{"id":748353,"date":"2026-08-24T16:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T16:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/748353\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T16:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T16:34:12","slug":"a-rock-star-on-her-own-terms-why-were-still-so-fascinated-by-meg-white-the-white-stripes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/748353\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A rock star on her own terms\u2019: why we\u2019re still so fascinated by Meg White | The White Stripes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In February 2011, the White Stripes announced<\/a> they were no longer going to tour or release new music. The decision wasn\u2019t based on \u201cartistic differences\u201d or \u201chealth issues\u201d; instead, the decision was \u201cmostly to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the ensuing years, vocalist-guitarist Jack White cultivated a wildly successful solo career and continued working sporadically with his other bands, the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. Drummer Meg White, meanwhile, retreated from music, preferring instead to be a private citizen. In recent years, she politely declined to speak for a 2023 Elle story and didn\u2019t attend the White Stripes\u2019 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.<\/p>\n

As a culture, we\u2019re fascinated by musicians who stay out of the spotlight. Over the years, journalists have tried to track down elusive artists such as Cleveland singer-songwriter Bill Fox (who actually gave several interviews last year) or Suburban Lawns\u2019 Su Tissue<\/a>. We\u2019re not entitled to know details of their personal lives, of course, which is why this fascination occasionally slides into pernicious territory \u2013 like the now-deleted Daily Mail article<\/a> that recently attempted to find Meg but instead stalked the wrong person.<\/p>\n

Meg had an uneasy relationship with being a public figure during the White Stripes\u2019 active existence. She was notoriously shy, once telling NPR<\/a> about the advice a teacher gave her: \u201cShe wrote in my yearbook to speak softly and carry a big stick, you know? And I took to that heart.\u201d The White Stripes also canceled<\/a> tour dates in 2007 due to Meg\u2019s \u201cacute anxiety\u201d, something Jack spoke<\/a> about candidly and empathetically later. \u201cTo go full-speed from a dead-halt is overwhelming, and we had to take a break.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such vulnerability made Meg enormously relatable, someone you wanted to root for to succeed. But people also feel protective of her because she was often treated so poorly when the White Stripes were an active band. Meg started playing drums in 1997 at Jack\u2019s behest \u2013 the first song the duo played together was David Bowie\u2019s Moonage Daydream \u2013 skipping formal music lessons in favor of more unvarnished creativity.<\/p>\n

Meg White in 2004. Photograph: Jean Baptiste Lacroix\/WireImage<\/p>\n

This irked people who expected virtuosity. A now-archived 2006 article<\/a> \u2013 Why We Can\u2019t Forget Meg White \u2013 And the Sexist Way We Talked About Her \u2013 outlined the sexism in exhaustive detail, from Pitchfork calling her drumming \u201cpancake-handed\u201d to a 2007 Pearl Jam message board thread titled \u201cOfficial Meg White can\u2019t play thread.\u201d (Both jabs are still online.) Long after the White Stripes ceased recording, the negativity persisted. In 2023, a journalist apologized<\/a> after intense outcry to his offhand comment that \u201cthe tragedy of the White Stripes is how great they would\u2019ve been with a half decent drummer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The observation is especially absurd because the White Stripes were great precisely because of her approach to drumming. She and Jack complemented each other perfectly; her combination of steely focus and serene nonchalance balanced his more outgoing presence. \u201cMeg is the best part of this band,\u201d Jack told<\/a> Rolling Stone in 2005, adding: \u201cWhen she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, Meg was a powerful player who propelled the White Stripes\u2019 blues\/punk\/garage rock hybrids with a steady hand. Her thumping kickdrum propels The Hardest Button to Button like a thundering metronome; the garage-rock classics Fell In Love With a Girl and Hotel Yorba lift off due to her buoyant, ramshackle playing. Later-era singles like Icky Thump and Blue Orchid boast a heavier edge thanks in no small part to Meg\u2019s seething, sizzling grooves.<\/p>\n

And, unlike other duos, the White Stripes didn\u2019t hire additional musicians to flesh out their live sound. It was always Meg and Jack against the world \u2013 her forceful rhythmic backbone anchoring his wild-hair extroversion, whether a grimy guitar line, a soulful organ, antique piano part or even a lively marimba. Criticized at the time<\/a>, the White Stripes\u2019 Glastonbury 2005 performance looks like a revelation through a modern lens; Meg looks unflappable, even ecstatic, as she mouths along with the words and steers the set. On the pair\u2019s ominous cover<\/a> of Dolly Parton\u2019s Jolene, her light-touch cymbal hits generate tension for much of the song \u2013 until it explodes as she ferociously attacks her entire drumkit, mirroring the moment when the narrator collapses in anguish.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will always be us two,\u201d Jack told<\/a> Rolling Stone in 2005. \u201cI will never do the White Stripes with another drummer. She\u2019ll never do it with another guitarist.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He\u2019s kept his word: when the duo was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Jack didn\u2019t perform in Meg\u2019s absence. Instead, Twenty One Pilots whacked through Seven Nation Army, while Olivia Rodrigo and Feist picked through a delicate We\u2019re Going To Be Friends. However, Meg sent a note of gratitude that Jack read; he also noted she helped write and shape the speech he gave. \u201cA lot of punctuation corrections too,\u201d he quipped. \u201cShe\u2019s pretty good at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

With this honor, Meg became just the third female drummer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, after Gina Schock of the Go-Go\u2019s and Velvet Underground\u2019s Moe Tucker. Like those two artists, Meg reinforced the idea that you could be in a band, create your own style and carve out your own destiny. She didn\u2019t wait around for permission to be an artist.<\/p>\n

Meg\u2019s iconoclastic music career and drumming skills are finally receiving their due, in no small part because younger fans and musicians aren\u2019t saddled by the same sexist cultural baggage. Speaking to Elle in 2023, Rodrigo noted Meg\u2019s playing and the White Stripes themselves taught her \u201cthe value of simplicity in music \u2026 that a truly great song doesn\u2019t need to have crazy production or layers of sound. It just needs to move you. You can sense her passion in every song she plays.\u201d But in the end, Meg proved you could be a rock star on your own terms \u2013 both during and after your music career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In February 2011, the White Stripes announced they were no longer going to tour or release new music.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-748353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}