Yeah, yeah, it's unlike The Temple to run an interview on a couple of young musicians like The White Stripes, but its very much like The Temple to recognize the quality of words Jack White has produced for his last two albums. And hell, these guys are good. This Detroit bred brother/sister duo can rock a stage if anyone can. Their dirty blues and guitar heavy vibe revolves around Jack's strained falsetto perfectly. His words sweat and shiver from a candy striped soul. And boys, if poetry ever existed it exists now in the Jack's dynamic imagery. I had hoped to transcribe some of the more compelling images that stood out and motivated me to travel 4 and a half hours to see The White Stripes in person, but there are just too many good lines in White's work. And hell, you should go buy the album yerself cuz they fuckin' deserve it. If our readers would submit something, anything half as good as even the overshadowed lines in White's work, this poetry magazine would florish like weeds over a septic tank. So go buy their music. You can find all the info you need at whitestripes.com.
I was lucky to get a chance to sit down with Jack (nervous, but humble) and Meg (sexy and playful) at The Sit and Spin in Seattle.
TC: Is this tour for the new album, De Stijl?
JW: Well, we were here 6 months ago for the new album and it was a good tour.
TC: How's this tour been?
JW: Good, last nite in Portland we sold out and they even oversold the show by about 70 people. 6 months ago there was only about 40 people there and no one knew about us.
TC: So you've guys been on tour a while. Where you been?
JW: New Zealand and Australia for 3 weeks. It was the 1st time I'd been out the country. We're going back. This is just a 10 day tour of the North West before Winter hits.
TC: Seems like there's a lotta blues influence in your music. Anyone stand out in particular?
JW: Blind Willie McTell and Son House are my two favorites. Also Mississippi Shakes, Blind Willie Johnson…
TC: Meg?
MW: Ummm… I have a lot of influences… Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, Loretta Lynn.
JW: We've been listening to Skip James a lot lately.
MW: Yeah, Skip James is awesome.
TC: Your 1st album was done in peppermint stripes. Red and White. You've stuck with that theme throughout. What's it symbolize?
JW: It's a symbol of childhood, childishness…
TC: There was a picture on the album of an entire house painted in peppermint stripes. Is that your house?
JW: (laughs) Well, it's supposed to be our house, but it's just a house in our neighborhood. We just went on the front porch and pretended it was our home.
MW: The funny thing is, is that we went up to take the picture and they didn't think anything of it. We said, "We're in a band and wanna take some pictures." and they were like "Yeah, all right."
JW: Yeah, it really belongs to a Mexican family.
TC: After hearing your 1st album and seeing your picture I couldn't place the voice with the face. I don't know, it didn't seem to fit.
JW: Yeah when our guy sent our record to Sympathy, our record label, he said, "You should hear this band. It's a guy and a girl. It's a 2 piece band." And the guy said, "Well, which one's the singer?" He told him the guy was the singer and the girl was the drummer and the guy from Sympathy said, "I wish it was the other way around." He said I sounded like a girl singing.
TC: How long have you guys been playing together?
MW: About 4 years.
TC: Have you always gotten along as well as you seem to now?
MW: Yeah.
JW: Yeah, off and on.
TC: When did you start noticing you had something, that people were really digging your music?
JW: We didn't play outta Detroit till a year ago, then we gotta good response in Milwaukee and Chicago. Then we go an offer to go on tour with Pavement and then we went on tour with Sleater-Kinney. People have only shown interest in the last 6 months or so.
TC: What made you decide you only needed you two in the band?
MW: Didn't seem like we needed anything else. We just started jamming with it.
TC: Are you thinking of taking on any more band members?
JW: Nah, it'd be all structured and they'd memorize things. It'd be the same song the same way every time.
MW: Yeah, I like it spontaneous.