Jack White – I'm the proudest I've been in my life of my guitar playing
Total Guitar|June 2022
As two new solo albums illustrate the breadth of his art, Jack White believes that he's reaching a new peak as a guitarist. "There are places I've never gone before," he says, "and techniques I thought I wasn't capable of doing...”
By Joe Bosso. Portraits by Eleanor Jane
Jack White – I'm the proudest I've been in my life of my guitar playing

It is a big statement that Jack White is making this year - with the release of not one I but two new solo albums. And yet, as the man himself says, this is not the result of some intensely calculated master plan. In fact, he had no plan at all...

I know people won't believe me when I say this, but I don't really ever have a plan to make an album once I get involved in it, he explains. I always sort of start falling into it and find myself in the middle of it, and then I say, 'Oh, wow. I guess I should start maybe thinking about this, how it's going to relate to things I've done in the past, or what I want to do next live on stage.' But just as quickly, you can find yourself in a bunch of traps because you start overthinking the public version of what you're doing, and that's not a good place to create, really.

Jack is speaking from his home in Nashville, where these new albums were written and then recorded at his Third Man Studios. He has made a couple of public appearances over the past few years, performing on Saturday Night Live in 2020, and playing two concerts in London last year to mark the opening of a new Third Man Records Store in the city's Soho district. But for the most part he has been laying low in Nashville as a result of the pandemic. And while he admits that the period of forced isolation affected him deeply, it was also a key factor in the sheer volume of new songs he wrote.

Once he had recorded all this material, Jack briefly considered packaging everything on one grand double-album set - an idea he quickly rejected. Instead, he divided the material into two thematic albums. With his previous solo record, 2018's Boarding House Reach, he struck a balance between blitzing riff monsters and mellower songs that blended rustic country, folk and blues, but with the new albums he draws distinct lines of demarcation.

Esta historia es de la edición June 2022 de Total Guitar.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición June 2022 de Total Guitar.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE TOTAL GUITARVer todo
POSITIVE GRID SPARK 2
Total Guitar

POSITIVE GRID SPARK 2

The sequel to the world's most popular smart guitar amp is here

time-read
2 minutos  |
November 2024
JACKSON PRO PLUS XT SOLOIST SLAT HT6 BARITONE
Total Guitar

JACKSON PRO PLUS XT SOLOIST SLAT HT6 BARITONE

We get low with this fast-playing, all-black modern metal machine

time-read
2 minutos  |
November 2024
GUILD POLARA DELUXE
Total Guitar

GUILD POLARA DELUXE

A’70s staple gets a bit of are-jig, o4 years after it was introduced

time-read
2 minutos  |
November 2024
NEURAL DSP NANO CORTEX
Total Guitar

NEURAL DSP NANO CORTEX

Neural DSP's second pedal might be the ultimate compact all-in-one rig

time-read
2 minutos  |
November 2024
EPIPHONE JIMI HENDRIX LOVE DROPS FLYING V
Total Guitar

EPIPHONE JIMI HENDRIX LOVE DROPS FLYING V

Prepare to kiss the sky with Epiphone's latest 'Inspired By...' model

time-read
4 minutos  |
November 2024
JIMMY PAGE
Total Guitar

JIMMY PAGE

\"I was using what was really meaty!\"

time-read
2 minutos  |
November 2024
EDDIE VAN HALEN
Total Guitar

EDDIE VAN HALEN

“You either capture the vibe or you don't!”

time-read
2 minutos  |
November 2024
MYTH BUSTERS: THE CABLE DESTRUCTION TEST
Total Guitar

MYTH BUSTERS: THE CABLE DESTRUCTION TEST

Need to know whether gear is worth your cash? Who you gonna call...

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 2024
JOHN FRUSCIANTE'S LETTER FROM AMERICA
Total Guitar

JOHN FRUSCIANTE'S LETTER FROM AMERICA

Our July 2006 issue featured none other than John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the cover, with a line of text promising discussion of meditation, drugs, Hendrix and some chat about the band’s then-latest album, Stadium Arcadium.

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 2024
CHALLENGE CHARLIE
Total Guitar

CHALLENGE CHARLIE

Ata time when TC's staff were getting, frankly, rather silly, one man stood up to take on the daftest of all our challenges...

time-read
1 min  |
November 2024