Jack White sings own covers

Bang Showbiz

24 December 2018

Jack White feels "comfortable" recording new music by pretending they are covers of someone's old songs

Jack White "pretends" his songs are all covers.

The 43-year-old singer has always felt more "comfortable" with other people's songs, so when he's recording new material, he tries to trick himself in order to feel "free".

He explained: "I'm more comfortable covering other people's music so I pretend my song has been written by somebody else a long time ago.

"I started that in The White Stripes and have carried it in all my projects.

"I used to write my own songs and think they were OK, but then cover somebody else's and find the chord changes amazing and felt so alive, more comfortable.

"So I began to pretend I was covering my own songs and it frees me up."

But Jack isn't the only one playing tricks in the studio as his drummer Carla Azar has learned to make deliberate mistakes in order to force the singer into recording another take so she has time to work out what she wants to play.

She said: "He loves throwing people together and making a situation.

"He'll never stop an idea before he's heard it through. He can always press delete at the end – that's where he has the control.

"I trick him into playing what I really want to play [by making mistakes]. I've never told him that – put it in, he'll love it."

Though the Raconteurs singer is known for his use of analogue equipment, he used Pro Tools on his latest solo album 'Boarding House Reach' and though he likes the technology, he doesn't think it's great for him to rely on.

He told Uncut magazine: "We recorded live to tape but edited on Pro Tools. That's the best part of Pro Tools. What we usually do with razor blades and record tape is dangerous, you can screw things up – and I have – and you can't get it back.

"Now I could do the things I'd always imagined.

"But it's not necessarily a great place for my brain to live, the knowledge that I can fix things on a computer.

"I need to keep one foot on the ground and remember where music comes from."