Jack White has spoken to the Oxford University Union – not an honour that’s extended to just any old garage rock guitarist – and talked about the “simplicity” of the White Stripes that was secret to the band taking off in the way they did.
“The White Stripes was the project I had that was all about simplicity. That happened to be the thing that people related to. It spoke to people and people connected with it and it kept growing and growing,” he started.
“When you’re passionate about stuff, you don’t know if the things you’re passionate about will also be something interesting for other people,” he continued. “Maybe someone thinks ‘I want to be a stand-up comedian’. You (might) try to do stand-up and some people laugh, but you don’t get a standing ovation. Then you go and do this play because your friend was in it, then that’s when you got a standing ovation. It’s like ‘Well I didn’t mean to do that’…That’s how I feel about the guitar.”
“I didn’t care about the guitar. I wanted to be a drummer my whole life. That was all I cared about. I’ve played drums many times live and people think it’s OK, but (it’s) not something that really connects with people,” he explained. “For some reason, the guitar part, that expression has some kind of validity to it. I don’t know why.”
White acknowledged that the White Stripes’ stripped-back approach was something that was hugely appreciated by their fans and because of that he’d deliberately avoided going down that route in his other projects in a bid to “make my head work in different ways.”
White has posted a load of images from his trip to Oxford which you can see below.
The guitarist has been over in Europe touring in support of last year’s ‘surprise’ No Name album. He played two dates at London’s Troxy last weekend and wrapped up the tour with shows in Birmingham and Glasgow this week.
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