In a new interview with Rolling Stone, rock guitarist Jack White discusses The Raconteurs‘ return from hiatus and their new album, his friendship with Bob Dylan, day-to-day life at home in Nashville, 2019 radio hits, and much more. Here are a few of the best snippets from White’s recent interview with Rolling Stone:
On what’s changed the most in his life since the last Raconteurs album, in 2008:
Jack White: “It’s funny. I was married with kids, and now I’m not married and everyone else in the band is. We’re 10 years older, and we’ve 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 would’ve done anything to only play music, but I thought, ‘There’s no way. Forget about it.’ It’s astonishing to think that you can go one day — let alone another decade — being an artist and getting away with it. It’s almost like you’re pulling a fast one.”
On day-to-day life in Nashville:
Jack White: “Well, now that touring has started, you have to maximize your time home. So mostly I spend it with my children. I’m [always] trying to find different projects that we can do together that I think are interesting. I have an upholstery project that I’ve been setting up that’s 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’ve been doing all the work on the vinyl records that are coming out for the Raconteurs this year – 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.”
On listening to the White Stripes’ Third Man vault release:
Jack White: “It’s 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’t want to, or dress a certain way, I’d look back and say ‘I’m not really proud of that.’ I didn’t 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, ‘Oh 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.’ Sometimes, I hear that on Jimi Hendrix recordings too, where his live stuff is so fast and out of tune, and it’s great because it just doesn’t matter. It’s about the attitude.”
On how long it took The Raconteurs to make their new album:
Jack White: “No one said, ‘Hey, we’re making a new album, we’re going on tour.’ We just thought, ‘Let’s just get together and we’ll work out a song, maybe a couple, and see what happens.’ 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, ‘Look, we got to settle on a dozen songs here. Because we’ll just keep writing, it’s going so well.’ I don’t know how long it all took to get. I can’t really say. Probably weeks, at the end of the day. I can’t really remember.”
On The Raconteurs scheduled Woodstock 50 performance:
Jack White: “I don’t really understand it myself. Someone told me they didn’t have the right size permit or something. I didn’t really understand it. All I know is whenever I hear about things like that, all I can think is, ‘I’m so glad I’m not a producer for a festival because it sounds like a nightmare.’ Every time you pull into one, you’re like, ‘Wow, I don’t want any part in organizing this thing, man. Jeez oh mighty.’ Just the bathrooms alone could just be complicated enough.”
On his friendship with Bob Dylan:
Jack White: “He’s been an incredible mentor to me, and a good friend, too. I’m lucky to even have one conversation with him. Everything else has been icing on the cake.”
You can read Jack White’s full Rolling Stone interview here.
For a full list of The Raconteurs’ upcoming tour dates and ticketing information, head to the band’s website.