Today we reach the conclusion of our ongoing interview series with Jack White‘s band, featuring assorted members the Buzzards and the Peacocks, which were distilled into one formidable force for the Lazaretto tour last year. We dove deep on the process and pressures behind recording the albums, as well as getting into the band and preparing/rehearsing for the musically acrobatic experience of touring with one of the most prolific songwriters of our time. Then we moved on to the wild ride of playing live with a high level musician who has a “no setlists” rule, as well as the tragic & unexpected loss of beloved keyboardist Ikey Owens.
In closing, White’s band members weigh in on their experience with press hysteria over the Third Man Records nucleus’ every move and utterance, as well as the sensations and emotions at the end of such a tour, when it’s time to climb off the musical Willy Wonka carousel and return to relative normalcy in life.
We were happy to speak to members Dominic John Davis (bass), Daru Jones (drums), Fats Kaplin (lap steel / theremin), Lillie Mae Rische (violin / vocals), and Cory Younts (mandolin / harmonica) all of which were featured on both of Jack White’s solo LPs and accompanying tours.
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PRESS
How do you feel about the press activity surrounding the tours? Sometimes there are really cool reports, sometimes unnecessary and negative stuff. Do you pay any attention to it?
Fats: I try not to.
Dominic: It’s hard… as ridiculous as the whole guacamole thing was, it’s hard to pay it any mind. You just wonder why people pick so much on Jack.
Fats: It’s the nature of how they follow someone who’s that famous. It’s like, let’s pick on something negative and run with it. People take the most not true. ridiculous thing, and suddenly it goes viral. But it’s over nothing.
Daru: Sometimes I check it out, sometimes I get Google Alerts when my name gets mentioned. For the most part, if it’s positive I’ll check it out, if it’s negative I’ll try to stay away from it. Because I know how much work we put into this, and sometimes people don’t understand. It’s not just us getting on stage, there’s a whole crew working, a lot of preparation going on before the show. So it’s like, all the hard work that we do, sometimes people don’t appreciate it. And when people have negative things to say, I just don’t get it. Sometimes we’ll have bad nights, everybody does, but we try to give our best, and it’s frustrating when we do that and people come out with negative things to say, I think that’s unappreciative. What Jack is doing is revolutionary. He’s bringing some freshness to the game, and people don’t appreciate it.
Dominic: I think things have changed so much now with journalists, because of blogs and the internet. There used to be an editorial stage. Now I feel that the standards journalists are held to are lower. It’s easier for all that stuff to come out, I think.
When they get called out on something, there’s often a rebuttal, “oh, I’m not even a journalist, I’m a blogger, you don’t get to call me out”.
Dominic: Yeah, but the thing is, it’s printed words on a page, or on a screen. We’ve been talking a lot about this, especially with the internet and people making comments. Everyone is anonymous, it’s so hard now. We’ve done so many cool things this year. We played a lot of TV shows. In the last month we’ve had Loretta Lynn, Q-Tip and Robert Plant play with us, and that’s all amazing stuff.
There are a few figures the journalists know will deliver the pageviews they want. So whatever they do, it’s news. Ahead of Jack, maybe just Dave Grohl. I saw a website with a headline, “Jack White Doesn’t Look Like Johnny Depp Anymore,” because he got a new haircut… and that was the story.
Dominic: Yeah, we call it clickbait. And it’s never an article, you have to click through them. 12 Top Whatever. If you were a Disney Character, which one would you be? It’s interesting, but we try not to pay attention to press. We’re glad when we get press and there’s a lot of reviews and stuff, but sometimes they’re all saying the exact same thing. They usually say something about Lalo coming out and talking about not taking pictures.
The last show you played, Brazilians on Twitter were reading about that and taking it as Jack White prohibiting cell phones at his concerts.
Dominic: But it’s really hard, if you go to a concert now…
Fats: People are holding up iPads now. But Jack does something almost in Don Quixote-like fashion, he’s trying to make something mysterious or challenging or interesting, even when it’s almost impossible to do it, because he believes that’s the way it should be.
Dominic: I mean, it’s daring to tell people to do that. We go out of our way to do it, we bring a photographer of our own on tour, he puts pictures up every day. But then again, on the other hand, I’m glad people in the crowd were filming when we had Robert Plant on stage with us, because that’s the only video we have. It’s interesting.
Lillie: I never read any reviews though. I was there, I feel the way I felt about it, and that’s what’s important to me. I don’t care what somebody writes. You gotta be in the moment, whether the moment was good or bad. Some of my favorite shows were other people’s worst favorite. Like Bonnaroo, everyone loved that and had a great time, but I hated it, that was one of my least favorite shows we ever did. But that’s because of my own personal shit, I was going through something that day. And that was everybody’s favorite show. [laughs] You have your memories of how things went, and keep them the way you remember.
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END OF TOUR
So, what’s next?
Dominic: The last time, Jack took a good year off the road. He doesn’t want to plan things too much, so we usually don’t know.
Do you see yourselves going back on the road with this record?
Dominic: I would love to, but he wouldn’t just do it. He would probably make another album. With Blunderbuss, we made the album, toured for a year, then we didn’t play any shows. He wouldn’t just go out for a weekend here and there, it’s very deliberate. But he does so much other stuff in the studio, I’m sure we’ll do something.
Fats: He’ll just go onto the next project, whatever’s coming up next.
Cory Younts: I have a feeling that he’ll move on to something else. But who knows? Only Jack.
Lillie: I wish it wasn’t over. I may never get to play with any of these guys again, it sucks.
Do you miss being on tour already?
Lillie: Absolutely. I’m gonna miss it for a long time. I can’t wait to go back on tour no matter what. I grew up on the road, we lived in a motorhome. I’m gonna miss the people, the crew. If I’m ever on a big tour again, it’s gonna be a long time, and I may never see half of those people that we were working with again, who knows. You never know. It’s definitely gonna be missed. It’s a family that you have for this long period of time, and then you come home and it’s like, “Where is everybody?”
Read the entire “On Road & Record” interview series with Jack White’s band.
Photos by David James Swanson via JackWhiteIII
