We know that Jack White isn’t one to compromise when it comes to his recordings, having employed all sorts of incredibly specific custom and vintage gear over the years in search of just the right sounds, and now his new technique is apparently to shut himself up in the most boring sort of locale we could imagine as he begins work on his next record.
He’s taking his need for very specific recording conditions to new lengths, and has apparently decided to confine himself to what is pretty much an empty room in an effort to spur on his creative drive, according to an in-depth interview with The New Yorker’s Alec Willamson.
Picture Jack White sitting in a silent, curtains closed, just… thinking about music. That’s what he’s going for with his new Nashville apartment, where he’s apparently been almost meditating on new songs rather than constructing them, recording any sudden inspiration on a reel-to-reel recorder he “bought when he was fourteen with money he made mowing lawns.”
While the space itself seems like one of the least inspiring spots for creativity, it seems he’s relying on that sensory deprivation and confinement to get his next batch of songs together, and apparently this isolation tank of sorts was inspired by his desire to be more like the legendary Michael Jackson.
“I’m going to try to write songs where I can’t be heard by the next-door neighbor,” he explains, “and I want to write like Michael Jackson would write – instead of writing parts on the instruments or humming melodies, you think of them. To do everything in my head and to do it in silence and use only one room.”
The idea of confining himself to an empty space with nothing but his own thoughts, meanwhile, stemmed from a slightly more extreme manner of confronting writers block.
“If I could just break my leg and be in the hospital for six weeks, what would it be like?” he asked Williamson. “Something about a room and a cot and a little space. You have nothing to do.”
So, it’ll just be Jack, sitting in his room alone, thinking, for “several hours a day” until the record is written. Say what you will about Jack White, but there’s no questioning that he hasn’t exactly gotten caught up in the glamorous rock star lifestyle if this is any indication – or maybe he’s just his own best company.
Either way, we hope he’s worn his earplugs over the year, or else tinnitus might just drive him mad.
