Jack White on Raconteurs, "Old Town Road", his friendship with Dylan – Rolling Stone

After making wild 2018 Pension range, Jack White decided that it was time to calm down a bit. He thus restored the Raconteurs group he had formed in 2006, just prior to the dissolution of the White Stripes, along with other Detroit musicians, including co-vocalist Brendan Benson. Their first two albums became fan favorites. their third Help us, stranger, It's a welcome return to their garage and their game and to White's mix of aggressive voices and Benson's "soft voice", as White says, calling from Nashville. "He's a real singer," says White. "I'm not."

This time, White is diversifying into some of the most sentimental songs while letting Benson sing some of the rockers. "The cool thing is that it's not competitive," says White. "It's more like trying to inspire each other to get out of their comfort zone again and again." White's experience worked – the album debuted at Number One's Rolling stone Top 200 Graphic Albums last week.

What has changed the most in your life since the last album of Raconteurs, in 2008?
It's funny. I was married with children and now I am not married, unlike all other members of the group. We are 10 years older and have been doing music for 25 years. I remember when I had my upholstery shop and I occasionally played with a band and I loved the music and we did anything to play music only, but I thought: Forget it. It's amazing to think that you can one day – let alone a decade – be an artist and get out of it. It's almost like shooting a fast.

What does your daily life look like in Nashville?
Well, now that the tour has started, you need to maximize your time at home. So, I spend it mostly with my children. I am [always] try to find different projects that we can do together that are interesting. I set up a padding project that is waiting for me every time I come home. And I still have plans for a third man, you know. We have a press mill in Detroit. We've done all the work on vinyl records coming out for the Raconteurs this year – the seven-inch discs, the subscription discs in the safe and the limited editions for the Mom-and-Pop retail stores. Really, there is so much creativity going on at one point. I could enter Third Men's art department every day of the week and spend 18 hours there, if I really let myself go. We settled in a really nice place where many pistons are used. It feels really good.

You have just received an honorary doctorate from Wayne State University, which you attended before the White Stripes. How was it?
If I could have picked a place for this to happen, for a university in the world to give me an honor, I would have chosen Wayne State. It was an honor. The fact that they even noticed that I existed at the start was quite a compliment. And to receive this honor in a building where I used to drive tables by bus, it gives you a lot of prospects.

I could only afford to go for a semester. I took cinema classes and had lunch at the student union. The White Stripes had the chance to play in the same room a few years later. I remember that the audio-visual club had placed six microphones all in a row, all geared towards our equipment – someone who had never done it before. It's always in my head. It's so funny. It's so weird to assume, "Yeah, it's a great way to record all this. Just put the mics in a row and direct them to the equipment. "It's so funny. I should record like this one day and see what happens.

When you listen to White Stripes for Third Man's discs, do you feel nostalgic?
It's a catharsis every time. I was very lucky. If I had been in a scenario where someone had played the keyboard and I did not want or dress in a certain way, I would go back to to say "I'm not really proud of that". I did not grow up in this period. Almost everything we recorded, it was something we wanted to happen. There were times when we were listening to live recordings and saying, "Oh my God, we played this song too fast because we were on fire in the middle of a board and we were pushing it as hard as we were could. " , I also hear it on Jimi Hendrix's recordings, where his live music is so fast and out of tune, and it's great because it does not matter. It's about the attitude.

What advice would you give to young musicians who come to Third Man?
I just know that if I hear artists complaining, it does not impress me. Being an artist means that you have to work harder than everyone else. It's a responsibility, 24 hours a day. I think about it all day. If you do not already have it in you, as if it was uncontrollable, I do not know what to tell you.

What new music gives hope?
All the rock & roll albums coming out this year. Hives, Black Keys. . . It's also great that people still enjoy a band that writes songs like Vampire Weekend and Twenty One Pilots. It's really an excellent composition.

It's interesting that you mentioned Twenty One Pilots.
I like what they do. The first time I saw them was on Saturday Night Live. And I thought, "Oh, that's really great. Another really cool group of two musicians who can do something really powerful. "I like what they did: play piano and bass, this guy, the lead singer. And it was strong. And then you have Royal Blood, another very good group of two that is just bad.

How long did it take to make the new Raconteurs album?
Nobody said, "Hey, we're making a new album, we're going on tour." We just thought, "let's get together and we're going to develop a song, maybe some, and see what happens." And everyone was so energetic, it was really inspiring. we had about 30 songs that we were working hard on and we ended up saying, "Look, we have to be content with a dozen songs here, because we're going to keep writing, everything is going so well." do not know how long it took to get in. I can not really say, probably weeks at the end of the day, I do not really remember.

One of your best phrases is in "Do not bother yourself": "You are a fake punk jacket liar".
It's funny. It's almost like turning a name into a verb or something like that.

What is this song[[[[with lyrics like "The way you look at yourself in the mirror / You're your greatest admirer"]sure?
It was just all the aggression. He was trying to suppress the aggression and find a character that could help you. Some people are very blatant and want to write completely about themselves. I like working with characters, and you sometimes take something in your life and then see if it makes sense.

I remember writing a very aggressive song with the White Stripes, what's the name of hell.[[[[Pause]"There is no house for you here." And I was very aggressive. It was a boy I knew at the time on the Detroit scene, and I changed the pronouns into a woman just to upset everything.

When you do this kind of thing, you almost want to make sure that the rest of your life, you do not constantly think about something that has happened to you. And when you do it through the eyes of another character, it's almost like playing a cover.

What about Greta Van Fleet? They are often criticized for copying older blues and rock bands just like you were.
These are three Polish brothers from Frankenmuth, Michigan. I thought it was a joke! It's exciting to see young people playing rock and roll, no doubt about it. This guy has a very cool voice. The more he gets it, the better. People said, when I came out for the first time, "It looks like Robert Plant." If you keep moving forward, that shit goes away.

You mentioned the Black Keys earlier. Twitter of your brand recently congratulated them on a new single, which was surprising considering your history of tension. How did you get there?
I respect all rockers. I think [the beef] Some lawyers were trying to break my mouth and take something out of context. Patrick Carney stopped while recording this album from Raconteurs and let me borrow a mic. It was cool of him.

What does it make to have a friendship with him? What are you talking about?
It comes from an area where we come from, as well as from Greenhornes and many garage-rockers. We like similar discs. We would probably be sitting there and talking about Captain Beefheart for a while. It's a good guy. The musicians [I] go out with, I usually see in festivals. The shows four or five nights a week I really miss. I did it all the time, and I would always do it if it was not for people to pat my shoulder every five seconds. I do not do it as often, but I like conversations. That's why I attach so much importance to the physical record stores, the classic record stores. This is where all these conversations must go. It is there that all these friendships and all the links are established. How many groups have been trained in a record store? You have mutual respect for the same kind of music, you end up playing together. What a pity if these stores did not exist one day.

The biggest song in the United States is "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X. What do you think?
It's beautiful. The song only lasts a minute and 47 seconds or something else – it's the length of "Falling in love with a girl". People said, "They're not going to play that on the radio." But it worked, and it's great that it's happening again.

The Raconteurs are supposed to play against Woodstock 50. Do you still foresee that?
I do not really understand it myself. Someone told me that they did not have the size license or anything of that kind. I did not really understand it. All I know is that every time I hear about this stuff, all I can think is, "I'm so happy not to be a festival producer because it looks like to a nightmare. "" Wow, I do not want anything in the organization of this thing, man, good God oh powerful. "Only the bathrooms could be quite complicated.

You know Bob Dylan, who is about to open a new distillery and a meeting place in Nashville. Did he ever tell you something that is important to you?
All the time. He has been an amazing mentor to me and a good friend too. I'm lucky to even have a conversation with him. Everything else was the icing on the cake.

Is there a side to him people do not see?
It is very complicated. Many people who know celebrity, even a small taste, live experiences that no human being should probably ever live. I went into a room and felt intimidated. You do not know what you are supposed to do. I think people like Dylan end up trying to avoid that sort of thing.

Have you two written a song together?
I can not tell you that. I wish I could tell you, but I can not.