Jack White Doesn't Suffer Internet 'Cowards' Gladly

When it comes to naming the artist who best defines this generation, a strong argument could be made for creative wunderkind Jack White. As both a consummate musical chameleon and a tireless workhorse, White not only observes and conforms to the era in which we live but has come to define it through his work as a musician, producer, actor, songwriter, label kingpin and musical icon. As his latest band, the Dead Weather, head back on the road to play out its new album, 'Sea of Cowards,' White tells Spinner about his distrust of the Internet, his frustration with his own celebrity and how he didn't think there was "anything interesting" about his biggest hit.

You've mentioned that 'Sea of Cowards' is a reference to the state of criticism on the Internet ...

The Internet thing kind of got blown out of proportion. That was just a comment I made as part of a bigger discussion on the word "coward." The title came about because the lyrics on the album had a lot to do with cowardice. It was an idea that kept on popping up when I was listening to the mixdown. I was explaining to Alison [Mosshart, Dead Weather singer] that since a lot of the themes of the songs are about cowardice, maybe we should have the word "coward" in the title of the album.

Later, we were having a conversation with some journalist about the way the Internet breeds cowardice nowadays -- how everyone has a fake name, no one shows their face, everyone is extremely judgmental, extremely harsh to each other, commenting and blogging all this stuff. The world is their oyster now, they can type whatever they want, and they don't present themselves as a human being, they present themselves as an avatar and as a screen name, and that's cowardly.

We wouldn't waste our time writing about the Internet.

But you're not a Luddite, right? You still view the Internet as a positive thing?

Of course. I mean, people take things out of proportion all the time. I'll say something like, "I don't play video games," and the headline would read, "Jack White Hates Video Games." F--- off! Everyone wants a quote because no one is brave enough to make a quote nowadays, no one's saying anything, so everyone takes the tiniest scrap and crumb and turns it into some hypocrite chase.

Your record label, Third Man Records, makes a concerted effort to avoid having their recordings appear on the Internet, most notably with the emphasis on vinyl production ...

I would never say we're anti-Internet at all, I'd say we're pro-real experiences. Pro-things that occur when you get up out of your chair and experience things with other human beings face-to-face. When we have concerts [at Third Man Records headquarters in Nashville], we don't allow people to film and take photos. That's not about not letting people have a memento, that's about: how sick are you of watching people in the crowd not looking at the stage? They're watching a tiny little TV screen in their hand instead of watching what's really going on in life.

It seems that egalitarianism is important to you, are you ever concerned about your celebrity overshadowing the other members of the Dead Weather?

There's a lot of things I wish people would see in a different light. It may be impossible for them to see how great of a guitar player Dean Fertita is when you have these other famous members next to him. Alison as a frontwoman, she has the challenge of having me on the drums behind her. Sometimes you'll see a photo of the band that accompanies an article and it'll just be a picture of me playing drums, which is ridiculous when you have this insanely amazing frontperson in her. I don't think anybody can touch her; I don't think anybody can control a stage like her.

The reality is this band is constantly battling preconceptions and I don't think there's anything anyone can do about it. That's just something we'll have to deal with.

How is your relationship with the rest of the group?

Extremely comfortable. With Alison, we were friends for years in a casual way. She lived in London, so she was someone I'd see every once in a while. Now we've been in a group for over a year and a half, we've done two albums in 10 months, so we've gotten really close. I've known Dean Fertita from Detroit in the mid-'90s and I've never been closer with him than I have with this band.

When you're in a band you're all brothers, you're in a trench. It's warfare and you're all in the same gang. A lot of times that causes rifts in bands because people are scared to get that close, but this band has been an incredibly unique experience for all of us. There's no agenda, there are no side issues. Everyone is just inspired as hell to be working together, and that's a hard thing to do.

Unlike both the White Stripes and the Raconteurs, the Dead Weather have failed to produce a certifiable radio hit. Is that something that worries you?

You can't really sit down and write a hit. Hits are just magical. They come about when the stars align. If they were that easy, everyone would choose to have an album full of hits.

Even in the White Stripes or the Raconteurs, we'd have songs that we would listen to and the label would come by and everyone in the room would say "This is a hit!" and you'd put it out and it wasn't. You just never know. Even my biggest hit, "Seven Nation Army," we didn't think it was that big a deal, we just moved onto the next song. Nobody thought there was anything interesting about that song when we recorded it.

That being said, I've never cared if we've had one or not in any of the bands I've been in. All the bands I love, none of them had hits: Captain Beefheart, Robert Johnson, none of these people had hit songs. Even Jimi Hendrix never had a hit. [Editor's note: Hendrix's version of Bob Dylan's 'All Along the Watchtower' (one of several UK chart hits) reached a peak of No. 15 in Canada and No. 20 in the US in 1968 as his only Top 40 placing in his native country.] It's just writing music that inspires you and you're connected to passionately.

You mentioned in the past that you might be entertaining the thought of a solo album in the near future ...

Someone just asked me if I'm ever going to make one, and I said, "Of course I'm gonna make one one day." I mean, I never really plan that far ahead. I never really planned to make another Dead Weather record so soon. My calendar is always open. Everything I do is something that just got decided a week before.

Yes, I could be making a solo record in a couple months, or I could be making White Stripes record or maybe even a third Dead Weather record, I don't know. I don't tell the music what to do, I don't tell myself what to do. That would be an injustice to what I've dedicated my life to doing.

That's the funny thing, most people go to work and say, "I'm going to do this from 9 to 5 and these are my goals, these are my short-terms goals, these are my long-term goals." I've never had that. All I've had was, "I want to be involved in music. I don't care if I'm a producer, director, writer, performer." It didn't matter to me.

Do you see yourself as a musical icon?

I don't know, that's a very tough question. Some people give themselves monikers: Michael Jackson told people to call him the King of Pop and they did, and he deserved it. Other people were given that title: Elvis was given the title King of Rock and Roll when 50 other people were fighting for that title. I don't have a title for myself, I don't have a preconception of who I would like to be or how I'd like to be remembered.

It's such a confusing, cynical time right now. It's just media overload and music and art history overload in this time that I've been given. Dylan and the Beatles were given the '60s, and Madonna and Prince were given the '80s, and I was given this time period. So I just go out there and make music. I just do whatever comes to mind.

I've never sat down and said, "Well, I'm going to portray myself as the King of Garage Rock and here's how I'm going to do it: I'm gonna dress like this and make albums like this and start a record label" -- I mean, that would be f---ing ridiculous!