Currently plugging his way through the press rounds in the lead up to his new album Lazaretto, Jack White has opened up about the current status of his relationship with former White Stripes bandmate and ex-wife Meg White, and it seems what was already a minimal relationship has become something less.
White explains via Consequence Of Sound that nowadays he has very little to do with the drummer. “I don’t think anyone talks to Meg,” he says. “She’s always been a hermit. When we live in Detroit, I’d have to drive over to her house if I wanted to talk to her, so now it’s almost never.”
The legendary musician goes on to elaborate on how the dynamic between the pair worked back in the day, detailing how blasé Meg was about the hugely successful project:
“She’s one of those people who won’t high five me when I get the touchdown. She viewed me that way of ‘Oh, big deal, you did it, so what?’ Almost every single moment of the White Stripes was like that. We’d be working in the studio and something amazing would happen: I’m like, ‘Damn, we just broke into a new world right there!’ And Meg’s sitting in silence.”
He goes on to explain how this resulted in his feelings of isolation, akin to those he feels Elvis Presley would have felt:
“I remember hearing Ringo Starr say, ‘I always felt sorry for Elvis, because in the Beatles we had each other to talk about what it felt like. Elvis was by himself.’ I was like, ‘Shit, try being in a two-piece where the other person doesn’t talk!”
But when it came to show come, Meg had it all and regardless of the distance between the two now, Jack can’t deny it.
“I would often look at her onstage and say, ‘I can’t believe she’s up there.’ I don’t think she understood how important she was to the band, and to me and to music. She was the antithesis of a modern drummer. So childlike and incredible and inspiring. All the not-talking didn’t matter, because onstage? Nothing I do will top that.”
White’s album Lazaretto will be released in Australia Friday, 6th June.
