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Mon 24 November 2025 3:00, UK
When Jack White gave a speech during the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, two things became clear.
The first was that, despite crediting the right environment growing up, White largely owes his success to his personal and professional partner in crime, Meg White. “One time, a girl climbed a tree, and in that tree was a boy. Her brother, she thought,” he said, starting a poetic tribute to how the pair of them built something based on instinctive feeling, and that while it began as a passion project, it eventually turned into something that felt entirely prophetic. Or, as White put it, “It was God”.
The pair initially met while Meg was working at Memphis Smoke, and one day, Meg randomly said that she wanted to learn the drums. Jack, enjoying her simple yet hard-hitting style, started playing alongside her, sparking an unintentional creative partnership that eventually morphed into the pair of them performing together in Detroit.
The two of them were actually married before The White Stripes, but, as we know, the nature of their relationship was overshadowed by the lie that they were actually siblings. That said, that wasn’t the only unconventional detail of their partnership. After they got married, Jack actually took Meg’s name, and “White” ended up influencing their band name in two distinctive ways – their last name, and Meg’s love for peppermint sweets. Meg’s passion for the project would waver through the years, but her input was crucial to their success, as Jack highlighted during their induction at the coveted Hall of Fame ceremony.
The second thing that became clear was that, despite solely influencing a host of new-gen bands with their quintessentially rock-sounding, heart-pumping, anthemic sound off the back of hits like ‘Seven Nation Army’ and ‘Icky Thump’, White is sitting on a goldmine of legacy influences, from classic rock acts to country outlaw and punk.
During his speech, he laid out an extensive list of all bands and artists who shaped his sound and inspired him to greatness, including Fugazi, The Misfits, Lake & Palmer, Dick Dale, Beck, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, Tampa Red, Pavement, Jethro Tull, the Strokes, Black Flag, Merle Haggard, The Hives, The Damned, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Captain Beefheart, and more.
You can hear all of these across most of White’s work, a true reflection of how well-versed he is across all genres and eras, and how he built a foundation on the shoulders of icons. It would take a long while to go into how each and every one of those names manifested in his music, but the two that initially pulled him in were ones that he didn’t even mention – and ones that, incidentally, he finds to be absolutely crucial for anyone with a real, serious interest in music.
Those two were, of course, the pinnacle of musical talent and innovation themselves, Bob Dylan and The Beatles. “Do not trust people who call themselves musicians or record collectors who say that they don’t like Bob Dylan or The Beatles,” White told NME in 2015. “They do not love music if those words come out of their mouths.”
Interestingly, his next comment supported the theme that his music is about taking these influences and keeping them fresh: “There aren’t that many things left that haven’t already been done, especially with music. I’m interested in ideas that can shake us all up,” he said, essentially noting that, if you took all of those names – Dylan and Fab Four included – and blended them all up, you’d likely end up somewhere near the Stripes.
And his statement also rings true – it’s hard to see eye-to-eye with anyone who comes without a valid reason for disliking Dylan or the Beatles, especially where the sole focus is on the music. And even then, it’s difficult to understand anyone who can’t appreciate all the ways they altered the entire musical landscape with the type of boundary-pushing and innovation that other artists can merely dream of. The type that becomes so deeply ingrained and bone-deep that when people like White stand up to accept recognition as prestigious as the Hall of Fame, their impact isn’t even mentioned at all.
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