their first show, an opening gig with the Hentchmen - Jack:"It was at this place called the Gold Dollar [in Detroit]. They had an open-mike night, and there was only, like, ten or fifteen people there. We played three songs, one of which was "Love Potion Number Nine. We were shocked that people dug what we were doing. When me and Meg started playing in Detroit, we didn't have any friends. And we thought people were going to hate us. We started going to shows and met people into sort of garage rock. And they seemed like real obscurest, real record-collector-type people. When we first played we thought, 'aw, we're not doing any particular thing.' But people immediately loved us. The first show--I couldn't believe it. And all of a sudden we had friends and people to talk to." Meg: "We did our first show two months after I started playing drums."

During the same period Jack joined The Goober and Peas which was fronted by Mr. Dan Miller. The band went through about 11 different drummers, and at one point good ol' Jack "Doc" Gillis was banging away in the background. Dan Miller: "With Goober & the Peas, we knew we'd be touring a lot, so we wanted someone whose personality we liked, too. Jack was a lot younger than we were. He wasn't the most technical drummer, thankfully -- not a Neil Peart-ish drummer. Everybody in the band was like, "Wow!" It was great to see somebody with that kind of passion for music. His instincts were really great. I think it was a good thing for him just to see what it was like to be in a band that toured -- and probably see what kind of mistakes we made. I do remember the first show when he played drums: For an encore he came up and sang some Elvis song. People where just shocked by his passion for it." Jack: "At 18, I started playing these coffeehouses, and I remember there was a moment when I sang 'Blue Moon' the way Elvis Presley did it, and I suddenly saw people paying attention, there were girls in the back that were getting kinda dreamy about it. At that show, I thought that if I wrote my own songs and people still connected, that would be better." Dan Miller: "I know one of the things that was frustrating for him back with Goober & the Peas is he'd want to change songs night to night, even as the drummer. But that's hard when you have five people in the band. That's one of the great things about the White Stripes, because he can change keys in a song. He and Meg are locked in. From early on, they had that down. He was always passionate about keeping things fresh, keeping the inspiration. If we practiced a song a few times in a row, it would be played three different ways. And maybe one way would be horrible, but at least he took the risk of trying something that came into his head." With the disbandment of Goober and the Peas he continued on with Dan Miller in the Detroit country group called 2 Star Tabernacle, who released a single with R&B shouter Andre Williams, songwriter of such classics as Shake a Tail Feather and Jailbait. Jack plays piano, dobro and handles some of the back-up vocals on the Ramblin's Man 7 inch.

Almost simultaneously, White was spotted at a 2 Star Tabernacle show by members of the Detroit band The Go, who were looking to expand their ranks. "John and I (Harlow) saw Two Star Tabernacle one night. Jack was laying back playing great guitar, singing harmonies with Dan Miller. He just had a great stage presence -- he looked really cool, he looked comfortable. He wasn't a phony at all. I said to John, "Let's go up front and look at this guy." Dave Buick had already put out a White Stripes single at that point. Dave and Jack were buddies. Later, Jack was over at Dave's house, so John and I went over there: "Hey, Jack, we've got a question for you --" And Jack said "Yes, already, yes, absolutely, wanna join, count me in." We said, "All right!" Within months, the Go became the preeminent band on the downtown Detroit scene, attracting the attention of Seattle's Sub Pop Records, former home of Nirvana. Jack White performed on the Go's debut record before splitting from the band. Jack: "I was only there a few months, but I got to be on the first album. All I had to do was just play lead guitar solos and stuff. I didn't have to do anything. The songs were written and I just played along. The White Stripes were getting pretty popular, and people were coming to see the Go and saying, 'Oh, there's the guy from The White Stripes. It was taking away from the personality of the band. I wanted to do both. So I quit 2 Star Tabernacle, and The Go sort of kicked me out." "It was a matter of whether Jack was going to be on the [Sub Pop] contract. Basically, if Jack had signed, that would have meant Sub Pop would have rights to the White Stripes stuff as well. It seemed like a bad idea. Jack had established the White Stripes as something. He was teetering--'Should I sign, should I not?' He decided no... Jack is one of the most talented guitar players I've ever met, and I have nothing but respect for him. To have a focused vision like Jack does, there's no way he can compromise that. Nobody could step in and say, 'I think you oughta play like this, Jack.' It would be an insult, really." -Harlow

At this point the White Stripes was 100% of their focus and the rest is history. Jack: "We went out playing clubs in Detroit for a while, and ummm … a friend of ours was in a band. So he had given our CD to [Sympathy for the Record Industry guru] Long Gone John. Jack: (re: Long Gone John of SFTRI) "Steve told him, 'There's this two-piece band in Detroit, it's a boy and a girl, and they're brother and sister.' And John said, 'Who sings, and who plays drums…?' Steve told him, and John goes, 'Aw, it would've been better if it was the other way round!' When he heard my voice, he said, 'Fine!'" John liked it so we ended up making a couple of CDs and we were with him for a while. Then we were being pursued by bigger labels and we chose to sign with V2 Records because we had been having distribution problems, you know? I mean, when you go to towns and people say 'Hey, I can't get your record,' it's a bit of a problem. But it all just sort of happened. We never really sought out any major labels." Despite their divorce, the band remained intact and released its most immediately accessible album to date, De Stijl. It's unclear precisely when they began to call themselves brother and sister, but by the time Rolling Stone declared them one of 2001's "Next Big Things" the charade was on. Now with the release of Elephant Jack and Meg have achieved a wider audience as well as recognition for their unique sound.

For more concrete and concise information just go buy one of the books that have been released on the band. I would suggest Fell In Love With A Band by Chris Handyside.

2.5 Jack's Upholster Shop Days: [top]
Jack: "I reupholstered furniture the whole time I was a teenager, so those were most of my jobs. I had my own shop - Third Man Upholstery - that was my most memorable, because it was my own business. It felt good that at the age of 21, I owned my own business. I had something to fall back on if I was ever to fail at anything else, which probably was going to happen. It was hard for me. I was an apprentice for years, but when I opened my own place, I just didn't have that love for money that's necessary to run a business. I was so into the cartooniness of it." He would end using a familiar color style for the shop - "Yellow, white, and black. All my tools and everything. I delivered in a yellow van. But I don't think people dug it. I had these cards-it was "Third Man Upholstery," and my slogan was "Your furniture's not dead," and it had a bloody upholstery tag on the card. I used real red paint, and I sprinkled it on each business card. The people getting their chairs upholstered are like old ladies, and they were like, "What the hell is this?" I was broke all the time. " Dave Buick (Founder, Italy Records. Released first White Stripes singles): One time me and Jack and Greg, my roommate, went to dinner; we came home and my dog Barkie had chewed my couch -- a big hole. Jack was like, "Hold on, I'll be right back." And he went to Brian Muldoon's house and came back and fixed the whole thing. This was like a year ago -- he'd already been on the cover of magazines. And he still reupholstered my furniture.

Jack: "I was an upholsterer. I worked at a bunch of upholstery shops the whole time I was a teenager. I ended up having my own upholstery shop, called "Third Man Upholstery. I apprenticed for this guy named Brian Muldoon in Detroit for three years or so. Then I went out to the suburbs, and I worked in a big shop called "Beaupre Studios." Then I worked in a couple of other little places, for a few days at a time. I finally got a little studio and opened up my own place. I was working on sculptures, too, in the same space. I wasn't really business-minded, though. I didn't really have a love for money, which kind of hurts the drive to keep working. I would get a check for something and I would just say "Oh," you know, "Big deal, I'm just going to use this to pay bills or something." I never really loved the money part. I guess it started to hurt my business attitude. I wanted to work on more mid-century modern things like Noel and Herman Miller furniture when I first started apprenticing, but it's the most difficult upholstery you can do-I wasn't experienced enough to get into that yet. Also, the person I apprenticed for in Detroit had the market locked down and I didn't want to compete with him, so I was mostly doing antique furniture, you know, people's settees and chaise lounges and stuff like that. The clientele is mostly older people who could actually afford it, because it's pretty expensive. I initially thought I could hook up my friends with cool furniture, stuff they got at Salvation Army, but I couldn't afford it. It's very much a dying trade. If you're an electrician or a plumber, you can get work on every house on the street. With upholstery, though, especially in Detroit, you have to get all your business from the suburbs. It becomes a specialty thing, because nobody really needs to get it done, like they used to. Back in the day, you needed to get it re-upholstered, but now it's like, "Why would I bother? I'll just buy something real cheap." I would go pick furniture up and take it back to the studio. My whole shop was only three colors: yellow, white and black. I had this yellow van, and I dressed in yellow and black when I picked up the furniture, and all my tools were yellow, white and black. It was pretty cool. I got so much into the cartooniness of the business, almost to the point of it being a joke to the people who would see me, and they wouldn't really trust me to do a good job."

Jack: "I starting trying to make an art form out of giving someone a bill for my services, like writing it with crayon on a piece of paper, or having a yellow piece of paper with black marker saying "You owe me $300." People would be like "What the hell is this?" and I'd be like "I don't know, I just want you to sign this and give it back to me and pay me, and that way I can have it as a... um..." People just didn't dig it. It was two different worlds colliding. When I'd re-upholster furniture I'd take off the old fabric and I started to write poems and things inside the furniture, so if it was ever re-upholstered again one day they'd get little messages from the last person who upholstered it. I thought it'd be cool if we all wrote each other messages."

Jack: "My business cards were yellow, black and white. Each one had an upholstery tack on it with red paint that looked like blood. My slogan was right below it: "Your Furniture's Not Dead." Most people didn't think it was funny. The guy I used to apprentice for, he saw the card and was like, "Do you want anybody's business?"

Jack: "I got this yellow Ford van at a used car place that was like $1200 bucks, I had someone loan me the money. That van was the best thing: I already had the yellow and the black hand tools and power tools, so once I had that, I was set. I built a fabric table that I'd seen at an upholstery shop I worked at. It had Styrofoam underneath the cloth of the table and you could pin the fabric down right to the table so you could measure things perfectly. I built one of those with my older brother. It was yellow and black, just huge and really, really nice. I have it in my basement now. When I closed the shop down, all of that stuff ended up in my basement."

Jack: "At one point I thought, "Well, while I have my own shop I should really get into every mode of upholstery I can and learn what I can about everything," so I remember calling up a bunch of places that were upholstering coffins, three or four in the Detroit area. I called them all up and they just would not hire me. I was like, "I'm an experienced upholsterer and I've been working in the trade for years," and they were like "Why do you want to upholster coffins?" They thought I was some sicko or something, but I wanted to learn that part of the trade because there are certain techniques used in tufting and working with silk in coffins that you don't get to do in regular upholstery, but they just wouldn't hire me. They were like, "You know, a lot of this stuff is prefabricated and we just glue it together when it gets here and you don't want to work here."

Jack: "I think I learned a lot as an upholstery helper. It's such a perfectionist trade. Someone pays $1,000 for a patch and if there's a pucker in the fabric, that's all they're going to see."

Jack: I was an upholsterer, and I worked at upholstery shops for a long time. Once, while I was still an apprentice, there was a piece of fabric wrapped around a couch, and my master had put one staple here, one staple here, one staple there. And I was just sitting there looking at it, and I thought, Wow, that would be the most minimal way to upholster this piece, with one staple in the middle and one at both ends. That's, like, the least amount of upholstery work you could do and call it upholstery. And so I just started wrapping everything I did around three colors; when I started my own upholstery shop, everything was yellow, black and white, and all my tools were yellow, black and white. It ended up being just this great box to keep putting myself in.

Jack: “I didn’t have that thing for money like other upholsters did. I couldn’t stand that. Hey I charged some jerk $500 for a $300 job, attitude. I wanted it to be more than that. I didn’t know how to trick people.”

JW: Another thing I'm working on now is a really interesting project. I worked with this guy Brian Muldoon at his upholstery shop, and we made a record, a 45 we put together as The Upholsterers. We're gonna do another record on Ben Blackwell's label, Cass Records, and this record's gonna be a 45. Brian's had his shop for 25 years now, and Gordy Newton - Cass Recorder artist, CR was right here in the 70s it was a big deal, they had this great artist GN - he did my amplifiers, I don't know if you saw them in England. Oh no, you didn't see them, we never brought them over. In America we had these amplifiers he did. I lacquered them all up with resin and cut them up with sawblades, and he put chairs inside them and Brian upholstered them. He's going to do the covers for this 45. (To Meg) I don't think I told you about this did I? It's for Brian 25th anniversary, and it's gonna be only 100 copies, and they only can be found inside the next 100 pieces he does - the next 100 things he re-upholsters. Only in there - and there'll be no other copies for sale anywhere. Interesting, huh?
MW: How are you gonna get them in there so they don't break?
JW: Oh, there's plenty of places. Like the outside arm or the outside back, you can put it in between, it won't break. It'll be nice. Brian's excited that people will be breaking open the back of a couch so they can grab it or something.

2.6 Have they ever thought of adding another member? [top]
Aside from the occasional guest spot on their albums the two seem to be pretty settled with the two-person setup. Jack finds it advantageous to be playing with just Meg, "it's really good - we have a good communication between us which helps us figure out what we want to do. Because there's just the two of us in the band it means the music is less structured and can be more 'on the moment' so to speak. We can be very honest, and even if we scream and yell at each other we'll still love each other. It's like some songs don't need to have bass and some don't need all that drumming. In art, knowing where to stop is so important. I'm still learning. I'll see some bands that'll start out with drums, then they'll add bass. Then they should probably stop (laughs) most times. But then they get another guitar and keyboard player, etc. Then you're like, 24, 36 tracks, and you can keep going and going and going. It's scary. [It] would break up the thing of vocals, guitar and drums. Somebody else there would bring this fourth component. If you're going to have four components, you might as well have 20, y'know?"

Jack: "The whole concept of the band from the beginning was all that we were all about what not to do. Why be repetitive? Why have two guitar players? Why have a bass player playing the same thing as the guitars are playing? Let's break this down as much as possible and still be rock and roll. Let's show what two people can do, yet revolving everything around the number three: Vocals, guitar, drums. Melody, storytelling, and rhythm. Red, white and black. Let's confine and constrict ourselves, and live inside of a box and have there be rules. A lot of time in modern music, there have been no rules. I think people just enjoy the opportunity of having no rules and can do whatever they want to do. Having a huge budget or unlimited time or tracks to make an album, all that opportunity robs you of a lot of creativity, because you're not focused or confined. We purposely confined ourselves to help us be more focused. I don't know why it works on the radio or on MTV or on a stage in front of 80,000 people. It seems like there should be more going on. We've always gotten along really well, and the important part of a two-piece band is that there isn't a third person to take sides and cause dissension." It seems live they have experimented with occasionally bringing out a guest during some live performances.

Jack: I've played White Stripes songs with other drummers at my house, and it just doesn't feel right.I think that there's definitely this communication with me and Meg that has always been there, where nothing needs to be said about what we're gonna do.

Jack: Meg's never had goals of being Neil Peart or anything, and that's what I love about her. What she does is just so simple and child-like. You couldn't take a male drummer and ask him to do that; he wouldn't be able to do it. And I've tried; it doesn't work. There's a band in Detroit called the Gories, and they have a gift drummer that uses just two toms and a tambourine duct-taped to the tom. That's it, and that's all it needs to be. And you know, people can't criticize that. You can't criticize Moe Tucker for not being Carl Palmer.

Jack: When Meg and I were starting out, we thought the best thing about our idea was that it would put off some people. They'd walk into a show and say, "Okay, it's a brother and sister, it's a two-piece band, everything is red, white and black, and there's peppermints, and okay, it's all just gimmicks." And we thought that's great, because it weeds out people who wouldn't care about the music anyway. If we were up there in street clothes like everybody else, we'd be making the same decision that a million other bands have made. Instead, we figured some people would really love what we're doing after the first song, and they wouldn't notice those artistic aspects of the band anymore. They'd be there just listening to the music and the storytelling. And that was our goal. We figured that if those people could get past the out- ward trappings and get to the music, then they were in there kind of for life.

In a couple rare instances of bass Steve Damstra of the Whirlwind Heat played bass during The Big Three Killed My Baby at the 11/30/03 show and members of the Flaming Lips helped out on a couple tracks on New Years Eve 2003/2004.

2.7 How did they come up with the name The White Stripes? [top]
Jack: "Meg loves peppermints, and we were going to call ourselves The Peppermints. But since our last name was White, we decided to call it The White Stripes. It revolved around this childish idea, the ideas kids have - because they are so much better than adult ideas, right?"

Ben Blackwell: When I first heard about them naming the band the White Stripes, I thought people were going to think they were a skinhead band. Originally they were tossing back and forth the names Bazooka and Soda Powder, so after hearing the other names they had come up with, the White Stripes didn't seem so bad. Meg came up with it, and the story about them getting it from the candy might be true, but they also had some old bricks in front of the house in the garden that said "White" on them, and that might have had something to do with it. That whole first year, every single person misprinted the band name -- it was always "White Stripe" or "White Strike" or "White Strikes." It never got printed right, for a whole year." Ben Blackwell: "They were opening for Two Star Tabernacle and were misbilled that night as the White Lines. Of course, that wasn't as bad as when they played the Magic Bag one night and were billed as the Light Strikes."

"I put out the first two singles. That whole first year, every single person misprinted the band name--it was always 'White Stripe' or 'White Strike' or 'White Strikes'. It never got printed right-for a whole year." -Dave Buick, Founder, Italy Records; bassist the Go

2.8 So is that the only colors they wear? [top]
Arthur: "You're not representing the band if you go out wearing a yellow t-shirt!"

When they play live they pretty much stick to the red, black, and white. But obviously this is not the case in more other environments. Jack: "And we thought it would be a good stage aesthetic to dress in the colors of the peppermint, so that people would think like kids when they saw us, or at least remember who we were. I think it's the best color combination of all time. It's just more powerful. For some reason, it just makes people think about stuff. Say someone says, 'Wow, I really like your red pants.' It just seems to me that if I was wearing green pants, people wouldn't come up and say, 'Wow, those are pants.' There's nothing special about them. They're just old senior citizen pants. There's just something about the color. It's very interesting for us to work on the appearance of the band, because it all comes off of this one theme derived from those two colors, with red standing for anger and white being innocence. It's a lot easier than a band where everyone wears jeans and T-shirt. Everyone can recognize a White Stripes record. Everyone knows there is something going on on-stage."

Jack: "When we played we decided we wanted to dress up in our Sunday best like a kid would. If you tell a kid that they are going to church, they'll always come down in a red outfit or something and be told 'No, you can't go to church in that'." You know I was really conscious of the fact that when a band goes up on stage, in like street clothes they're making a conscious decision to wear that on stage, but there is a visual aspect to a show. People are watching. You could compare that the way we wear white and red peppermint candy as a symbol of the band. It's the same if you choose to blast blue lighting on the band or anything, it all affects how you feel when you watch a band, like if you just turned up the lights at the bar and down at the stage that affects your perception of a band. You know, now there's bands dressing up as cowboys, bands dressing up as lounge acts (sighs). And if we had to make a choice, I wanted it to be something simple like that. Something where someone could see a cover and say, "oh, that's a White Stripes record" right away, I mean, I won't go dressing up as a chicken just to get people's attention."

Jack: "Yeah. Anything involved in presenting yourself onstage is all a big trick. You're doing your best to trick those people into experiencing something good, something they haven't thought about before or haven't thought about in a long time. I'm doing my best to be that vaudeville trickster, to help that happen. But the image stuff all stemmed from the music-just the childishness and how it relates to anger and innocence and these colors and what they mean to us, and us being children together. It all comes from that childishness, really."

JW: It's kind of funny. The last couple of weeks, how many things I've seen - Black Eyed Peas wearing completely red white and black outfits, Lil Jon the rapper was on MTV Awards the other day, I saw that when I was flippin' channels - wearing all red white and black. The new Green Day album, all the artwork is red white and black. The Lenny Kravitz album, the same. Go to a record store, it's all like that. There's two car commercials out right now, one for Honda where the car is made out of red white and black Lego (laughs) there's another ad where the car is spinning, a total rip-off of The Hardest Button to Button video. It's hilarious. People say like, well, you guys don't own those colours, but look at this thing with cars made out of red white and black lego. A friend said to me, Whatever, Jack! Then I was talking to Michel Gondry a week later and he said, Oh yes, zey asked me to direct this commercial! Hahaha, see? Told you! I knew they got their ideas from somewhere!

JW: If you can't get past the stage of, Oh, this is a gimmick. OK, if you think it's gimmick, you're not possibly gonna be able to come any deeper with us. So It's good. It weeds out people who wouldn't care anyway. Then, if you wanna know what the truth is, ask the little kids watching the band, and see what he thinks. I venture a guess he's gonna have fun.

Jack: “Someone will say, Hey why not cause a storm by wearing green one day? I mean why? Why would we do that? Wearing red and white has meaning. Wearing green for a day would just be so bourgeois.”

Jack: "they're the colours of anger and innocence."

2.9 Jack's fascination with the number three: [top]
Jack: It's actually all based around the number three, even though there's two of us.It's vocals, guitar and drums, and then rhythm, melody and storytelling.

Jack: "The first time it hit me, I was working in an upholstery shop. There was a piece of fabric over part of a couch. The guy I was working for put in three staples. You couldn't have one or two, but three was the minimum way to upholster something. And it seemed things kept revolving around that. Like, you only need to have three legs on a table. After two, three meant many, and that was it, you don't have to go any further than that: the three components of songwriting, the three chords of rock'n'roll or the blues - that always seemed to be the number."

Jack: "Three can be translated in so many ways. There's the trinity in Christianity, and objects in the world: a traffic light. A table can have only three legs and stand up. Or a wheel on a car can have only three nuts to hold it on. There's a definition about that." The biggest occurrence is in The Big 3 Killed My Baby, "it's three chords and three verses, and we accent threes together all through that. It was a number I always thought of as perfect, or our attempt at being perfect. Like on a traffic light, you couldn't just have a red and a green. I work on sculptures too, and I always use three colors. I don't know. It has that feel to it, everything we do. It just seems like the perfect connection. There's vocals, drums and guitar."

A side-note to this, traditional blues songs have three lines per verse, which The White Stripes obviously exemplify in many songs.

Jack: "What's always been a question for us is: If we're breaking things down, how simple could they be? It seems to revolved around the number three -- songwriting is storytelling, melody, and rhythm, those three components. If you break it down but you keep the three components, then you have what songwriting really is, without excess and overthinking."

The Liner notes of Elephant also have every three highlighted in red instead of the normal white font.

Also - if you ever get the chance to get an autograph from him he will usually sign it "Jack White III"

2.10 What are Candy Cane Children? [top]
This is just a term used to denote a White Stripes fan. You can also find the song, Candy Cane Children on the Flying Bomb presents Surprise Package Volume 2. This is a 7' vinyl release. It has also been released as another 7" ( "Merry Christmas From… The White Stripes") recently and can probably be found a your local record store.

2.11 What is the Third Man that I see in a lot of their liner notes? [top]
The Third Man is Jack White & Twirlyred is Marcie of the Von Bondies (she is also one of the bacteria on the cover of the CD). This name seems to pop up frequently in the Stripes arena. His shop was called Third Man Upholstery and he refers to himself as Third Man in the beginning of Ball & Biscuit. There is also a movie titled The Third Man which stars Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten. This duo also star in Citizen Kane, which is Jack's favorite film - so that might be the origin of Jack's interest in the reference.

Also Jack has named his record label 'Third Man Records' so the theme seems to be prevalent in a lot that he does. And the Under The Blackpool Lights DVD is credited to Third Man Films.

2.12 Who are they dating? [top]
A personal topic we would prefer not to touch.

Jack: No matter what goes on in your private life, people are gonna get interested in it in a gossipy manner. But 20 years from now, when you think about whatever is happening now, all you're gonna have is the music. People will say, "What about the Strokes?" and all you're gonna have is the Strokes' album. And you'll listen to the Strokes album, and that's their music and that's what they did, and that's all that you know about it.

2.13 Do The White Stripes smoke, do drugs or drink? [top]
Well considering that they have appeared in a film based around people chatting while drinking coffee and smoking cigs it's not hard to determine that they smoke. Also most interviews refer to this often and they can be seen almost chain smoking in a little pre-tour documentary that's circulating around.

On the front of drinking…they're adults…they have some drinks from time to time. It's not a big deal…it's not like they're going on weekend long binges like Lennon ala the "Lost Weekend."

As for drugs - all reports seem to point to a clean bill in this department - a story has circulated about Jack throwing out an interviewer who casually broke out a joint - so that's a good hint at his stance.

And here's a funny story about Jack meeting Donald Sutherland on the set of Cold Mountain: Jack: "We were on this lot out in the country; he was about 30 feet away and I said hi to him. I'd heard that he was really anti-smoking, 'cause he has allergies. I said hi to him and he didn't say hi back. I turned around and walked away, thinking "That's weird he didn't say hi back. Oh, I'm smoking. He's mad that I'm smoking." He came around the corner and said "Jack! Are you still smoking?" I threw the cigarette away and said "nope." He says "C'mere." I thought he was going to yell at me for smoking but he gave me a hug."

More recently it seems Jack has given up smoking:
JW: My voice was getting really really bad. I was losing all the high end. I'd heard some old tapes of us play, and I was really disappointed in the way I couldn't hit these notes anymore. I didn't know what to do. I didn't wanna stop. I started to notice when I was playing with Loretta Lynn, I was playing her songs for the band in that range, which I would normally have been able to hit those notes, but I couldn't do it at that point. It was like this consistent bronchitis over and over again. It just would not go away. Sometimes it would go away for a week, we'd be on tour and I'd sing really great and then it would come back for six months. I couldn't do it anymore. It's too important to me to keep messing with the vocal chords like that. So that's really the only reason.
MW: Right before we were leaving for the festivals, he sang Jolene, and it was like, Wow! I hadn't been able to hear him hit the high notes in that song forever without having trouble, so it's good.
JW: Yeah, it's nice now, it feels good to be back where I used to be, because there was always a little hindrance going on. I was ashamed because, in front of Loretta, I couldn't hit these notes. I think that's what really pushed me to it. It was just that shame that Loretta really didn't think I was a good singer.

2.14 The Bands Political Stance: [top]
There has been very little in the way of public statements regarding world issues, party affiliation or really politics in general. The band seems to think of itself as a musical force and not a pulpit to spread their own political ideals. Jack: "I was really political when I was a teenager, and I just stopped: stopped myself having an opinion about politics and opening my mouth about it."

Jack: “I have never thought that rock music can have a direct influence on anything in relation to questions about war and peace or famine. Perhaps it doesn’t any longer make a difference what other things they are concerned with. If the Beatles could not get us all to love one another, then how would the White Stripes be capable to do it?”

MW: Yeah, it's a rough time. I haven't seen people be so obsessed and upset in my lifetime, you know, about everything.
JW: I guess it's the same way in England too. When you belong to a political party, it doesn't matter if it's a monkey or Einstein who's the one running, you vote for him because he's a part of that party. It's dedication to your party not the person. It doesn't matter who it is, what the truth is. That's really sad, and it kind of goes across the board. I mean, don't people want the truth? Why wouldn't you want the truth? About anything?
MW: Because you can be lazy if you don't know the truth.
JW: I guess so. That's sad to me.
MW: That's what my Dad always told me, on the ballot, they should always have a third choice, like none of the above, then if enough people picked that, they'd have to get new candidates. I think there's a lot of problems with being a two-party system. But I'm not gonna get to do anything about that. It's pretty sad when you have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Recently Jack has altered the lyrics to The Big Three Killed My Baby live to reflect the political scene going on right now: "and bush's hands are turning red…and I found out your baby is dead." That's about as far as a statement that the bands made…take that for what ya will.

2.15 How does the band feel about bootlegs and napster type sites? [top]
Here's a few words from Jack regarding the file sharing sites: "I don't know a lot of time people come to our shows and say that's how we heard of you - which is nice that they wouldn't have heard of us if it wouldn't have been for that. But then also people say 'I got all your songs off of Napster' ya know, they didn't buy records. I would never do it cuz I like band artwork. I want the album and I want the artwork. But then bands like Metallica they've already gone platinum so they shouldn't scream about the money. Ya know how everybody says that? But those bands on our level with people getting it that way and not buying it - we could really use that money (laughs) I've never gone on there (to Napster)."

Here's a general rule one should always try to follow. Don't ever buy or sell concert cds, and don't just get online and burn their albums. If you can follow that then you should be fine. You don't be that guy that downloads all the songs and then burns it so you don't have to get the cd. If you truly support and love an artist then they are worth your money and could use a couple bumps up in the charts.

2.16 I Heard From Ben Blackwell that the band was breaking up! [top]
For a week or two during the summer of 2004 a small little comment by Mr.Ben Blackwell caused quite a stir…the band was breaking up soon! Oh my god! What are we gonna do!?!?! Calm down…chalk all this up to bad journalism and out of context quotes. Ben Blackwell: "What I said in the Kerrang interview was that if you ask people in England they'll tell you the white stripes are about to be done. I was kinda making reference to all the gossip and like that coming from the UK music press. I know well that it's not the case and that's why I said jack mentioned nothing to me about it. So I got semi-misquoted and it ends up everywhere. Let that be a lesson to everyone." Jack: "There's a lot of that going on but I don't know why that keeps coming up. There was a time when… it was The Beatles. 'How long will The Beatles last?'. John (Lennon) said 'I could be big headed and say it'll last ten years'. Well, we'll know when it's over. I don't think we're going to last ten years, I don't think Stripes will last 20 years. It's not that kind of a band where we have 5 or 6 guys, kick the bass player out and get a new member. It's only going to be me and her (Meg) in the band. At some point we'll stop, but we've no plans to now at all. I've got a lot of ideas for records for us coming up and the time off has been really re-inspiring."

JW: We would get asked that so much - Oh, I thought Elephant was going to be your last record. But I always hated that so much my whole life, when people faked their retirement. Like, Oh, I'm retiring, then they come out of retirement, and then they retire again... I hate that! I didn't want to do that, and I didn't want people to think that. I wasn't trying to get attention that way. I just meant that I didn't want to do the band for 20 years. Maybe that was it. Also, people were paying attention to us on the third and fourth album. They feel like it's day one, like you're starting. For you, it's been years.

2.17 Jack's Car Accident: [top]
The hearts of Stripes fans around the world skipped a beat on July 9th upon hearing the news of Jack White's car accident. Jack was making a left turn when another car ran a red light and struck the side of his car. Jack: "This 75 to 80 year old woman drove right out in the middle of the street, right in front of us. There was nothing I could do to get away from it. It was lucky that there was nobody seriously injured. The airbag hit my hands on the steering wheel. I didn't know about any injuries until I got out of the car and kind of looked around. It didn't hurt: it was more, 'That's not supposed to be bent like that.' It was bent in a really strange way. And it was shattered, from here to here [draws line along lower half of finger]. I immediately thought 'That's not going to be good, is it?'. It was a multiple fracture which means it didn't actually go through the skin but it shattered inside the finger. I can't write, I can't play piano, I can't play guitar, I can't do anything creative. I can't even tie my shoes. The airbag broke my finger when it deployed. Maybe I would have been better off without an airbag. But I wasn't too freaked out. I was OK with it. It was one of those things where your mind acclimates to whatever the situation is. It just sort of upset me that I had to stop touring and I couldn't write music or play guitar or piano."

A week after the crash Jack went to hospital for a progress report, which wasn't good. Instead of healing, the multiple breaks in Jack's hand meant the bones were pushing apart rather than together. Doctors inserted the three metal screws, which will stay inside his body for life. Jack: "They cut through the tendon to get to the bone, to work on it. We have three screws here [indicates triangle-ish shape on finger]: one going down and two going that way. These ligaments at the side are very sore. I can still feel the fluid and scar tissue. It's going to be a long time. And the screws are staying in there forever. They're very tiny. I got off with a warning." Because the crash took place on his 28th birthday he survived the "year of rock n' roll death", 27. At that age, stars including Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison all passed away. He wrote: "Hello candy cane children. I broke my finger, three breaks, car wreck, horrible left turn in front of me, no chance of escape, air bag, the air near my fingers, devil in my left hand, doctors say no way, lot's of pain, typing with one finger, made it through year of rock n' roll death, got off with just a warning. Apologies to those wishing to see my hand live, soon enough I'm sure, now me and Meg can share war stories, I love when we share, like once there was a monkey, and we shared the experience as children do."

Meg: "Because he couldn't use that finger to make chords, he had to maneuver around it with barre chords, substitutions or new arrangements. It took some time to deal with that, but he's doing much better now."

Jack: "It may require more surgery, they're saying."

2.18 The Jack and Jason fight [top]
I feel its been long enough to add this…since it's all blown over and no major damage was done. If you don't know what I am talking about- here's the basics of the story. While attending the album release party for Blanche at the Magic Stick on December 13th 2003 - Jack White and Jason Stollsteimer (singer of the Von Bondies) got into an altercation. This happened sometime during the Brendan Benson set and has had numerous stories, opinions and ideas thrown out from just about everyone. Whatever the specifics…Jack was brought up on charges of assault and was released on bail for $100. The case was didn't amount to much and both Jack and Jason have gone their separate ways…

JW: That's what I was talking about as well. In the end, what happens? He did all that to promote his new album. That's what it was all about. It was about promoting his band, and living off of our kindness, once again, the attention he can get from using us. He used us in a good way by being our friend. Then used us in a bad way by stabbing us in the back. So what happens to someone who uses people in the end? His album sells two thousand copies or whatever, and nobody's going to care next year. He's forever gonna be known by his own exploitation (laughing). How do you rise above that? You can't rise above that because it's all negative. There's nothing negative from me. All I can do is defend my own honor, I guess. There's nothing else I can do. The way I see it, the more I talk about it, the more he gets what he wants. That's the problem, the whole time. That's why I never said anything, because it was giving him what he wanted, which was attention for his band. Their old manager said something in an interview someone read to me, about him wanting to exploit the situation, and use it to his political advantage. The manager of his band said that! Someone told me the other day, a friend of his - an eye doctor looked at Jason and said, There's nothing wrong with you, and he then flew out to find some other eye doctor to say that he had permanent eye damage.

2.19 Jim Diamond Suing the Stripes [top]
In more recent controversy...it seems Jim Diamond, formerly of the Dirtbombs and head of Ghetto Recorders studio has hit the Stripes with a little lawsuit. Jim claims he collaborated and co-produced with Jack and Meg on sessions which became the duo's debut album. Diamond is looking for royalties in relation to the sessions, "ownership interest" in relation to the master recordings, and an entitlement to future profits. White Stripes' self-titled debut album was recorded in Detroit in 1999. What is essentially a Copyright suit, Diamond "...seeks to establish his rights to co-ownership of copyrights in various sound recordings" due to his contribution in "additional artistic suggestions, supervision and contributions. During the sessions, (Jack White) requested Diamond's assistance with production by asking Diamond to help identify, define, and capture the band's sounds and asking him to critique the band's performances." In short, Diamond's seeking to be considered a 'joint author' of the first album masters along with Jack and Meg White. Which in turn, would make him a co-owner of the copyrights of the recordings - allowing him a share of the royalties of the album's sales since the licensing agreement in 2002.

From a anonymous but reliable sounding source on MotorCityRocks it is stated that:
- jim diamond did not write a single bit of music on the first white stripes record.
-jim diamond didn't produce anything on the first white stripes record either.
-he was credited as co-producer in the liner notes of the album as a favor from jack white(begrudgingly) after jim diamond requested production credit AFTER the album turned out nicely in jim's opinion, while the band was working on the artwork. -the record sold only a few hundred copies when first released.
-jim diamond was paid his fee of $35 dollars and hour, for 48 hours of work in full.
-he presented a bill and he was paid for his work as ENGINEER on the record.
-he did nothing more than ENGINEER.
-there is a difference between engineering and producing.
-the white stripes are jack and meg white, not just jack white. jim diamond is suing the white stripes.
-jim has also sued the electric six and is also suing the mooney suzuki.
-the white stripes first album has not sold over a million copies worldwide.
-all of the white stripes records have been produced by jack white and the liner notes of each album state this.
-jim diamond is in no way responsible for the distinctive sound of the white stripes.
-jim diamond performed his job as engineer, which means to direct the sound of the recordings as prescribed by the producer, jack white. -the white stripes never asked jim diamond to produce their record.
-the white stripes have never attempted to take advantage of their friends, they have only tried to help them.

I would like to know who that anonymous poster was because they sound quite legit and knowledgeable on the subject…if it turns out to be all BS then I'll take down their comments.

The official statement from Monotone Management released this statement "Jim Diamond's case is without merit and his behavior is rancorous. The White Stripes intend to vigorously and successfully defend this action." Ok now back to more fun stuff…

NEW DEVLOPMENT! (well not really new since this whole section is new for this version)
The suit has been extended to the De Stijl album as well… For the record Jim is credited as producer and engineer on the self titled album and for mixing and engineering on De Stijl. The first album was recorded at Jim's studio but De Stijl was made in Jacks living room…

Jack: Jim Diamond suing us saying that he produced 'De Stijl' - an album I recorded in our living room by myself! (laughs) Some people, you realize that they're looking at it differently than we're looking at it. Hahaha. Fame and money, that is.

Jack: The only bad thing I can think of is our friends stabbing us in the back, left and right. A lot of our friends. That felt really bad. That was personal, but not in the big picture, I don't think. That's exploitation, they make things look worse than they are for their own good, for their own benefit, you know? That can only fall on their own heads in the end, not us. Because we love everybody, we're never out to hurt anybody. And if you're not out to hurt anybody, then you won't get hurt in the end. The truth is the truth. That's the truth. Meg is true. Meg has never done anything to anybody. How can someone like Jim Diamond sue Meg? Like, what's going to happen in the end? It's gonna fall on his head. It's gonna be not good. You get what you put into it. If you put love and respect into what you do, then you get it back from other people, I guess. It still feels like the best year for me, because it's just so jam-packed with so many things. There's so many things that happened.

2.20 Jack and Meg's On Tour Survival Guide: [top]
-Take as many CDs as you can because you'll get bored really fast.
-Whoever's driving gets to pick the music. We usually start out on the road listening to Beck's Midnite Vultures. But before we play, it has to be blues or AC/DC. On this one tour we must've listened to that song "Let There Be Rock" four times before each show.
-Bring a lot of pillows. Yout think you won't need them or that they're going to take up too much room, but then you always really want them the next day.
-Take games. We like to play this French card game from the '60s called Mille Bornes. It's about traveling more miles than the other player. You can also deal that person a car accident or a red light so they'll have to stop - it's kind of like Sorry.
-If you stay at other people's houses, you should always fold the blankets and leave them on the couch nice and neat when you are done. And in the morning, you have to go to breakfast with your hosts. Not like you have to, like it's a chore, but you should because it's a good thing.

2.21 Jack's Malt Recipe [top]
Jack: "one thing that concerns me however is the dying art of making a chocolate malt. i have to admit it is one of my favorite vices. but it seems that the days of the soda jerk being able to make a proper one in his sleep are long gone. so i will now list all of the known techniques to making a proper malt for anyone who is in a post ion to make it for others. the proper chocolate malt is as follows: VANILLA ice cream that's right VANILLA , you do not use chocolate ice cream for a chocolate malt. now if you can get past that very important step you are fifty percent there my friend. next you add chocolate syrup, fresh milk, and finally malt powder, lots of it. because if you don't add lots of it, it tastes like a shake, and that is not what i ordered! you have to have enough to give the malt it's "malt personality" if you will. and most importantly you do not mix it up until it's as watery as milk ( something they don't seem to understand in australia where i purchased three different malts at three different places only to be served something along the lines of chocolate milk, and it seemed they never heard of malt powder) you only mix the malt enough to get it through a straw, there should be a thick muddy feel to the malt, and a second helping should be served in a tin mixing cup along with the original malt in the glass. whip cream doesn't bother me, i can take it or leave it, but it is the dying art form of the malt maker/soda jerk that does bother me, i think we should all be aware of this and help to continue this dying, beautiful, comforting aspect of life, for our children if not for us ourselves."

2.22 Meg's Grandma's Corn Souffle [top]
INGREDIENTS: 1 16 oz. can of creamed corn
1 16 oz. can of corn niblets
1 box of Ritz crackers, chopped
1 egg

Mix creamed corn and niblets together. Chop crackers into little bits. Mix some of the crackers into the corn with an egg. Take the rest of the crackers and spread on top. Bake like a casserole for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. Meg: "It's awesome; the egg makes it solid and the crackers make it crunchy. Really good comfort food."

2.23 Jack's interest in Taxidermy [top]
Jack seems to also have a little fascination in taxidermy - which for those who've never heard that term, it means the preservation and stuffing of animals. If you've ever wondered why so many pictures of the duo have animals in them its probably just one of Jack's many creatures he's brought along for the photo session. Confirmed animals include a pig, a zebra head gazelles, a tiger, an eland, a kudu, and a giant white elk. Meg on the flip side does not seem to have this fascination which can be traced to Jack's upholstery days. After all, taxidermy is merely the refurbishing of animals….

2.24 How do I contact or meet the White Stripes? [top]
For most fan mail type requests it is suggested that you send mail to their management company - Monotone Inc. As far as meeting them - they are pretty much a staple in Detroit so if you live in the area its only a matter of time before you cross paths. But the best method seems to be the after show attempt. It might take a while for them to exit the venue after the show but the majority of people who have met them did so waiting by the tour bus after a show. Good luck!

WS Management Monotone, Inc.
8932 Keith Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90069

2.25 A Little About Their Contract with V2 [top]
Although I don't want to give any personal or financial details out…some of the points may interest some. Among the key points in the deal: It's actually a licensing arrangement via Jack White's cottage label, Third Man Records.
· It spans just the next two White Stripes albums. Standard major-label deals tie up acts for anywhere from three to seven albums.
· The band retains ownership of its master recordings--an arrangement almost impossible with major companies, and a major bone of contention between many artists and labels with an eye on growing digital distribution opportunities.
· The arrangement with Third Man gives Jack, in essence, an A&R and production role with V2, with opportunities for other Detroit acts he has been producing. (The first band signed was Whirlwind Heat)

"Initially, Jack and Meg didn't want to do any deal," says Ian Montone, the Stripes' Los Angeles lawyer, who has also been handling their managerial duties. "But presented with this, they were interested. And they really liked Andy. He understands where the band wants to go and wants to let them develop that." The attraction [to V2] goes beyond sales projections. "The [commercial potential] is a complete unknown, but you don't think about that with an act like this," Gershon says. "You sign them because of their knowledge of music, the fact that the three records they've done are amazing. They're proven. You want to put yourself in a position to succeed, and that overrode the money considerations. You don't want to put a band like this in a position where it needs to sell a million copies to recoup."

Jack: “A main factor in the discussion is that we have entered into a record contract which actually gives us total control over the music: I produce all the music, we totally do the complete album. The American and European record companies who represent us releases exactly what we have given to them. We are involved in all decisions regarding how we are presented. We even give them ready made covers.”

2.26 Is the band online? [top]
If you've read enough interviews of the band you can probably gather Jack's general distaste and loathing of most of what society calls great technological breakthroughs...including the internet. While he does dislike them he does post messages for the fans on the official site and has even held an exclusive Q&A session with the Little Room message board. But after about 4 years into the band I've never seen him surfing around and I doubt very seriously that his email address is anything that would be accessible to anyone but very close friends and family.

SECTION 3 - THE LIVE EXPERIENCE

3.1 What are the current tour dates? [top]
As stated earlier check whitestripes.com for any new tour info.

3.2 Do the shows typically sell out? [top]
With the worldwide popularity of the White Stripes some shows seem to sell out almost instantly. This is especially true if the band is playing in smaller venues. The best bet would be that if you know when the tickets go on sale - be in line to buy them immediately to ensure that you get the best tickets available and that you do not have to rely on scalpers to buy your tickets.

3.3 Are the opening bands scheduled typically worth it to see? [top]
The Stripes have had a wide variety of bands open for them - The Soledad Brothers, Whirlwind Heat, Von Bondies, Loretta Lynn and countless others. It's a safe bet to place your money on the opening band being worth it. It basically comes down to straight economics - you've already paid for a ticket so you might as well get your money's worth by showing up early and checking them out. You never know - you might find your new favorite band this way. Plus arriving early might ensure you a great spot really close to the stage…so it's a win/win situation for everyone! For a good list of past opening bands, check out this portion of whitestripes.net

3.4 A list of known opening/headlining bands for the Stripes: [top]
68 Comeback, Anomoanon, Bantan Rooster, The Bellrays, Blanche, Billy Childish & The Buff Medways, Brendan Benson, The Cheetahs, The Clone Defects, The Clutters, The Datsuns, Dead Meadow, The Dexter Romweber Duo, The Dirtbombs, Dura-Delinquent, Easy Action, Fez,Freakwater, The Gloryholes, The Gossip, The Greenhornes, The Hentchmen, The Hiss, Holly Golightly, Hot Hot Heat, Ima Robot, The Insects, Loretta Lynn, The Mind Chicks, The Mistreaters, The Motor City Cobras, Mt. McKinleys , Paper Tiger, Pavement, The Paybacks, Queen Bee, The Regulators, Royal Trux, Rye Coalition, The Shams, Six Finger Steamboat, Sixteen Horsepower, The Soledad Brothers, Street Walkin' , The Strokes, A Stoveboat, They Come In Threes , Tom Collins, The Von Bondies, The Waxwings, Wayne Kramer, The Whirlwind Heat, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Young Heart Attack

whew...and that's not even all of them!

For another resource on past opening bands, click here.

3.5 How long is each show? [top]
The opening band typically plays for around 45 minutes or so. Then you have a 30-60 minute pause where the stage setup is rearranged for the Stripes. Typically the White Stripes shows last anywhere from 70-95 minutes long. I have very few bootlegs that go over the 72 minutes allowed on 1 blank cd - but it sometimes does happen. Recently they've been playing for a bit longer though so its been shooting over the 75 minute mark…which is a good thing. Stop yawning…wake up!!!

3.6 Does the band stick to a set list? [top]
It is very rare to find two shows that are exactly the same. You will find that the band seem to follow a certain basic framework of a setlist and then move from song to song at ease with no intention of following anyone else's wants. Keep in mind that they love to throw cover songs into wherever they deem fit and segue from song to song within a single beat, so there really is no telling where the Stripes are headed. If you have hopes for a particular song to be played, its all a matter of luck. But you might just get a song played that is hardly ever heard or hear a new cover song that has never been played.

Jack: We just try to play things different every time. I want it to be a "moment" every night. It's hard, but I don't want people coming to a show and saying, Oh, that's the same show I could've seen if I went and saw them in Cleveland or Florida or something. I mean, what's the point? You might as well be like the bands that just go up there every time and play their songs the same way as they do on the album, and have the same set every night. I would be so bored with that. At the Grammy's, it was just this thing between me and Meg: "Okay, this is going to be the mood at this moment in the song." Whenever we play, we never sit down and say, "Okay, we're going to do this and this." It always just happens right onstage. Meg and I don't ever get nervous, but at a show like that, you just kind of assume something's gonna go wrong--like your guitar's gonna come unplugged or something. And then while we were sitting there waiting to go on one of my amps started feeding back for no reason. I wasn't even plugged in! So we had to hurry up and turn that one off and switch over to another other one. It was funny.

Jack: “If you’re coming to see us play it just like the record, then you’ll be disappointed, and you’ll miss out on a different experience. To play songs live exactly the same as we recorded them – it would be like looking at the band’s poster.

3.7 Does the band allow taping at the shows? [top]
There's no official word from the band on this. Although the fact that Ben Blackwell (Jack's nephew) collects Stripes bootlegs would lead one to believe that they are pretty much impartial to the distribution of their concerts. In this digital age it seems tough for any band to really eliminate this aspect of performance by their fans…a show has sometimes been online the following day after a show. Be weary though if you're going to a show with the intention of taping it. Some venues can be very strict in this department and will confiscate your equipment so please be careful. Just follow the simple rule of never buying or selling bootleg recordings. Its insane that people are making money off of simply recording a concert and charging people $20 to get it from them. If there is a show you absolutely must have, wait a couple of weeks and it will find it's way into the trading circles. Many people on the Little Room are very nice about spreading the wealth - best of luck.

3.8 Is there any place to find setlists for particular shows? [top]
The Little Room often has next day reviews and setlists of shows but ultimately the place I check and use as my main reference for past shows is the Expecting website. I use this site religiously and a lot of work has gone into it.

3.9 They played some song I've never heard before - what was it? [top]
Again check out Expecting. Aside from a great list of setlists it also has compiled all known information on every song ever performed live and in the studio. There are still a number of cover songs still a mystery to us and any new information is welcome. But if you were at a show and are uncertain of that random song Jack and Meg played this is the place to go.

SECTION 4 - SIDE PROJECTS & MISC.

4.1 What other releases do Jack and Meg appear on? [top]

Jack White ...
1. is in The White Stripes.
2. was briefly in a band called the "Walker-White Trio" with Johnny Walker of the Soledads Brothers and possibly Ben Swank. They played a show at the Gold Dollar, Detroit on the 24th of July 1999. No other information or any recording exists at this time.
3. was, at least for a short time drummer for Goober & The Peas. He was listed as Jack "Doc" Gillis. Most likely on the tracks "One Last Kiss," "Neighbors" and "Moanin'"
4. appears on Rocket 88 on the self-released Master Supertone CS by Soledad Brothers.
5. Produced the Soledad Brothers first album - self titled
6. Appears on Shaky Puddin' by the Soledad Brothers on the Sympathetic Sounds Of Detroit album.
7 appears on the Some Other Guy 7" and the Hentch-Forth 12"MLP with The Hentchmen (Italy Records, IR-004 and IR-008).
8. appears on Johnny's Death Letter by the Soledad Brothers, this song's on the Sugar & Spice 7" (Italy Records, IR-007).
9. was in 2 Star Tabernacle.
10. was in The Go and recorded an album with them.
11. is in The Upholsterers.
12. appears with The Hentchmen again. This time it's on the Ham And Oil 7" (Gas Records, 1999, GRS-109).
13. produced the debut 7" by The Von Bondies (D · wreckEd · hiT, 2000, DET.001).
14. mixed The Gospel According To John 7" by Soledad Brothers (Estrus, 1999, ES 7142). 15. comixed the Greenhornes 7" on Italy Records (IR-009).
16. appears as "John S. O'Leary" with The Wildbunch on Danger (High Voltage) (Flying Bomb Records, 2001, FLB-117).
17. produced, recorded and co-mixed the Sympathetic Sounds Of Detroit LP/CD (Sympathy For The Record Industry, 2001, SFTRI 623).
18. appears on Shout Bama Lama by The Detroit Cobras.
19. produced the debut-album and the 2nd 7" by The Von Bondies.
20. appears as "John S. O'Leary" with Electric Six on Danger! High Voltage (various releases).
21. produced the debut album by Whirlwind Heat.
22. appears on Thee Jenerators' first single called "Mystery Man."
23. Produced The Fells single "Close Your Eyes" (1998)
24. Appears on Blanche's "Whos to Say" (2003)
25. Guest starring on New York DJ Mark Ronson's debut album on the track 'Here Comes the Fuzz."
26. Appears on the Cold Mountain Soundtrack
27. Producing and performing on Loretta Lynn's next album
28. Appearing on Beck's upcoming album.
29. Is in the yet untitled and unreleased band with Brendan Benson

Meg White ...
1. is in The White Stripes.
2. appears on the debut album by the Soledad Brothers.
3. appears on the Soledad Brothers "Voice of Treason" album on the track "I'm so Glad."

4.2 Van Lear Rose: [top]
Well the albums out…go buy it if you haven't yet. It's a great album and a wonderful introduction to people who are unfamiliar to Loretta Lynn or country music in general.

The two immediately hit it off when they first met. Loretta: "The first time I met him [Jack] in Manhattan I was telling him I was getting ready to go in and do an album myself, He said, 'Well, could I go in and produce it?' I said, 'Why not?'" Jack: "I'd play tambourine on this record, if that's it, I don't care. I just want to be in the same room with her and to be able to work on this."

Jack: "I have no idea why they let me do that, we just hit it off. We became friends, I guess. The idea of a new record came up and I said I'd like to produce it if at all possible and they said, 'OK, let's try it out' and it worked. She wanted to make one final album, and I put my name in, and they let me have a chance at it. It worked out really well. Me and Loretta have become pretty good friends since last year, and I think we work together really well. Her songwriting is just brilliant. She pulled out all these amazing songs, some that were 30 years old and some that she wrote a couple of months ago. The recent ones are classics! It's just insane. And she sings better than someone in their 20s. She's just amazing. I wanted to cry when I heard these (new) songs. She's still writing amazing songs." The album "will be getting away from this horrible production of modern country music that I can't stand and getting down to something raw like she really is. We really hit it off', there's some kind of connection with us. I feel really comfortable with her and I think she feels really comfortable with me, which I'm really glad for, because I could see someone like me-the way I look or whatever-not being appealing or her thinking that maybe I wasn't down with the kind of music she does. She could tell that we have the same love for the same things about music'

The album was recorded in 12 days..Loretta: "I thought, 'Is this old house gonna fall in on us before we get out of here? We walked in, and this long, tall guy [engineer Eric McConnell] was sittin' at the control table. I noticed that he didn't have many controls - not even as many as I've got on my little [sound] board. I thought, 'Oh gee, this is gonna be good.' I started singing and you know, we just took off with 'em. From the first song, it was great." JW: She didn't really understand it at first. We picked this guy's house to record it in, to do it in a home. At the end of the first day, she took me aside and said, (Southern matron voice), Jack, did you know we were gonna record here? I said yeah, I picked this place Loretta. 'Aw, ok, I just wanted to make sure that you knew we were coming here. Within a couple of days, she grabbed my hand and said, Jack, I can't wait for this record to come out, it's gonna be so great. It was really cool, to see her so excited about music again. she got so excited so fast, you could see her brain working all day long, coming up with ideas. It was really cool. We recorded on eight track, I refuse to record on digital computers or equipment. If this equipment was good enough for the people and music I really love -- for Cole Porter, Hank Williams, the Beatles -- there's no need to go and do digital. It gives you way too much opportunity to overproduce."He wanted to keep the music"as real as possible, because that's what Loretta Lynn is."

Lynn was backed on the sessions by four musicians -- Dave Feeny, Patrick Keeler, Jack Lawrence and White -- she dubbed them the Do Whaters "because they got in there and did whatever we needed them to." Greenhornes drummer Patrick Keeler: "I never really thought about how big it could be or about a Grammy when we were making the record. I was only thinking about how cool the whole thing was. We've known the White Stripes for about six years. Our bands started out around the same time, and we got to be friends from playing shows together in Detroit. He has recorded our band before, and he likes the way we play. It was really exciting ... She's an icon. My mom's a big fan. I'm a fan, too. Not to the point where I have autographed collector's plates sitting around, but I have a few of her records. There was no direction at all. We would listen to her song, and we would go through and figure out how we wanted to play it. She would pretty much tell us to do whatever we wanted. That's why (in the album's liner notes) she called us the Do Whaters. She said we are gonna shake up (Nashville's) Music Row. It felt like you've known her a long time. She would work nine and 10 hours a day, and a lot of it was just sitting around and her telling great stories.

Jack: "I didn't want to overthink it, I didn't want to push it and try to perfect it. She sounds brilliant right off the bat. Her voice is gorgeous."Lynn: "I didn't know it was going to be this country, but it's country. It's as country as I am. I wanted to present each song the best way possible and bring out the character of each song. If it was subtle, it needed to be subtle. If she was belting it out, we needed to get intense with it."

Meg: "They did it down at Nashville. I didn't go down as I was busy at the time. But I've heard a lot of the stuff. It's really, really amazing. It's great! Loretta Lynn is a lovely person and an incredible musician. Jack put together the band for the Nashville session using the members of the Greenhorns as the rhythm section - my style of drumming wouldn't have been appropriate - but Loretta wrote all the songs herself. There are a few that date back to the 60s, but the ones she wrote two months ago are just as great. It's an amazing record."

And Loretta doesn't plan on retiring any time soon. She wants to record a religious album and a Christmas album - and she hopes Jack will once again be her producer. Even though their producing styles are different, she likens the young musician to her legendary first producer." You know, this kid is not very old, but he's older-acting. It's like he's been here many times. I see a little bit of Owen Bradley in him. He's great at the rock 'n' roll music, but I think he will probably be even greater at producing. I've got two more albums in mind, and Jack and I are going to do 'em together. When I'm on the road, I say to my fans: 'How many of you know The White Stripes?' And they applaud. Country people know him. Me and Jack are going to do a tour with the Do-Whaters, the boys that played on the album. I'll take my band out, too, so it won't be no big deal."

JW: She wants to do more, but I don't know if I can. She has run-ins with her health, and you know she's getting up there [age-wise]. But she bounces right back. She's so strong. She's a real fighter. She'll go into hospital, and come out two days later kicking and screaming. She cannot sit down, and cannot sit still. She constantly wants to go on tour and do things. She's never stopped since she started 40 years ago.

4.3 Beck and Jack [top]
In further collaboration news, it seems Jack White has helped a bit on Beck's still untitled eighth album. The had met at this years Grammy Awards where Beck introduced the White Stripes and even later appeared in the Hardest Button To Button Video. 'I'd like to do something with Beck sometime. That would be really nice. We'd be good together and record if we can both get a month off.... or five minutes off would be nice.' A song has already been recorded…no title is known yet or really any other information. I did talk to someone who heard a bit of it though…and they said it was amazing. But I'm sure you don't need that confirmation to buy the album…I mean it's Beck for christ's sake!

JW: I was just working with Beck a couple of months back. It's this song where I played bass and he played Fender Rhodes on it. We just started working on it. He had the Dust Brothers producing on it, and the studio wasn't really for me - it was just like, a computer. They know what they're doing, they're really good at what they do. Beck sent me the song not too long ago, and he's done some really cool things with it after I left. So that was cool, and I've been working on some other secret weapons and projects at home.

4.4 The Brendan Benson project [top]
Seems at some point Jack got to working with Brendan Benson on a project that turned quite serious and sounds like has the intention of being released at some point. The band is filled out with Patrick and Lil Jack of the Greenhornes so this is bound to be a badass album...

JW: We're probably gonna work with Brendan Benson, record at his house. He lives really near by me, I like recording with him. I don't really have any other predetermined things about the record at all. All I could really do is hum you some songs. But I don't know, we might be done in the next couple of months. We might go in, When I say, done, it's not like we're gonna go in and work on it forever. I'm sure we're gonna work on writing some more, and go in there for a week or something. I don't know when that'll be. Brendan's on tour for another month or so. I'm saying we might do it there. I don't know if we're gonna do it there. But I think it might be a good idea. I bought some ribbon microphones, I like the sound of them, and it might be easier to do it over there. So, I don't know when, I guess it'll probably be coming out next year. I feel like we've taken too much time off. But we really needed to. I wasn't inspired a year ago at all. I was inspired to stop playing live. It was getting really grueling to keep getting onstage like that. So now I'm really inspired, and anna play live again, and play these songs. They're really working out good. It's cool because last time me and Meg played the other day, it was cool, we were coming up with some interesting things. It felt different to me, and good, and moving forward. We were trucking along, you know?

Brendan Benson: I've been working with Jack White and Patrick and Lil' Jack from the Greenehorns on some songs. Maybe, schedules permitting, we'll put a record out. We work on it when we're in town at the same time. Jack and I both sing. And it's kind of like a Lennon/McCartney thing, if I may be so bold. We've got 11 or 12 songs recorded, but not completely finished. We still need to sing vocals on some of the songs. He lives two or three blocks away from me, and we've been friends for a really long time. So this just seemed like a good excuse to see what would happen when we worked together. It seems to be working out. It's weird, man. There's stuff on there that sounds like Cat Stevens, and there's some stuff on there that sounds like Led Zeppelin. I can say some of the stuff sounds like pure Jack White. You can hear it and say, 'Oh, that's a Jack White song.' I don't know if people are going to think it's crap or brilliant. I have no idea. It's really great, man. People have got to hear it. Jack and I both sing. And it's kind of like a Lennon/McCartney thing, if I may be so bold. And I'm not comparing the musicianship, just the fact that we're each kind of bringing in our own songs. And we both have different sounds and aesthetics, which adds a whole other aspect to it. It's kind of a little of everything. I've got songs that I've pretty much written and he added lyrics to it. And he brought some songs, or actually made a bunch of 'em up on the spot. It's cool, different stuff. Some of it sounds like Jack and some of it just sounds like Cat Stevens or something."

4.5 Is Jack in the movie Cold Mountain?! [top]
Yes, Jack appears in the Civil War flick titled 'Cold Mountain' starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Renee Zellweger. The plot is a love story based on the journey of a Confederate soldier from a hospital to his home in North Carolina. Jack: "I play Georgia, a deserter who escapes the civil war. He plays mandolin and sings. He is one of three guys who are a ragged band of musicians. But the role does not strictly follow the character in the book. It has actually been enlarged for the film: in case someone tries to find "me" in the book. I have a lot of lines. But, mainly, I do some songs – The three pieces, to be more precise. And better still, they will be on the forthcoming soundtrack, which is fantastic. I sing traditional songs, such as “Wayfaring Stranger” and “Sitting on Top of the World”, and those I could do before. “Sitting on Top of the World” was actually the first blues song I learnt to play, after I had heard Howlin’ Wolf’s version. I played “Wayfaring Stranger” with Two-Star Tabernacle, a band which I had before the White Stripes.”

Jack: "It was great. If it was just straight-up an acting opportunity, I don't know if I would have done it. But they were looking for someone to bring folk music to the film, and this character was to sing three songs in the film. T-Bone Burnett did the soundtrack, and I was flattered that T-Bone recommended me for the part. I was amazed that they picked me, and I felt really honored and scared by it. I love American folk music so muc h. I'm so flattered that they recognized that in me, and that they asked me to be a part of that. I was there for six weeks, with a lot of downtime, freezing in the winter, and it was worth every minute of it. I have a lot of lines. But, mainly, I do some songs -- The three pieces, to be more precise. And better still, they will be on the forthcoming soundtrack, which is fantastic. I sing traditional songs, such as "Wayfaring Stranger" and "Sitting on Top of the World", and those I could do before." "I was there for six weeks… freezing cold in the snow. I was on top of a hill a mile away and Renee Zellweger's down at the bottom herding sheep or something and she's laughing at me, 'Look at you rock star! You're at the top of a hill and you've got to run down 20 times'. As soon as I'd run down I'd have to walk slowly right back up the hill and then as soon as I got there it was, 'ok, action'. That made me mad. Otherwise, the most bizarre thing to occur during the whole production was that someone had given our record to a Romanian folk dancing group, so when we came out and did some extra songs, they practiced their dance routine to "Fell in love with a girl" and "I think I smell a Rat" - performed in full, traditional costumes!!"

Jack: Anthony Minghella, the director of Cold Mountain, said that any performer who performs in any way on stage is in some way an actor, and it's easy to translate, because if you have the desire or creativity to perform, maybe you're not a good actor, but you're doing some sort of acting in some sense, because you're presenting something to people. Which in a way is unnatural, especially with all the electricity involved. It's different than sitting on your front porch playing acoustic guitar or something. Which could be, whatever. Quote end quote natural. That would be unnatural to be on stage in front of people and having lights shot out of you and giant amplifiers. And he's right, there is acting involved in that. So it's probably not too much of a stretch sometimes.

The DVD has something special if you're looking for more on Jacks work with the film. On the second disc you get 'Words & Music of Cold Mountain' with special live performances based on the film from UCLA's Royce Hall (including music from Alison Krauss, Sting and Jack White, and readings from Nicole Kidman and Jude Law). Also included are conversations with the musicians behind the film.

4.6 The Cold Mountain Soundtrack [top]
Jack White performed new songs for the soundtrack. Jack has 5 tracks on the albums, Wayfaring Stranger, Sittin' on Top of the World, Never Far Away, Christmas Time Will Soon Be Over, and Great High Mountain.

Jack: 'Sittin' On Top Of The World' was the first blues song I learned how to play--from Howling Wold's version, when I was a teenager, actually--so I had known that. And I knew 'Wayfaring Stranger' from a band I was in called Two-Star Tabernacle--we had played that song. So when I went to audition for the director, I, already knew how to play that song."

The recordings for the soundtrack album were done in Nashville, with well-known bluegrass musicians such as Nancy and Norman Blake, Dick Powell and Mike Compton. “It was amazing fun and a little frightening. There were so many amazing string musicians there, people who built their own instruments. I did not once dare to touch my guitar - I only sang.”

Jack: "I went down to Nashville to record the soundtrack and it was all the best bluegrass musicians, and I didn't even want to touch an instrument around those guys. I just said, O.K., I will sing, humbly sing. Much as I love American folk music, I didn't think that alone entitled me to be in that world.

Sadly, Jack was not pushed for an Oscar nomination - the main contender most people feel deserves a nod, 'Never Far Away' is infact not in the film and therefore not eligible for nomination. Two other songs are getting the push in all the Oscar Consideration ads I've seen in Variety. One penned by Sting and the other by T-Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello.

4.7 Mutant Swinger From Mars [top]
"You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll burn stuff!"

Jack's had some previous experience in front of the camera in a little 16mm Sci-Fi spoof titled "Mutant Swinger from Mars." The films director Mike Kallio emailed me and confirmed that it was infact Jack White. Jack's role in the film is a small one...a friend of the lead character. He was only on set a day or two total. The estimated budget was around $22,000. Filming took place starting November of 1997 and ended sometime in January of 1998. There were only two locations for the film, a cigar/martini bar in Pontiac, Michigan and the studio, Illuminations, in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The sets in the studio were built "in the round", meaning, there was a set in any direction the camera was pointing. Principal Photography was only eight days long, with a day and a half of special effects and pick up shots. The sets, miniatures, models & spaceships were built using remaining and revamped pieces from commercials (Lincoln, Mercury, ABC Appliance) and motion pictures (Frostbiter: the Wrath of Wendigo, Flesh Gordon 2, Evil Dead 2). The script was written around things the producers knew they could get - all the miniatures and models, set pieces, the ape costume, a cigar/martini bar, etc. The opening and end credit "mockumentary" interview footage was all ad-libbed. Some lines are taken from Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). The film is currently being looked at by the Sci-Fi channel so it just might see widespread release on cable in the future. Lets all wish Mike luck in getting a good distributor for his film. Mike is currently working on a film called "Ground Zero," a comedy drama revolving around the Detroit music scene.

4.8 Coffee and Cigarettes [top]
Cult film director, Jim Jarmusch cast the brother and sister duo in one of his movie miniatures. The entire collection of vignettes has been released on DVD. It's a very interesting film and worth checking out if you get the chance.

The film debuted on September 8 at the Toronto International Film Festival and sees Jack and Meg smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee in a cafe. Jack shows Meg a strange machine that he has built, but it blows up. Armed with a handy tool, Meg fixes the machine and an overjoyed Jack leaves the cafe with the machine in tow in a little red wagon."

Jack: "He asked us to be in a short film called Coffee and Cigarettes. He's done one with Iggy Pop, Tom Waits and GZA and RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. He wanted me and Meg to appear in a five minute film in which we talk to each other."

Jack White: We played a free live show in Union Square, and we saw him [director Jim Jarmusch] out in the audience. We met that day and became fast friends.We started talking with him, and he asked us if we wanted to do one of these little shorts of his. He was actually wearing little shorts at the time. The film was a different take on it[their personalities] for sure, because we sat down and said, "This is the script, this is what we're going to do, how do you say these words as good as possible?" You know, as we walk out to go on stage we're not contriving things, like 'We're going to do this and this and this." We never really rehearse; we just do it in the moment. We just do the first thing that comes into our heads. I think our characters were a funny take on any two people - the way that she's listening to me go on and on when she really knows about it anyway, she's just listening to me talk. I think anyone could relate to that. I think anything with Jim is probably pretty easy. He's good at the funniest things too. I remember he said, we need a lot of shooting like this, then we can move this over here and move that over there, and Jim said, "Well, I don't know how to do that." And he wasn't joking. It was so nice to hear someone say "I don't know how to do that" out loud. It was mostly Jim's script and there were a couple things we added in. We met and then we began talking about Tesla, and then he came up with the idea. At that point, he didn't really know what he was going to do with all these short films. He just said, "I'm doing these if you want to do one. I really like his use of silence and empty space. It's just as powerful as dialogue, at times. Orson Wilson said something interesting once about when you watch a film, you should be able to watch it with the sound turned completely off, and still recognize the relationships between people. I think his silence is really powerful. A lot of times in Hollywood films, it's really difficult for people to get away with all that dead air. You can't get away with that dead air in radio or in music and he's getting away with it. It shows people how important that is, just to see people sitting there. In the beginning of our segment, there are twenty seconds of nothing being said, and that's my favorite part.


Jack: It was nice. Meg was so good. She was really really really good. I didn't realize till that point, then I started seeing other things like the video for Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground afterwards. I was looking at Meg and I realized how good she was in that video. I didn't really realize that before. Meg: Thank you Jack! Jack: I think you're a really really good actress. Meg: Thank you. Jack: I guess we learn these things as we go along. Meg: I had fun doing it, yeah. It was very laid back. Being with Jim I knew it would probably be laid back. You know he's not gonna be an ass behind the camera. He's a really good person. But it was easier than I thought it was gonna be, even though we were playing ourselves. We still had to memorize stuff.

Regarding the science theme of their part:
Jack: I really, really love science. I read a lot about it. It's one of those subjects I would actually like to go back and take classes about, because it's one of the few things in high school I liked. What's interesting is that eBay has become the new drugstore. There was this article that said that chemistry sets in the 1800s contained elements that could blow your house up. It's amazing that boys grew up to become scientists without killing themselves. And now you can't get a lot of elements, especially after 9/11. You can't buy aluminum shavings at the drugstore, but people are selling them online. The internet is the new chemistry set. He really likes space. He kept telling us to slow down and give things space. Oh, and he told me to shut up a lot and let Meg talk.
Meg: Yeah, that was part of it.
Meg: [musingly] The chemistry teacher in high school probably had to rework his whole plan after 9/11. They used to blow everything up in that class.

MORE ON THE TESLA COIL
Jack: I am a huge fan [of Tesla]. That's what motivated Jim to write that script; he had this Tesla book on his desk and we wanted him to direct this video for us for our next album where I played Tesla and I battled Thomas Edison with our inventions. In real life, Edison electrocuted an elephant through Tesla's alternating current theory. That was going to be part of the video, but it got too expensive, renting an elephant and everything. Jack: I wanted to build one since I was a little kid. When we first met Jim, he had a book about Tesla on his desk, and I started saying how much of an admirer of Tesla's I was. We started talking, and we were eventually going to make a video for our last album in which I was going to play Tesla. We were going to reenact Edison's electrocution of an elephant that he did to disprove Tesla's theory, and I was going to turn Edison's head into an incandescent light pulp at the end to pay him back for his murder of the elephant. It didn't work out because it got too expensive. The next thing, Jim came over and said he had a script for a short film about a Tesla coil. I was so excited about it, because we wanted to do something creative with Jim, and also, to bring people some more knowledge of someone who is really underrated and misunderstood.

Jack: He's [Tesla] extremely important because he was robbed of the fact that he invented radio, and Marconi gets all the credit for it. His ideas could be used today to provide everybody with wireless electricity that we wouldn't have to pay for. Those two alone are extremely important. Just to know him as the genius that he was. After that big power outage that we just had, no one talks about it, but the only power plant that didn't go down was the one in Niagara Falls that he designed and constructed. There's something interesting about that. You can go through a list of inventions that nobody knows that he invented, like the fluorescent light, radio remote control, and the alternating current motor. It just goes on and on. He's just so much more important than Edison, I think, he was a true genius, and Edison had a lot of really good inventors working for him and he was taking their ideas.

Jack: We've always respected Jim so much, we didn't know how much we wanted to come up with our own dialogue. Some of it was, but Jim wrote most of it, based on a conversation we had about Tesla. It was when we met him at his office. He had a book about Tesla sitting on his shelf. I asked if he liked Tesla, he said yeah. Meg: We were watching some of his other cuts for C&C, that's why we were in there. Jack: But we were going to do a video for 'There's No Home For You Here' with him, based on Tesla and Edison. I was gonna play Tesla, and maybe get Philip Seymour Hoffman to play Edison. Edison, in real life, electrocuted an elephant to try and show that Tesla's alternating current theories were dangerous - which they weren't. It's the alternating current that we use today. But Edison electrocuted an elephant to prove it, and there's footage of that, you can see that footage. We were gonna re-enact that, and pretend to electrocute an elephant, and Meg was gonna be dragged away for the elephant. I was gonna play Tesla, and in response to him killing an