Jack of all trades

Jack White both defined and defied the noughties in rock.

His White Stripes spent the early half of the decade reinventing what a rock'n'roll group could be. He went from cult to commercial - penning a Coca Cola jingle and a Bond theme along the way - and back to cult, starting up his own vinyl-only blues-oriented label and studio, Third Man Records.

Along the way, he was embraced by musical elder statesmen, guesting on the Rolling Stones concert movie Shine a Light and playing with Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and U2's Edge in recent joy-of-guitar doco It Might Get Loud.

He also produced country singer Loretta Lynn's Grammy winning comeback album Van Lear Rose and has just finished doing the same for veteran rockabilly singer Wanda Jackson.

As for defied? When the White Stripes first emerged early in the decade, they looked and sounded like nothing else. For a start, there were only two of them - Jack on voice and guitar and keyboards and Meg White on primal drums.

Initially they claimed to be brother and sister. It later emerged Detroit-born former upholsterer born John Anthony Gillis and Meg White had been married for four years until their divorce in 2000.

On their second visit to New Zealand they were the colour-co-ordinated odd couple out, playing a side stage at the 2002 Big Day Out on a bill headlined by hard-drive dependent acts like The Prodigy and Garbage.

And in an age when rock's prevailing sound was the angry white guy act and sonic sheen of nu-metal, the White Stripes played the blues, albeit a variation riven with 60s garage and punk from which they've forged six studio albums.

On songs like of Seven Nation Army, White declared the return of the great guitar riff. But he has defied the decade and the rockbiz in other ways.

He got off the usual album-tour cycle for the White Stripes by forming and recording with two other bands, the Raconteurs and more recently Dead Weather. Between them, he's added three more albums to his burgeoning discography.

It's with the Dead Weather that White returns to Auckland this week. But in this band he's the drummer, the skins being his first musical love.

And on the phone for 15 minutes from Nashville, where he has based his Third Man operation, he laughs when TimeOut tells him about the usual office rule: we don't talk to drummers ... but in light of all of the above we'll make an exception.

The interview comes with its own restrictions on questions about his personal life and the White Stripes - that's despite Third Man's next release being a White produced debut album by his model-singer wife Karen Elson, The Ghost Who Walks. And there is a live Stripes album and DVD tour documentary, Under the Great White Northern Lights, being released this week.

Otherwise, White is personable and at pains to downplay any discussion on what an influential figure he's been of late.

"You tell me. I don't really know where I stand with people for the most part.

"It's very difficult to know where your art is in standing with what has happened in the past,where music as a whole is headed in the future and what people think about it now.

"Especially with the internet and all the media, it's really really difficult to discern what your place is and what is all means. If you want to be of today, now, cutting edge, you would spend most of your own time working a deal for your own reality show and your own video game ... a lot of things I have no interest in. I don't know exactly what to do with all that."

Well in an age when Guitar Hero means video game, it's must be good to have emerged as a real one ... .

"You put it very nicely thank you."

Although he sings on a couple of Dead Weather songs, White is the supergroup's drummer, behind Alison Mosshart of The Kills on lead vocals, Raconteur bandmate Jack Lawrence on bass and former Raconteur Dean Fertita, also of Queens of the Stone Age, on guitar.

And though it's often sounded in the past like he's been channelling both Led Zep's Page and Robert Plant simultaneously, here it sometimes sounds like White is getting in touch with his inner John Bonham.

"I was in love with drums from an early age. I remember playing from at least the age of five, if not younger. I was the kind of child who would play drums at four in the morning if somebody wanted me to. Those rhythms are really compelling to me."

And his instrumental multi-tasking has helped with his other love, producing.

"I like being inside the structure.

"As a producer you can go a million different ways. sit on the couch and drink cappuccino or be in the room doing hard work to actually be involved from the structure up, to helping a band or a singer express themselves; it's an incredible place to be."

Dead Weather fell together when Mosshart filled in for a sick White on a Kills/Raconteurs tour, which led to a jam and recording sessions and last year's acclaimed album Horehound.

With songs like I Cut Like a Buffalo, Rocking Horse and a cover of Bob Dylan's New Pony, the record seemed to have a theme - hooves. Blame Mosshart for that, laughs White, though he says Pony wasn't planned as an album track.

"Doing a Bob Dylan cover is almost like doing a Beatles cover on your first record but it really made sense to us.

"I thought it would be interesting from a female standpoint to sing those lyrics. There's almost a misogynistic sort of tone to it. If I thought she could take control of it maybe that will get us into some new territory. We had no intention of putting in on the album but it came out so good we just couldn't resist we had to put it on there."

Well after the Raconteurs, The Dead Weather represents his second so word association test: Supergroup?

"Confusion," he laughs.

Forming new bands has its rewards. He's been able to go through the excitement of forming a group and recording your first album three times instead of just once. "And that's the most exciting time in a band's life. Nothing beats that."

But was it a case of having reached a pinnacle with the White Stripes and thinking 'is this it"?

"Well no, I could just sit and enjoy being in that band and enjoy the fruits of success. But that is probably why a lot of groups that we all know and love make a couple of good records and then make a lot of really weak albums for the next 15 years and wonder what happened.

"I just don't feel like it would do the music and the art much justice to sit on my laurels and enjoy it in a sense that it's some sort of arrival. like I've arrived somewhere. That doesn't feel good to me. Moving forward is always better."

Plus, he says, he works in a good time to be able to follow his own musical whims.

"It's a strange time for music. I don't think someone like me would have been able to do what I've been doing - forming other bands and producing 30 years ago. I think record labels and lawyers wouldn't have allowed that. 'No you stay in your successful band and we do this until it's a dead horse.'

"I'm lucky to be able to do all these other things that I have passions for."

So far as his first band goes, the release of the live album and some scenes from the doco - as well as his other group commitments - might suggest it's a valedictory to the Whites Stripes, though White told Mojo he hopes to return to the double act.

"I would like to. It hasn't come up. The way I work, it could happen next week, or six months from now ...

"So, I hate to guess, but I think it's more than likely gonna happen."

His White Stripes performances - the band has played in New Zealand four times - have indicated White operates at a higher metabolic rate than many. In It Might Get Loud, he steals the movie with his scenes showing how to make a DIY electric guitar and recounting why Son House's Grinnin' In Your Face is his favourite song of all time.

But for a man steeped in the low-voltage blues, he sure hasn't lacked for high-wattage drive. He's always been a bit that way, he says.

"A lot of people don't want to be the boss, they don't want to be in control because there is a lot of punishment that comes with that - and a lot of responsibility.

"I have always thought 'I don't care if you end up not liking me, someone has got to do this, someone has to do the dishes'."

LOWDOWN

Who: Jack White of the White Stripes, Raconteurs and the Dead Weather
When and where: The Dead Weather play at the Powerstation, Auckland, Wednesday March 17
Also: The White Stripes live album and tour doco Under Great Northern Lights is released on Monday