Jack White
From Stripespedia
Jack White is the lead vocalist, guitarist, lyricist, songwriter, and pianist for The White Stripes. He is also the vocalist and guitarist for The Raconteurs.
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Early Life/Childhood
Jack was born John Anthony Gillis on July 9, 1975 in Detroit, Michigan. He was the youngest of ten siblings born to Gorman Gillis, who worked as the maintenance man for the Archdiocese of Detroit, and Teresa Bandyke, who worked as the Cardinal's secretary for the Archdiocese of Detroit. Jack, like his six brothers, later became an altar boy, which landed him a small role in the movie The Rosary Murders, which was filmed in Southwest Detroit. When he was 5, he taught himself how to play the drums. When he was 15, he wanted something to play along with his drumming so he picked up the guitar. Within a few years he developed great guitar skills. At the time he also was an an apprentice in an upholstery shop. He was in a lot of small bands before The White Stripes. With his upholstery mentor and friend Brian Muldoon he started the band 'Two Part Resin' with Brian playing drums and Jack singing and playing guitar. One of the songs they recorded was 'Pain (Gimme Sympathy)'. The next band he was in (at the age of 18) was 'Goober and the Peas' (drums), with his good friend Dan Miller (who later started the band 'Blanche' with his wife Tracee Mae). One of the last bands Jack played in was 'The Go'. He had already started The White Stripes by then, and when The Go wanted to sign a record deal, he would have to sell the rights of The White Stripes to that record company . And Jack, who wanted to have complete control over the band, didn't want that and quit as guitarist with The Go.
Upholstery
After high school Jack tried college for a few months. But he quit soon after he'd noticed that the mentality there was the exact same as in high school. So he became an upholstery apprentice at Brian Muldoon's upholstery business. A few years later he started his own upholstery business named 'Third Man Upholstery'. With tools, clothes, businesscards and a van in a strict colour scheme of yellow and black. Upholstery isn't a very fortunate profession, he noticed. And it happened more than once that it was hard to pay the bills. In meantime The White Stripes had become more succesfull and a few years later they came to the point that they could live off the money they made while making music.
Costumes/Looks
He has worn several different things in pictures, album covers, promo shoots, concerts, etc. Some of these things include :
- White T-shirt and red pants (for many occasions, including the album covers for their eponymous debut album and White Blood Cells)
- Red or Black T-shirt and the legendary trousers with one black leg and one red leg. (He wore it often on the tour to promote their fourth album 'Elephant')
Equipment
Guitars
- 2 1964 JB Hutto Montgomery Airline electric guitars
- 1 Harmony Rocket
- 1 1970s Crestwood Astral II
- Primarily used for songs like Let's Build A Home, I Fought Piranhas and Goin' Back To Memphis. Most sites will list this guitar as a 1960's Domino Dawson but it has since been debunked. The headstock for the Domino Dawson is nothing like the one Jack plays.
- 1 1950S Kay Hollowbody
- Jack usually plays this with a slide.
- Gretsh Jet Firebird Double-Cut Electric Guitar
- Jack plays this with the Raconteurs.
- Gibson J16OE Acoustic
- Jack plays this with the Raconteurs as well.
- Unknown acoustic
- Seen in the video for Hotel Yorba.
- Unknown electric hollowbody
- Seen in the video for We're Going to Be Friends.
- Doubleneck guitar
- Only seen once in a bootleg video, only used for Astro. This guitar has been confirmed to be a Danelectro.
FX Pedals/Amps
- Digitech whammy pedal (for the rapid modulations in pitch for his solos)
- Vintage MXR Micro-amp (For boosting the signal)
- Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi Distortion/Sustainer (for main distortion/fuzz)
- Electro-Harmonix Polyphonic Octave Generator (POG)
- 1970s Fender Twin Reverb
- 100-Watt Sears Silvertone 6x10 combo amplifiers
- BOSS TU-2 Chromatic Tuner
- BOSS Compression Sustainer (Only used for a few shows; no longer used)
- Triple Tremelo amp
- This is an amplifier that can be found in the De Stijl artwork. It is not used much but it can be seen in the David Letterman performance and the Daily Show performance. Johnny Walker from the Soledad Brothers did all the wiring. Jack built it. It has three speakers, and the front one revolves with a peppermint swirl design.
Strings
- GHS strings (they were made in Detroit)
Keyboards
- Fender Rhodes bass keys
- Pump organ
- Jack : I just got this pump organ that I got shipped up here from Memphis. I found it in a thrift store down there. I've been playing on that a lot. I had to fix it. One of the pedals was broke, so I had to get in there and do some upholstery again! But now I can pump my organ just fine, thank you very much."
Facts
- Many White Stripes were saddened and shocked to hear that Jack White had been in a car accident on his 28th birthday. Jack was making a left turn when another car ran a red light and struck the side of Jack's car. Jack later said : "This 75 to 80 year old woman drove right out in the middle of the street, right in front of us. There was nothing I could do to get away from it. It was lucky that there was nobody seriously injured. The airbag hit my hands on the steering wheel. I didn't know about any injuries until I got out of the car and kind of looked around. It didn't hurt: it was more, 'That's not supposed to be bent like that.' It was bent in a really strange way. And it was shattered, from here to here [draws line along lower half of finger]. I immediately thought 'That's not going to be good, is it?'. It was a multiple fracture which means it didn't actually go through the skin but it shattered inside the finger. I can't write, I can't play piano, I can't play guitar, I can't do anything creative. I can't even tie my shoes. The airbag broke my finger when it deployed. Maybe I would have been better off without an airbag. But I wasn't too freaked out. I was OK with it. It was one of those things where your mind acclimates to whatever the situation is. It just sort of upset me that I had to stop touring and I couldn't write music or play guitar or piano." Ironically, as Jack has a fascination with the number three, doctors put three screws in Jack's finger during the operation to fix it. Jack has also said that doctors told him the finger may require more surgery.
Side Projects/Other Bands/Credits
- Jack was briefly in a band called "The Walker-White Trio" with guitarist Johnny Walker of the Soledad Brothers and possibly Ben Swank (also of the Soledad Brothers).
- Jack briefly played lead guitar for a Detroit garage rock band, The Go in 1999 for 6th months, and is featured on the band's debut album, Whatcha Doin. He left soon after its release due to creative tension between himself and the lead singer, Bobby Harlow.
- Jack played guitar and sang alongside Blanche's frontman, Dan Miller, in the short-lived country-punk band Two Star Tabernacle. They released one 45 and there is only one known live recording of this band, at Detroit's Gold Dollar on January 16, 2006.
- Jack formed a partnership with his former upholstery mentor Brian Muldoon known as The Upholsterers. Jack played guitar and sang, whilst Brian played drums and the duo released the semi-rare 7" Makers of High Grade Suites on Sympathy For The Recording Industry in 2000. The duo were originally known as 2-Part Resin.
- Jack drummed for Goober And The Peas during the mid-1990's.
- Jack worked with Loretta Lynn on the production of her most recent album, Van Lear Rose, and was featured on the album as a guitarist, appeared in her music videos, and more.
- Jack is the co-guitarist and lead singer of The Raconteurs, a rock band from Nashville, TN, alongside Brendan Benson, Patrick Keeler, and Jack Lawrence. They debuted with their radio single, Steady As She Goes, and their first album, Broken Boy Soldiers, had a number 9 spot on the Billboard charts when it was released on May 16, 2006. Jack seemed to have dropped the minimalistic aesthetic that he had developed in his time with The White Stripes, and is known to play a copper-plated Gretsch guitar when on stage, giving him the nickname "Copper Kid". The Raconteurs are supplying the soundtrack for the VMAs, occuring on August 31st, 2006.
