{"id":2446352,"date":"2019-07-15T10:14:28","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T16:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=858436"},"modified":"2019-07-15T10:14:28","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T16:14:28","slug":"jack-white-on-the-raconteurs-return-old-town-road-and-his-friendship-with-dylan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/jack-white-on-the-raconteurs-return-old-town-road-and-his-friendship-with-dylan\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack White on the Raconteurs\u2019 Return, \u2018Old Town Road\u2019 and His Friendship With Dylan"},"content":{"rendered":"

After making 2018\u2019s wild Boarding House Reach,<\/em> Jack White<\/a> decided it was time to take a little pressure off himself. So he re-formed the Raconteurs<\/a> \u2014 the band he put together in 2006, just before the dissolution of the White Stripes<\/a>, with fellow Detroit musicians including co-frontman Brendan Benson. Their first two albums have become fan favorites; their third, Help Us Stranger,<\/em> is a welcome return to their garage-y looseness and the blend of White\u2019s aggressive vocals with Benson\u2019s \u201csweet-sounding voice,\u201d as White, calling from Nashville, puts it. \u201cHe\u2019s an actual singer,\u201d White adds. \u201cI\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time, White branched out by taking on some of the more sentimental songs while letting Benson sing some of the rockers. \u201cWhat\u2019s cool is it\u2019s not competitive,\u201d White says. \u201cIt\u2019s more like trying to inspire one another to leave their comfort zone, over and over again.\u201d White\u2019s experiment worked \u2014 the album debuted at Number One<\/a> on the Rolling Stone<\/em> Top 200 Albums chart last week.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s changed the most in your life since the last Raconteurs album, in 2008?<\/strong>
It\u2019s funny. I was married with kids, and now I\u2019m not married and everyone else in the band is. We\u2019re 10 years older, and we\u2019ve been doing music for 25 years. I remember when I had my upholstery shop and I would play once in a while with a band and I loved music and I and I would\u2019ve done anything to only play music, but I thought, \u201cThere\u2019s no way. Forget about it.\u201d It\u2019s astonishing to think that you can go one day \u2014 let alone another decade \u2014 being an artist and getting away with it. It\u2019s almost like you\u2019re pulling a fast one.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your day-to-day life like in Nashville?
<\/strong>Well, now that touring has started, you have to maximize your time home. So mostly I spend it with my children. I\u2019m [always] trying to find different projects that we can do together that I think are interesting. I have an upholstery project that I\u2019ve been setting up that\u2019s waiting for me when I come home every trip. And I always have Third Man projects, you know. We have a pressing plant now in Detroit. We\u2019ve been doing all the work on the vinyl records that are coming out for the Raconteurs this year \u2013 the seven-inch, the vault subscription records and limited editions for mom-and-pop retail stores. Really, there is so much creativity going on at any given moment. I could walk into the art department at Third Men, any day of the week, and spend 18 hours there, if I really just let myself. We we have settled into a really nice place that has a lot of pistons firing. It feels really good.<\/p>\n

You just received an honorary doctorate from Wayne<\/strong> State University, which you attended before the White Stripes. What was it like?
<\/strong>If I could have picked a place for that to have happened, for any university in the world to give me an honor, I would have picked Wayne State. It was an honor. That they even noticed I exist to begin with was quite a compliment. And to be given that honor in a building where I used to bus tables, it gives you a lot of perspective.<\/p>\n

I could only afford to go there for one semester. I took film classes and ate lunch at the student union. The White Stripes got to play that same room a couple of years later. I remember the A\/V club put six microphones all in a row, all pointing toward our equipment \u2014 someone who had never done it before. It pops in my head all the time. It\u2019s just so fucking funny. It\u2019s so bizarre to assume, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s a great way to mic all the stuff. You just put the mics all in a row and point them toward the equipment.\u201d It\u2019s just so funny. I should record like that one day and see what happens.<\/p>\n

When you listen to the White Stripes for Third Man vault releases, do you feel nostalgic?
<\/strong>It\u2019s a catharsis every time. I have been very lucky. If I had been in a scenario where someone made me play keyboards and I didn\u2019t want to, or dress a certain way, I\u2019d look back and say \u201cI\u2019m not really proud of that.\u201d I didn\u2019t grow up in that time period. Almost anything that we recorded, it was something that we wanted to happen. There are times where we would be a listen to live recordings and say, \u201cOh my God, we played that song way too fast because we were just on fire in the middle of a set and pushing it as hard as we could.\u201d Sometimes, I hear that on Jimi Hendrix recordings too, where his live stuff is so fast and out of tune, and it\u2019s great because it just doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s about the attitude.<\/p>\n

What advice do you give younger musicians who come to Third Man?
<\/strong>I just know that if I were to hear artists complain, it doesn\u2019t impress me. Being an artist means you have to work harder than everybody else. It\u2019s a responsibility, 24 hours a day. I think about it all day long. If you don\u2019t already have that inside you, like it\u2019s uncontrollable, I don\u2019t know what to tell you.<\/p>\n

What new music gives you hope?
<\/strong>All the rock & roll albums coming out this year. The Hives, the Black Keys\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009It\u2019s also great that people still appreciate a band that writes songs like Vampire Weekend and Twenty One Pilots. It\u2019s just really great songwriting.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting you mentioned Twenty One Pilots.
<\/strong>I love what they\u2019re doing. First time I saw them was on Saturday Night Live<\/em>. And I thought \u201cOh, that\u2019s really great. Another really cool two piece band that can do something really powerful.\u201d I liked what they were doing, playing piano and bass, that guy, the lead singer. And it was strong. And then you\u2019ve got Royal Blood, another really good two-piece band that\u2019s just bad ass.<\/p>\n

How long did it take to make the new Raconteurs album?
<\/strong>No one said, \u201cHey, we\u2019re making a new album, we\u2019re going on tour.\u201d We just thought, \u201cLet\u2019s just get together and we\u2019ll work out a song, maybe a couple, and see what happens.\u201d And everyone was just so energetic, it was really inspiring. I mean, we had like 30 songs we were working on intensely and we ended up having to say, \u201cLook, we got to settle on a dozen songs here. Because we\u2019ll just keep writing, it\u2019s going so well.\u201d I don\u2019t know how long it all took to get. I can\u2019t really say. Probably weeks, at the end of the day. I can\u2019t really remember.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Raconteurs at Baby\u2019s All Right in Brooklyn, New York in June. Photograph by Coen Rees for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One of your best lines is in \u201cDon\u2019t Bother Me\u201d: \u201cYou fake punk jacket-liar.\u201d
<\/strong>That\u2019s a funny one. It\u2019s almost like turning a noun into a verb or something like that.

What is that song [with lyrics like \u2018The way you look in the mirror \/ You\u2019re your biggest admirer\u201d<\/em>] about?<\/strong>
It was just all aggression. It was trying to take out aggression and find a character that can weed that out for you. Some people are very blatant and want to write completely about themselves. I like to work with characters, and you take something from your life at times and then see how it makes any sense.<\/p>\n

I remember I wrote a really aggressive song with the White Stripes, what the hell is the name of it. [Pause<\/em>] \u201cThere\u2019s No Home for You Here<\/a>.\u201d And I was really aggressive, and it was about a boy I knew at the time in the Detroit scene, and I changed the pronouns to female just to shake it all up.<\/p>\n

When you do that kind of thing, you almost want to make sure that the rest of your life, you\u2019re not constantly thinking about something that happened to yourself. And when you put it through another character\u2019s eyes, it\u2019s almost like you\u2019re doing a cover song.<\/p>\n

How about Greta Van Fleet? They\u2019re often criticized for copying<\/a> older blues and rock acts, just like you once were.
<\/strong>They\u2019re three Polish brothers from Frankenmuth, Michigan \u2014 I thought that was a joke! But it\u2019s exciting to see young people play rock & roll, no doubt about it. That guy has a very cool voice. The more he makes it his own, the better. People used to say, when I first came out, \u201cHe sounds like Robert Plant.\u201d If you keep pushing forward, that shit goes away.<\/p>\n

You mentioned the Black Keys earlier. Your label\u2019s Twitter recently congratulated<\/a> them on a new single, which was surprising given your history of tension. How did you get there?<\/strong>
I respect all rock & rollers. I think [the beef] was some lawyers trying to screw me over and trying to take something out of context. Patrick Carney stopped by while we were recording this Raconteurs album and let me borrow a microphone. That was cool of him.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s it like to have a friendship with him? What do you two talk about?
<\/strong>He comes from a zone that me and the Greenhornes and a lot of garage rockers come from. We like similar records. We\u2019d probably sit there and talk about Captain Beefheart for a while. He\u2019s a good guy. The musicians [I] hang out with, I usually see at festivals. I really miss going to shows four or five nights a week. I used to do that constantly, and I still would if it wasn\u2019t for people patting me on the shoulder every five seconds. I don\u2019t do it as often anymore, but I do love conversations. That\u2019s why I put so much importance on a physical record stores, the mom-and-pop, brick-and-mortar record stores. That\u2019s where all those conversations need to go down. That\u2019s where all those friendships are made and that\u2019s where all the bonding takes place. How many bands have been formed in a record store? You have a mutual respect for the same kind of music, you end up jamming together. What a shame that would be if those stores didn\u2019t exist someday.<\/p>\n

The biggest song in the U.S. is Lil Nas X\u2019s \u201cOld Town Road.\u201d What do you think of it?
<\/strong>It\u2019s beautiful. The song is only a minute and 47 seconds long or something \u2014 that\u2019s how long<\/a> \u201cFell in Love With a Girl\u201d was. People said, \u201cThey\u2019re not going to play that on radio.\u201d But it worked, and it\u2019s great that it\u2019s happening again.<\/p>\n

The Raconteurs are supposed to play Woodstock 50. Are you still planning on that?
<\/strong>I don\u2019t really understand it myself. Someone told me they didn\u2019t have the right size permit  or something. I didn\u2019t really understand it. All I know is whenever I hear about things like that, all I can think is, \u201cI\u2019m so glad I\u2019m not a producer for a festival because it sounds like a nightmare.\u201d Every time you pull into one, you\u2019re like, \u201cWow, I don\u2019t want any part in organizing this thing, man. Jeez oh mighty.\u201d Just the bathrooms alone could just be complicated enough.<\/p>\n

You know Bob Dylan, who\u2019s about to open a new distillery and venue in Nashville. Has he ever said anything to you that\u2019s stuck with you?
<\/strong>All the time. He\u2019s been an incredible mentor to me, and a good friend, too. I\u2019m lucky to even have one conversation with him. Everything else has been icing on the cake.<\/p>\n

Is there a side to him people don\u2019t see?
<\/strong>He\u2019s very complicated. A lot of people who go through fame, even a small taste of it, are going through experiences that probably no human being should ever go through. I\u2019ve walked into a room and felt like I\u2019m intimidating people. You don\u2019t know what you\u2019re supposed to do. I think people like Dylan end up trying to avoid that stuff.<\/p>\n

Have you two written a song together?
<\/strong>I cannot tell you that. I wish I could tell you, but I cannot.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After making 2018\u2019s wild Boarding House Reach, Jack White decided it was time to take a little pressure off himself. So he re-formed the Raconteurs \u2014 the band he put together in 2006, just before the dissolution of the White Stripes, with fellow Detroit musicians including co-frontman Brendan Benson. Their first two albums have become […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 14:14:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}