Iconic blues-rocker Jack White has shocked either everyone or no one by revealing that he doesn’t own a mobile phone.
Last year, Jack White undoubtedly divided a few fans when he announced the banning of mobile phones at his shows.
While this is a divisive topic, with many supporting the decision and an equal amount opposing it, Jack White opened up about his hatred for phones in a discussion with Metallica’s Lars Ulrich.
“I really react to the crowd, just like a stand-up comedian would,” White explained. “If I finish a song and go, ‘Ta-da!’, and it’s crickets, I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t know what to do now.’ Am I supposed to play a heavier song, a faster song? Do you want me to play acoustic? Do you want me to leave? I’ll leave!’
“But what I don’t like is, ‘Is that how they really feel, or are they just not even paying attention because they’re not engaged… because they’re texting?’
“When you go to a movie theatre, a symphony, church, whatever – there are all these moments in life where people put those away and engage.”
In fact, even the debut Australian shows from The Saboteurs saw phones phones being banned, resulting in a lot of people suddenly finding themselves talking to each other, or becoming very interested in what their drink cans said, now that they had no phone to occupy their time with.
“If you can’t just put that [mobile phone] down for an hour and experience life in a real way, that’s sad.”
Musician Jack White talks about why he doesn’t own a mobile phone and why he’s banned mobiles from his concerts, in the latest Ways to Change the World podcast. pic.twitter.com/hFkSQI9hTr
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 19, 2019
However, in a new interview with Britain’s Channel 4, Jack White has revealed that his distaste for phones goes so deep to the point where he himself does not own one.
“For someone like me, who is one of the few who doesn’t own a cellphone, it is pretty funny to walk down the street and see everyone doing this,” White explained, before pretending to use a phone.
“I’ve never owned one, so when I’m out there I’m an anomaly and I’m looking at everybody. To me, everybody looks silly. And then you’re like, ‘Whatever, that’s their lives’. Who knows? Maybe this is the way everything is going to be from now on. I have no idea and nobody really does.”
Explaining the decision to ban phones from the gig, White notes that it started off as an experiment, before realising that the general response to the notion was actually overwhelmingly positive.
“I thought it was a big art project at first, to see if people would think it was funny or cool or just a new experience. Almost like an escape room or something like that, where like ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we had this arena show and everyone who showed up were told they couldn’t use their phones?’
“We thought maybe at first people would be mad enough to demand their money back, and it might be that something interesting would happen.
“To my surprise, and to everyone else’s surprise, everyone loved it. We’ve been doing it now for over a year so it’s been shocking how much people love it. It brings up these real big questions like, ‘So you need someone to tell you that you can’t use it to actually not use it?’
“How sad, that’s pretty sad. Again, coming from someone who isn’t part of it, it’s easy for me to say because I don’t have that addiction.”
Check out ‘Lazaretto’ by Jack White:
Closing out his thoughts on the topic, Jack White noted how phone use is an “addiction” of the modern crowd, explaining how it promotes ideas of “competition, voyeurism, [and] jealousy” amongst people.
“If you can’t choose to stop drinking for a day, it’s got that much of a hold on you, that’s a sad thing,” White explained. “So the same thing with that, if you can’t just put that down for an hour and experience life in a real way, that’s sad.
“And it’s maybe even sadder that you had to be told to do it. That you didn’t naturally want to do it on your own.
“A good portion of it, 90%, is ‘Look what I’m doing that you’re not doing’. It’s this competition, voyeurism, jealousy – those are really shallow human characteristics. Come on, man. That’s not people being like, ‘I just watched the best film of my life’ or ‘I just heard the most beautiful poem’.
“It shows that if it’s not happening in the moment then it’s not worth it to them. A lot of that is really nonsense. It’s sad too! It’s funny man…”
In related news, Jack White and The Saboteurs are set to release their first album in 11 years on June 21st. Read our review of the record here.
Check out ‘Sunday Driver’ by The Saboteurs:
