Idolator
The issue of Interview that Matos referenced yesterday also has the White Stripes on the cover and a predictably prickly interview inside, and there's a bit about the gullibility of journalists that's been making the Web's rounds today:
MD: A lot has already been written about Icky Thump. What have people gotten right and what have they gotten wrong?
JW: I'd say 90 percent of what they got is from the press release. We have fun putting funny things in there—like in the press release for Elephant [2005], somebody inserted a joke about how none of our studio equipment was made after 1963. Journalists are inherently the laziest people on earth. Even in the age of Google, they don't do any work to check what they're writing about. Before you knew it, people thought we wouldn't touch a piece of equipment unless it's 60 years old or something! It gets to the point where you're answering questions based on a joke somebody made. [laughs]
MD: But part of the fun of the White Stripes is your sense of mystery, which is why people get things wrong. It's like the way Led Zeppelin was mysterious: People had to invent stuff to make sense of it all.
JW: It sucks because it affects everything I read now. Anytime I pick up a music magazine, I assume 90 percent of it is incorrect, so I make up my own things to believe. Everyone knows the phrase "Don't believe everything you read," but how many people actually practice it?
Of course, the irony of this story making its way around the blogosphere is the fact that most of the people giggling at Jack's statements are referring the NME's report of the Interview article, and not the Interview q-and-a reprinted above. OK, OK, so the Interview site is an overly Flashy browser-choker, but was I the only person wishing that the NME had added something like "He also admits that he first heard about 'his new favorite band, Snow Patrol' in our pages"? Watching that ball get picked up and run with would have been a terrific way to spend a slow-ass news day.
Interview [Official site]
Comments
Yeah, Jack totally hates the press. That's why you never see/read anything about those two pasty brother/sister/husband/wife kids. It's a wonder they're famous at all really.
Nothing beats Tom Verlaine's interview with the New York Times a few years back. As I recall he claimed with straight face he was studying ancient Icelandic languages, which accounted for his lack of new material. Times rarely published his name after that.
i'm still not sure why we care.
Jack White: Smart enough to fool a journalist, not smart enough to avoid sounding like an arrogant dick. He's like one of those insufferable, snickering home-schooled kids.
Can't he do something interesting, like punch someone again?
O noes u guys, Jack White thinks we're lazies! And I only got into this business to make rock stars like me.
When the NYT naively printed the list of "grunge lingo" supplied by a record label in the mid-90s (including the term "harsh realm"), that was funny. Making shit up in your press releases and then telling everyone how funny that is, not funny.
@oovy: I know. I love how he is actually enough of an asshole to be pissed at people for printing his own lies.
@Bob Loblaw:
*snicker*
Oh shit.
Just once, I'd like to see someone soberly interview a musician and then print the text in Wingdings.
I miss the days of Raygun, where half the fun involved just figuring out how to read the articles. I remember one issue's "feature" on Underworld was a two-page spread of blurry photos of an unnamed Asian city plus the text "I loved your kittens, ok." Good times!
You know what's amazing? When you lie to people and they believe you! And then you complain that people believe what you say! Oh, that's rich.
Comment on this post
Login with your username and password below.
Forgot your username or password? New User?