Jack White, the singer-guitarist of the White Stripes, has always kept a tight rein on his band's image, applying stringent rules to everything from the musical arrangements to the black-white-and-red color scheme. His arrival for an interview felt comparably meticulous.
Jack White lives in this tiny, block-long town, a short drive from Nashville, with his pregnant wife, the model Karen Elson, and their 1-year-old daughter, Scarlett. He pulled into the parking lot of an antiques shop in a cream-colored 1960 Thunderbird, dressed head to toe in black. By his side was the band's drummer, Meg White, his ex-wife, wearing a black top and a red skirt. He ambled through the store and settled onto the back porch, a bucolic spot overlooking a creek. He graciously accepted a bottle of water from an associate after the clerk at the grocery store across the street said he had never heard of sparkling water.
It was a classic rock star entrance, at a time when there are very few Rock Stars left. While indie-rock tastemakers tend to champion bands that look like them, Jack White still believes that smoke and mirrors, the kind of approach that once caused detractors to dismiss the White Stripes as a gimmick, are integral to successful art. "Everything from your haircut to your clothes to the type of instrument you play to the melody of a song to the rhythm — they're all tricks to get people to pay attention to the story," he said.
"If you just stood up in a crowd and said your story — 'I came home, and this girl I was dating wasn't there, and I was wondering where she was' — it's not interesting," he said. "But give it a melody, give it a beat, build it all the way up to a haircut. Now people pay attention."
With the June 19 release of their new album, Icky Thump, the White Stripes hope that more people than ever will pay attention to their bag of tricks. Their last album, 2005's Get Behind Me Satan, sold only about half as much as 2003's platinum-plus Elephant, which boasted the hit single Seven Nation Army. The new release is the duo's first for a major label after a decade spent at the vanguard of the turn-of-the-century garage-rock revival, a movement defined by its outsider attitude.
Jack White, 31, had traveled from the band's former hometown, Detroit (Meg White, 32, now lives in Los Angeles), to places like Memphis and London to seek out funky old analog recording studios, but Icky Thump was recorded in a conventional, modern Nashville studio. The new White Stripes tour will mark the band's first shows headlining at arenas; it is scheduled to play New York's Madison Square Garden on July 24.
At a time when the music business is in free fall and young rock fans seem to lose interest in bands almost overnight, the stakes for the White Stripes are higher than ever with the duo's sixth album. But while most bands respond to the pressures of recording for a bigger company or playing on larger stages with a shinier, more radio-friendly sound, the White Stripes are sticking to their guns. Icky Thump represents a more traditional sound for the band than Get Behind Me Satan, which experimented with piano- and marimba-based compositions. The new songs, spotlighting Jack White's virtuosic guitar noise over the simple, thunderous sound of Meg White's drums, sometimes echo such blues-based rockers as ZZ Top, AC/DC, or — as in the first single and title track — Led Zeppelin.
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