 By Kathy McCabe | July 23, 2009
It was always on the cards that Jack White would become the indie rock Willy Wonka. The physical potential was there - unruly black locks, the mischievous grin, the snappy uniforms for each of his musical incarnations. Success has now afforded him the luxury of building his own "chocolate factory", the Third Man Records & Novelties in Nashville.
It has old photo and phone booths, curiosities such as Meg and Jack White Russian dolls and all the bells and whistles required to invent his own everlasting gobstopper. In musical form, of course. To pique the interest of his followers in his latest treat, The Dead Weather, White has even staged his own golden ticket lottery, placing six lucky passes for a private tour of his Nashville headquarters in American copies of the band's debut record Horehound.
"The winners' eyes will be exposed to delights never-before imagined by those with eyes or imagination," White promises on his website.
The Dead Weather, like all of White's musical endeavours, whether they be a new White Stripes record or the offerings of his second band The Raconteurs, was most unexpected. It became a band by accident after The White Stripes creative controller summoned Alison Mosshart of The Kills and his Raconteurs buddies, "Little" Jack Lawrence and Dean Fertita, to Nashville on a collaborative whim. After a weekend of good times and musical merriment, the quartet went their separate ways until White decided this meeting of minds offered more possibilities than just an old-school 7-inch single, which was his original intention. Minutes after finishing playing only their fifth gig at a Washington club, White says he is relaxed about whether or not fans of his other bands will love or hate The Dead Weather.
"There's a lot of people who came to the show tonight who could not care less about The White Stripes and The Raconteurs; they may look at The White Stripes as my side project," he says, laughing.
"I am happy with all those terms being used to describe The Dead Weather; super-group, side project ... I'm fine with all of them. I used to not be as fine when The Raconteurs started because it felt like we had to prove ourselves so people wouldn't think it was a throwaway thing. I hope people know I do these things for very real reasons. They are not ventures for celebrity or to put your face on something."
"The hardest part of any band is dedicating yourself to finding out whether your ideas have any life in them." Many have already remarked on the fact Mosshart could be Meg White's evil twin.
"I love collaborating with females, Meg, Loretta Lynn, Alison and on and on. It only takes one female to offset every male in the room. All of a sudden, everything is balanced," he says.
The seeds for The Dead Weather were sown when The Kills supported The Raconteurs on their US tour in late 2008. Battling pain from a slipped disc and bronchitis, White implored the Kills' singer to fill in on some songs for the last five gigs.
When the tour finished, the party continued at White's Nashville home and in between playing pool and drinking Scotch, they went to his new studio to muck around.
A few months later, White made the calls, asking Mosshart, Fertita and Lawrence to come back to Nashville and see what magic they could weave. He describes the three weeks at the beginning of the year as "intense" but neatly sidesteps the question of what was their preferred creative lubricant. One can only assume it was whisky again.
"I would knock on Alison's door and wake her up, get breakfast together and get to work finishing what was left from the night before and write another song. It was a very intense record to make, for sure. It was darker and dangerous, more dangerous than anything else we had written or recorded before in our other bands." He isn't kidding. Check out the video for new single Treat Me Like Your Mother. It features Mosshart and White as star-crossed lovers armed with machine guns who plug each other with countless bullets.
"I wanted to do a video where I was walking and Alison told the director about how we went and fired machine guns a few times while we were recording so he combined the two ideas," White says. Only in America.
Working on Another Way To Die for the latest James Bond instalment Quantum Of Solace also sparked a desire for the songwriter to return to the instrument he first started playing in bands; the drums.
"I never realised how much more of an inspiring angle the drums could be for me as a producer; I'd never had that opportunity with The White Stripes or The Raconteurs. I can conduct the band from there and I am a different musician than when I am playing the piano or guitar," he says. "I can't be as clumsy as I am on the guitar because there's a structure that needs to be fulfilled. Yes, and the view is very different."
Another Way To Die finally broke the curse of awful Bond themes of the past decade and even managed to make a convincing dent on the singles charts worldwide. The song paired White with r&b superstar Alicia Keys and he describes writing and recording for the famed film franchise a "strange challenge". "Amy Winehouse couldn't do it and I had to make a decision in a moment," he says.
"I didn't know if I wanted to jump into the world of movie themes when the film was already half made. But it worked out much better that way rather than writing a song when they first started filming and having it changed 10 times," he says.
White hopes to bring The Dead Weather to tour (Australia) within the year, possibly for Big Day Out. Before that, there is the premiere of The White Stripes road movie Under Great White Northern Lights at the Toronto Film Festival.
In the meantime, fans of this prodigious songwriter, musician and producer will enjoy the spoils of his new Third Man records set-up which will reward those who subscribe with the regular 7-inch singles he plans to record with whoever, whenever he can.
As for the Novelties side of his chocolate factory, White reaffirms his love of that old-school vinyl format when asked what is the most novel product available for purchase. "A record!"
Source: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/welcome-to-the-chocolate-factory/story-e6frewyr-1225754146663
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