White changes Stripes with creative focus on the Raconteurs
Jack White is the singer and guitarist in not one but two first-class rock bands, so we can't blame him for sounding downright chirpy during a recent phone conversation; 2007 was the White Stripes' year, devoted to recording and touring behind "Icky Thump," the latest album from his garage-blues duo with ex-wife Meg White. This year has been earmarked for the Raconteurs, White's collaboration with power-pop tunesmith Brendan Benson, and Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of Midwestern garage-rockers the Greenhornes.
The Raconteurs released their second album, "Consolers of the Lonely," in March, and in anticipation of the band's show Tuesday at the
Q: You released "Consolers of the Lonely" with no advance publicity or any of the traditional setup bands usually do to grease the wheels of commerce. What was your thinking?
A: We had a ton of reasons. There's a lot of fear nowadays in the music business, so much new technology and media to get your stuff out there. And labels and management just throw everything at you, all these ideas for having a gangbuster first week, and you're not even finished mixing. We sat down with the president of the record company and said, "Look, we're sick of this. We just want to put out a record and play shows." It didn't have anything to do with beating the critics or a leak. It had to do with getting it out in every format without doing a disservice to the fans.
Q: The Raconteurs recorded the new album in a state-of-the-art studio rather than the makeshift analog playroom you typically hunker down in. Did that change the music or the experience of making music for you?
A: We did "Icky Thump" in the same studio and yes, it does change things. It's not my favorite place to be. I feed off limitations in a lot of ways. I structure myself a lot, and in my little world and in my own head I'm telling myself what not to do. It's hard to have all those knobs and buzzers and toys. I'm not good with that. Opportunity kills creativity for me. What most people think is liberating, for me it isn't, so it was a big thing for me to see if I could do it. We still recorded analog on 16 tracks in a soulful way, but there are a lot of traps in that world.
Q: I'm a Jack White fan and a Brendan Benson fan, but I never would have predicted that you two would choose each other as collaborators.
A: I'm not interested in doing something easy. I'm not interested in starting a band with a member of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Brendan is in a different field, but we have common ground. What really drove me to him was he was the only other musician in Detroit who really cared about the craft of songwriting.
Q: You're a rock star in a band with three cult musicians. Is the Raconteurs really a democracy?
A: Very much so. If they were people I'd just met, it would be different. But we've all slept on each other's floors and driven in vans, and we all know each other as musicians from the bar scene. Brendan doesn't even really know anything about the other stuff I'm doing. He doesn't read or follow the pop culture.
Q: How does your involvement in the Raconteurs affect the White Stripes?
A: We weren't sure at first. In the normal business sense it would have been crazy to put aside this successful band and go start a new one. And it is hard in ancillary ways. For instance, I played some shows with Meg in the middle of a Raconteurs tour, and stopping the train and getting into a whole different set of songs was difficult. But now we just say, "This is a White Stripes year" and "This is a Raconteurs year."
Q: Does Meg feel like you're two-timing her?
A: I don't think she feels shafted. She was at the Raconteurs show in LA the other day and having a great time. She's very involved and interested, and she had specific comments after the show. When I started the White Stripes I was in two other bands, and it's a great thing. There are things you can do in one band that you can't do in another, and I'm lucky to have those outlets to be creative and express myself.
Q: The music business is in tatters. Does that affect you much?
A: It doesn't affect me, but I don't envy younger musicians. It's changed so much in the 10 years since I started. The new generation bases their idea of success on totally different ideals, about how many friends or comments you have on MySpace. I look out into a crowd and see hundreds of people holding gadgets in the air. The experience now is about filming the band and putting it on your Web page. People have stopped caring about creativity.
Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com. For more on music, go to boston.com/ae/ music/blog.
