Jack White

Jack White (born John Anthony Gillis; July 9, 1975, Detroit, Michigan) is an American musician, record producer, and entrepreneur whose life and creative output are inseparable from the city of Detroit. He first gained fame with The White Stripes and later performed in other bands before launching a successful solo career. A key artist of the 2000s indie and garage rock movements, he is noted for his distinctive musical techniques, eccentricity, and utilization of analog technology. From the basement stages of Cass Corridor to the Detroit Masonic Temple, White's relationship with Detroit has remained one of the defining threads of his public identity.

Early Life and Education in Detroit

John Anthony Gillis was born in Detroit, Michigan, on July 9, 1975, the youngest of ten children of Teresa (née Bandyke) and Gorman M. Gillis. He was raised a Catholic, and both of his parents worked for the Archdiocese of Detroit — his father as the building maintenance superintendent and his mother as secretary in the Cardinal's office. He was raised in Mexicantown, in southwest Detroit.

Gillis' early musical influences were his older brothers, who were in a band together called Catalyst, and he learned to play the instruments they abandoned; he began playing the drums in the first grade after finding a kit in the attic. As a child, he was a fan of classical music, but in elementary school, he began listening to the Doors, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin.

He attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, where he was exposed to a variety of musical influences, including classical music and jazz. White later recalled the experience vividly; he stated, "Going to school there at age 14 was like all of sudden you were going to Harvard or something. It seemed like you were going to college." At Cass Tech, White played the drums and trombone in the school band, and even learned the marimba.

At 15, he began a three-year upholstery apprenticeship with a family friend, Brian Muldoon. He credits Muldoon with exposing him to punk music as they worked together in the shop. After completing his training, he started a one-man business called Third Man Upholstery, whose slogan was "Your Furniture's Not Dead," with a color scheme of yellow and black — including a yellow van, a yellow-and-black uniform, and a yellow clipboard. Although Third Man Upholstery never lacked business, he claims it was unprofitable due to his complacency about money and his business practices that were perceived as unprofessional, including making bills out in crayon and writing poetry inside the furniture.

At 19 years old, White had landed his first professional gig as the drummer for the Detroit band Goober & the Peas, and was still in that position when the band broke up in 1996. It was in this band that he learned about touring and performing onstage. After the band's split, he settled into working as an upholsterer by day while moonlighting in local bands, as well as performing solo shows.

The White Stripes and the Detroit Garage Rock Scene

In high school, Jack Gillis met Meg White at the Memphis Smoke — the restaurant where she worked and where he would read his poetry at open mic nights. The two started dating and began frequenting the coffee shops, local music venues, and record stores of the area. Gillis and White were married in 1996. Contrary to convention, he took his wife's surname.

The White Stripes were an American rock duo formed in Detroit, Michigan, in 1997. The group consisted of Jack White on guitar, keyboards, piano, and vocals, and Meg White on drums, percussion, and vocals. Two months after forming, on July 14, 1997 — also known as Bastille Day — Jack and Meg performed their first show at the Gold Dollar in Detroit; of the three songs on the setlist, one of them was "Jimmy the Exploder," which would be the intro of their debut album in 1999.

They began their career as part of the Michigan underground garage rock scene, playing with local bands such as the Hentchmen, the Dirtbombs, the Gories, and Rocket 455. In 1998, Dave Buick — owner of an independent, Detroit-based, garage-punk label called Italy Records — approached the band at a bar and asked if they would like to record a single. Their debut single, "Let's Shake Hands," was released on vinyl in February 1998 with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies. This was followed in October 1998 by the single "Lafayette Blues," which, again, was only released on vinyl with 1,000 copies.

The self-titled debut album was produced by Jack and engineered by American music producer Jim Diamond at his Ghetto Recorders studio in Detroit. White himself later reflected on the record's local character, saying "I still feel we've never topped our first album. It's the most raw, the most powerful, and the most Detroit-sounding record we've made."

They earned international fame with their 2001 breakthrough album White Blood Cells. White is known for creating a mythology around his endeavors; a notable example came in 2002, when the Detroit Free Press produced copies of both a marriage license and divorce certificate for him and Meg, confirming their history as a married couple — contradicting the pair's public claim that they were siblings rather than former spouses. Despite the revelation, White continued to present Meg as his sister in interviews for years.

Departure from Detroit and Ongoing Ties

It wasn't the economy, the weather, or even the Lions that prompted Jack White to leave his hometown of Detroit in favor of Nashville in 2005 — it was the city's "cynical environment." White revealed that a backlash in Detroit over the Stripes' burgeoning success in the early 2000s led to his journey down south. He was candid about the difficulty of the choice: "Detroit, I always imagined I was going to be there my whole life. It always felt like my home — even as hard as it is to live there, it always felt that way to me."

Despite relocating to Nashville, White maintained deep connections to Detroit. In 2013, White saved the historic Detroit Masonic Temple — the largest in the world — from being sold at public tax auction by paying off a $142,000 outstanding tax bill. White donated the money without being asked and initially wanted to keep it anonymous; the Masons later revealed he was the donor. White had attended nearby Cass Technical High School, his band the White Stripes had performed at the temple, and his mother once worked as an usher at the gothic-style building. The Masonic Temple Association subsequently renamed the facility's Cathedral Theater the Jack White Theater.

Clark Park in southwest Detroit is where White used to play baseball as a youth. His first donations for improvements at the park began in 2008, when he gave nearly $170,000 to revamp the baseball diamonds and install new dugouts and grandstands after the city had slashed funding for the park. The then-anonymous donor was identified by The Detroit News in 2009.

On April 8, 2022, White played the national anthem for a Detroit Tigers game, then proposed to his girlfriend, Olivia Jean, near the end of a concert performance at the Detroit Masonic Temple, while "Hotel Yorba" was being played. Jean and White were married shortly afterward by White's business partner Ben Swank, who officiated on stage.

In August 2024, White returned to perform at Saint Andrew's Hall in Detroit for the release of his album No Name. Just two days after playing the Pentaport Rock Festival in South Korea, White and his quartet were on stage at Saint Andrew's Hall in his native Detroit, tearing through a characteristically frenzied, nearly 100-minute show that served as the album release celebration for No Name. From the stage, White declared, "That's my town! That's my town, right there!"

Third Man Records in Detroit

In 2001, while Jack White was gaining regional notice in the White Stripes in Detroit, he registered the label Third Man Records, proceeding to trademark the name in 2004. The label's name echoed that of White's earlier upholstery business, and its founding in Detroit reflected his conviction that the city's musical infrastructure deserved institutional support.

Third Man Records was originally founded by Jack White in Detroit in 2001. In March of 2009, a physical location was established in Nashville, Tennessee. Third Man Records returned to Detroit in November 2015 with a second retail location, Third Man Records Cass Corridor — a record store, novelties lounge, in-store performance stage, record booth, and vinyl record pressing plant, which can be witnessed in action through viewing windows in the store, pressing the very records available for purchase.

The more than 15,000-square-foot Jack White-designed location houses Third Man Records' second retail location and label office, along with Third Man Pressing vinyl manufacturing and the Third Man Mastering studio. The entire plant was designed by White, from the concept of being the first record plant viewable from inside a record store, to the boiler rooms supplying steam for the presses, to the delivery access points and stamper library storage.

As the first label to operate a fleet of brand new, environmentally efficient pressing machinery within a purpose-built manufacturing infrastructure, Third Man Pressing minimizes water waste by using recycled water from the record curing process in the air conditioning system, thus creating the only fully climate-controlled pressing plant work environment in the world.

The company now operates out of three locations — Nashville, Detroit, and Soho in London — with multiple entities expanding upon the offerings of a traditional record label, including multiple live music venues, a vinyl pressing plant, a film studio and darkroom, a guitar pedal and gear company, a mastering studio, a vinyl subscription service, and a publishing arm.

Solo Career and Awards

After the White Stripes disbanded in 2011, White released his first solo album, Blunderbuss (2012), which extended his stylistic reach and deepened his songwriting craft. The follow-up, Lazaretto (2014), garnered mostly glowing reviews. His devotion to vinyl recordings was especially evident on the latter album — an ambitious mix of familiar and unexpected musical approaches — which incorporated a raft of technical innovations for turntable users. The eclectic Boarding House Reach (2018) featured a variety of genres, including funk and rap.

White produced Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose in 2004, which won them a Grammy for Best Country Album, and an additional Grammy for Best Country Collaboration for the song "Portland, Oregon." Overall, White has won 12 Grammy Awards out of 33 nominations, recognizing his work with The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and as a solo artist.

In November 2025, the White Stripes were inducted by Iggy Pop into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Jack accepted the award for the band and gave a speech written by him and Meg. That same month, at the 86th Thanksgiving Day game, White performed at the Detroit Lions' halftime show alongside Eminem.

Jack White of the White Stripes is confirmed to be the musical guest for the April 4, 2026 episode of Saturday Night Live, marking his fifth time performing there as a solo artist, following his stints in 2012, 2018, 2020, and 2023.