The Dead Weather are one of the few bands that can be called a true supergroup. They were formed last year by White Stripes Jack White, the Kills Alison Mosshart, and various members of Queens of the Stone Age and the Raconteurs.
Metro met with Jack and Alison to talk about new albums, booming business and movies.
If back in 2009, someone had told you that the Dead Weather would have released two albums in less than a year, would you have believed them?
AM: I didn’t see things coming, but I love it. At first, I gave Jack a hand with the Raconteurs when he lost his voice. Then we got it in our heads that we would record a single, before we knew it we had written six songs in 15 hours. Then we went on tour and now we have a new album.
JW: The band was a happy accident. Similar to the Raconteurs five years ago, I couldn’t quite believe I was about to start a new band. Then I thought back to the times when I had just started in the industry, I was in three or four bands at the same time, so it’s fairly logical to do the same now.
Many musicians are involved in more than one project at a time. Is this just business or just the way that the music industry has evolved?
JW: When I told my manager that the second album was ready, I asked him if it was a good idea to release it right away. Would people think I was choosing quality over quantity? The truth is, that’s not the way I see things. I’m not one of the Backstreet Boys, I’m not scared that the kids are going to forget me. I make music because I want to, not because I want to make money off it. Anyway, business and art never sit well together.
The record is very organic. Did you write it in one go?
JW: All four of us write and we never know where it will take us. I’m on the drums, we start an instrumental, like with Blue Blood Blues, and we record the sounds without knowing where it will all lead to, when it will stop or when one of us will sing. With the White Stripes it’s very different, I write a song on the piano and then Meg and I electrify it.
