Charley Crockett performs at the Austin City Limits Music Festival on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
Robert Hein/American-Statesman
A feud between Austin country singer Charley Crockett and Jack White, former frontman of the White Stripes, was not on my 2026 bingo card.
The musicians have turned into keyboard warriors, taking jabs at each other through social media posts. The conflict stems from Crockett dropping self-described Satanic doo-wop duo Twin Temple from two dates on his “Age of the Ram” tour and White inviting them to open for him in response.
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Twin Temple’s ‘Satanic imagery’
Charley Crockett performs at the Continental Club during South by Southwest on Friday, March 13, 2026.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Twin Temple, a Los Angeles-based band composed of married couple Alexandra and Zachary James, shared on Instagram on July 8 that they were “disappointed” to be removed from two of Crockett’s “Age of the Ram” tour dates because of their “Satanic imagery.”
“I thought they were like Black Sabbath, but they ain’t. Not today, Satan,” Crockett explained in a statement published by Billboard on July 10.
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In response to the controversy, White invited Twin Temple to open for him on his tour supporting “Frozen Charlotte”.
“Twin Temple, Would you like to open my show in L.A. on September 29th at the Hollywood Palladium? Let me know. Get in front of me Satan!” White wrote on Instagram, referencing the White Stripes’ 2005 album, “Get Behind Me Satan.”
“It would be a most infernal pleasure to play the devil’s music with you,” Twin Temple replied.
Crockett deactivated all of his social media pages on July 16 but revived his accounts days later. He has continued to post long rants about the situation and then delete them on Instagram shortly after, while keeping everything visible on Facebook.
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Crockett clears up controversy
Austin musician Charley Crockett wraps up a milestone year with a concert on Wednesday at ACL Live.
Dave Creaney/American-Statesman
The latest installment from Crockett was a lengthy post on Aug. 18 to “clear this up right quick.”
He asserted that Twin Temple wasn’t dropped from two shows for “Satanic imagery” and said the duo “made it up and dragged me by a rope real good.” Crockett said the group was let go from the shows because their “vibe” didn’t fit an all-ages audience and because they had production requests his staff couldn’t physically accommodate.
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Crockett said the band was still paid in full.
“(Twin Temple) got together with their business folks and plotted for days before finally making their public statement, designed for effect. Purposely making it look like it was the whole tour. Dog whistling about religious and creative freedom,” Crockett wrote.
While Crockett acknowledged that he should have responded differently to the controversy, he criticized media outlets and other artists who he said exploited the situation to kick him while he was down.
Jack White’s diss track
Jack White plays a sold-out pop-up show at Mohawk ahead of his No Name World Tour on Nov. 14, 2024.
Provided by David James Swanson/Third Man Records
Crockett again targeted White in an Aug. 19 post, criticizing the guitarist’s past statements about not watching the news. In the diatribe, which referenced Crockett’s childhood “surrounded by cotton fields,” two Gulf Wars, John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas and the Epstein files, he called White a hypocrite.
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“Lemme guess, you got Che Guevara and Malcolm X on your shelf, maybe even Fred Hampton, but at the end of the day you get in the Lamborghini and put your kids in private school,” Crockett wrote. “I’ve seen behind the same curtain as you, and if you don’t play it just like they say they’ll never let you on the radio. So how’d you get on there?”
“The point is some art kids lied for publicity at my expense and you poured gas on it stereotyping me at a glance,” he added.
Later that day, White clapped back on Instagram with an “official response to Cowboy Charley’s accusations” — in the form of a poetic rap:
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“So you think you’re bad, with your rap / Well I’ll tell ya pilgrim I started the crap / When you were in diapers and wetting the sheets / I was at the Ponderosa rapping to the beat.”