John Anthony White (né Gillis; born July 9, 1975 in Detroit, Michigan) is a Detroit-born musician best known for his work in the Garage Rock/Blues Rock band The White Stripes, and widely credited as a key artist of the 2000s garage rock revival. He has won 12 Grammy Awards and released three solo albums that topped the Billboard 200 chart.
White bounced around underground Detroit bands during the 1990s before forming the White Stripes with his then-wife Meg White (he took her last name). Before their eponymous debut was released, Jack and Meg divorced, but they stayed together in the band and even publicly presented themselves as siblings. The White Stripes officially disbanded in 2011 after having been inactive since 2009.
In 2005, White formed a band called The Raconteurs with Brendan Benson and members of the Greenhornes. In 2009, he formed The Dead Weather with Alison Mosshart (of the Kills and Discount fame). In 2008, he recorded "Another Way to Die", the title song for the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, alongside Alicia Keys; they are the first and only duet to perform a Bond theme. He has also embarked on a notable solo career, releasing five albums which have all gained critical and commercial success.
White is known for his Hair-Trigger Temper, his blue hair (introduced in the 2020s in part as an homage to blues music), and his DIY ethic, which extends to a well-documented appreciation of vinyl. He currently runs Third Man Records, an independent label he co-founded where he records, produces and distributes vinyl records for his own work as well as that of other artists and local schoolchildren. He is also a board member of the Library of Congress' National Recording Preservation Foundation, owns an extensive collection of vintage items, and is an advocate for analog technology and recording techniques. To this end, his second album Lazaretto broke the record for highest first-week vinyl sales since 1991 upon its release in 2014, and held that record until 2021.
He married Karen Elson in 2005 and had two children together, but they divorced in 2011. He married Olivia Jean in 2022.
Rolling Stone ranked White number 32 on its 2023 list of the greatest guitarists of all time.
Discography:
- Blunderbuss (2012)
- Lazaretto (2014)
- Boarding House Reach (2018)
- Fear of the Dawn (2022)
- Entering Heaven Alive (2022)
Tropes:
- Amicable Exes: With Meg White, the other half of The White Stripes, he went on to keep working with her for 11 years after the divorce.
- Arc Number: 3, for reasons he refuses to disclose.
- The Cover Changes the Gender: Averted when he covers "Jolene" by Dolly Parton and "Bang Bang" by Nancy Sinatra.
- Deliberately Monochrome: As you might expect, color plays a strong role in White's visual aesthetic. Following his minimalist philosophy of music, i.e. "what is the least number of elements necessary?", he is known for limiting himself to a palette of only three colors in some of his major works: black, white and red for The White Stripes; black, white and blue for his solo albums; and black, white and yellow for his record label, Third Man Records.
- Foil: Completely unintentional but Jack White makes a darn good one against, appropriately enough, Jack Black. See here
. - Hipster: Fashion sense: Vintage. Preferred genres: Blues, R&B, Garage Rock, Experimental. Exclusivity: Dates back to when he was an upholsterer, and hid 100 copies of his first band's only single, "Makers of High-Grade Suites", in the furniture he was restoring. Now that he runs Third Man Records, he's taken it to a whole new level.
- Messy Hair: It changes a lot, but he usually sports an unruly mop of jet-black curls. It gets ridiculous when he plays drums.
- Perpetual Frowner: It's somehow hard to get him to smile, even at baseball games.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Traits shared by both him and Meg White, perhaps helping to sell the conceit that they were brother and sister.
- Retraux: His entire MO.
- The Rival: He, the lead of The White Stripes, does not get along well with The Black Keys.
- Serious Business: Admitted in an interview with Conan O'Brien that he takes upholstery "very seriously", due to having worked with it before taking up music full-time.
- Three Chords and the Truth: Despite being an accomplished and talented guitarist, White seems to prefer minimalism to intricacy. Many of his songs are based around simple power chord progressions.
- Title Theme Tune: Performed "Another Way To Die", the main theme of the 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace, in duet with Alicia Keys.
- Took the Wife's Name: He took Meg White's name when they got married, and kept it after they divorced.
