Jack White
John Anthony White is an American musician and record producer who was the guitarist and lead vocalist of the rock duo the White Stripes. He was a key artist of the 2000s indie and garage rock movements, noted for his distinctive musical techniques, eccentricity, and utilization of analog technology. After the White Stripes split up in 2011, he found success with his solo career and business ventures.
White began his career moonlighting in several underground Detroit bands as a drummer and guitarist. He met Meg White in the 1990s, and the two founded the White Stripes in 1997. They earned international fame with their 2001 breakthrough album White Blood Cells. This, along with the three subsequent White Stripes albums released throughout the decade, established White as a key artist of the decade's rock revival. In the latter half of the 2000s, he founded the rock groups the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather, recorded the Bond theme "Another Way to Die" with Alicia Keys, and collaborated with numerous artists.
White released his debut studio album Blunderbuss to strong reviews and sales. His second studio album, Lazaretto, broke the record for most first-week vinyl sales since 1991, holding that record until 2021. His following three experimental albums garnered critical and commercial success. His sixth and latest album, No Name, was noted for its unique release method and became his most acclaimed work.
White co-founded his record label and studio Third Man Records in 2001, which releases vinyl recordings of his own work as well as that of other artists and local school children. He became a member of the Library of Congress' National Recording Preservation Foundation in 2013. Outside of music, he has acted in the films Cold Mountain, Coffee and Cigarettes, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Killers of the Flower Moon.
Among several accolades, White has won twelve Grammy Awards. Rolling Stone included him on their 2010 and 2023 lists of the greatest guitarists of all time. The New York Times called White "the coolest, weirdest, savviest rock star of our time" in 2012. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the White Stripes in 2025.
Early life
John Anthony Gillis was born in Detroit, Michigan, on July 9, 1975, the youngest of ten children of Teresa and Gorman M. Gillis. His mother's family was Polish, while his father was of Scottish-Canadian heritage. Due to his parents' ages at the time of his birth and the fact that his siblings were significantly older than him, his eldest sibling being 21 at the time, most of the child rearing toward him fell on his siblings. Gillis was raised in Mexicantown, Southwest Detroit The Gillises lived in a predominantly African-American and Mexican community and were one of the only families in the neighborhood not to perpetuate white flight. He was raised a Roman Catholic, and both of his parents worked for the Archdiocese of Detroit, his father as a building maintenance superintendent and his mother as a secretary in the cardinal's office. Gillis became an altar boy, which landed him an uncredited role in the 1987 movie The Rosary Murders, filmed mainly at Most Holy Redeemer parish in southwest Detroit.Gillis' early musical influences were his older brothers, who were in a band together called Catalyst. He learned to play the instruments they abandoned; he began playing the drums in the first grade after finding a kit in the attic. As a child, he was a fan of classical music, but in elementary school, he began listening to the Doors, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. As a "shorthaired with braces", Gillis began listening to the blues and 1960s rock that influenced him in the White Stripes, with Son House and Blind Willie McTell being among his favorite blues guitarists. He has said in interviews that Son House's "Grinnin' in Your Face" is his favorite song of all time. As a drummer, his heroes include Gene Krupa, Stewart Copeland, and Crow Smith from Flat Duo Jets.
In 2005, on 60 Minutes, he told Mike Wallace that his life could have turned out differently. "I'd got accepted to a seminary in Wisconsin, and I was gonna become a priest, but at the last second I thought, 'I'll just go to public school.' I had just gotten a new amplifier in my bedroom, and I didn't think I was allowed to take it with me." At 15, he began a three-year upholstery apprenticeship with a family friend, Brian Muldoon. He credits Muldoon with exposing him to punk music as they worked together in the shop. Muldoon goaded his young apprentice into forming a band: "He played drums", Gillis thought. "Well I guess I'll play guitar then." The two recorded an album, Makers of High Grade Suites, as the Upholsterers.
He attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit. As a senior in high school, he met Meg White at the Memphis Smoke restaurant where she worked; together, they frequented the coffee shops, local music venues, and record stores of the area. After a courtship, they married on September 21, 1996. In a reversal of tradition, he legally took her last name.
After completing his apprenticeship, he started a business of his own, Third Man Upholstery. The slogan of his business was "Your Furniture's Not Dead" and the color scheme was yellow and black—including a yellow van, a yellow-and-black uniform, and a yellow clipboard. Although Third Man Upholstery never lacked business, he claims it was unprofitable due to his complacency about money and his business practices that were perceived as unprofessional, including making bills out in crayon and writing poetry inside the furniture. By 1996, he had bought the family home from his parents and was paying the mortgage on his own volition. It was in this home that The White Stripes recorded their second album De Stijl.
Career
1994–2004: Beginnings and formation of the White Stripes
At 19 years old, White had landed his first professional gig as the drummer for the Detroit band Goober & the Peas, and was still in that position when the band broke up in 1996. It was in this band that he learned about touring and performing onstage. After the band's split, he settled into working as an upholsterer by day while moonlighting in local bands, as well as performing solo shows. Though a bartender by trade, Meg began to learn to play the drums in 1997 and, according to Jack, "When she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing." The couple became a band, calling themselves the White Stripes. Two months after forming, on July 14, 1997, Jack and Meg performed their first show at the Gold Dollar in Detroit; of the three songs on the setlist, one of them was "Jimmy the Exploder", which would be the intro of their debut album in 1999. Despite being married, they publicly presented themselves as siblings. They kept to a chromatic theme, dressing only in red, white, and black. They began their career as part of Michigan's underground garage rock music scene. They played along with and opened for more established local bands such as Bantam Rooster, the Dirtbombs, Two-Star Tabernacle, Rocket 455, and the Hentchmen.In 1998, the White Stripes were signed to Italy Records—a small and independent Detroit-based garage punk label—by Dave Buick. The band released its eponymous debut album in 1999, and a year later the album was followed up by the cult classic De Stijl. The album eventually peaked at number 38 on Billboards Independent Albums chart. In 2001, the band released White Blood Cells. The album's stripped-down garage rock sound drew critical acclaim in the US and beyond, making the White Stripes one of the more acclaimed bands of 2002; it also made the White Stripes forefront figures in the garage band revival of the time. John Peel, an influential DJ and the band's early advocate in the UK, said they were the most exciting thing he had heard since Jimi Hendrix. The New York Times said of White, "beneath the arty facade lies one of the most cagey, darkly original rockers to come along since Kurt Cobain."
White Blood Cells was followed up in 2003, by the commercially and critically successful Elephant. The critic at AllMusic wrote that the album "sounds even more pissed-off, paranoid and stunning than its predecessor... darker and more difficult than White Blood Cells". The album's first single, "Seven Nation Army", became the band's signature song, reaching number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart for three weeks, winning the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song, and becoming an international sporting and protest anthem. Rumors began to circulate in 2003 that White had collaborated with Electric Six for their song "Danger! High Voltage". He and the Electric Six both denied this, and the vocal work was credited officially to John S O'Leary. Later, Dick Valentine and Corey Martin said White was involved but not paid. White worked with Loretta Lynn on her 2004 album Van Lear Rose, which he produced and performed on.
2005–2009: Formation of The Raconteurs and the Dead Weather
The album was a critical and commercial success. The White Stripes' fifth album, Get Behind Me Satan, was recorded in White's own home and marked a change in the band's musical direction, with piano-driven melodies and experimentation with marimba and a more rhythm-based guitar playing by White. It was released on June 7, 2005, to critical acclaim. Also in 2005, while collaborating with Brendan Benson—a fellow Michigan native whom White had worked with before—they composed a song called "Steady, as She Goes". This inspired them to create a full band, and they invited Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of the Greenhornes to join them in what would become The Raconteurs. The musicians met in Benson's home studio in Detroit and, for the remainder of the year, they recorded when time allowed. The result was the band's debut album, Broken Boy Soldiers, released in 2006. Reaching the Top Ten charts in both the US and the UK, it was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 2006 Grammy Awards. The lead single, "Steady, As She Goes" was nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The Raconteurs set out on tour to support the album, including eight dates as the opening act for Bob Dylan.File:Raconteurs T in the Park 2008.jpg|thumb|left|The Raconteurs performing at T in the Park in 2008The White Stripes' sixth album, Icky Thump, was released in 2007; unlike their previous lo-fi albums, it was recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville. The album was regarded as a return to the band's earlier blues and garage-rock sound. It debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, and entered the UK Albums Chart at number one, selling over 300,000 vinyl copies in England alone. Of his excitement for vinyl, White explained, "We can't afford to lose the feeling of cracking open a new record and looking at large artwork and having something you can hold in your hands." In support of the album, they launched a Canadian tour, in which they played a gig in every one of the country's provinces and territories. However, later that year, the band announced the cancellation of 18 tour dates due to Meg's struggle with acute anxiety. A few days later, the duo canceled the remainder of their 2007 UK tour dates as well.In February 2008, White participated in releasing limited-edition Holga cameras stylized around the White Stripes. He returned to work with The Raconteurs, also in 2008, for their second album, Consolers of the Lonely. The album and its first single, "Salute Your Solution", were released simultaneously on March 25, 2008. The album reached number seven on the Billboard 200 chart, and received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album. Later on in 2008, White collaborated with Alicia Keys on the song "Another Way to Die", the theme song for the James Bond film Quantum of Solace.
While on tour to promote Consolers of the Lonely, White developed bronchitis and often lost his voice. Alison Mosshart, the frontwoman for the Kills would often fill in as his vocal replacement. The chemistry between the two artists led them to collaborate, and in early 2009, White formed a new group called the Dead Weather. Mosshart sang, White played drums and shared vocal duties, Jack Lawrence of the Raconteurs played bass, and the Queens of the Stone Age keyboardist and guitarist Dean Fertita rounded out the four-piece. The group debuted a handful of new tracks on March 11, 2009, in Nashville from their debut album Horehound. It came out on July 13, 2009, in Europe and July 14, 2009, in North America on White's Third Man Records label. White revealed that the White Stripes were planning to release a seventh album by the summer of 2009. On February 20, 2009, the band made their first live appearance after the cancellation of the Icky Thump tour, and a documentary about their Canadian tour—titled The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights—debuted later that year at the Toronto International Film Festival.