Jack White

On his pandemic-era rebirth, making mysterious furniture, and feeling hopeful about rock's future

- BRENNA EHRLICH

The musical Willy Wonka has mellowed Lout – 2022 Jack White giggles; 2022 Jack White hasn't had sugar in two years; 2022 Jack White was transformed by the past two years. “There's been a complete rebirth on all levels of my life throughout the pandemic," he says. “I made a goal to myself that no matter how long it lasted I was going to come out of it with a totally different scenario of looking at life.” The evidence is in a new double album, of sorts, that spans the gamut of old-school White Stripes, Beatlesque experimentation, and American-jazz flare: Fear of the Dawn, out April 8, and Entering Heaven Alive, out July 22. The consummate frontman took a break from tweaking his upcoming albums even as they've been committed to wax - Dondastyle - and shopping at bigbox retailers to talk about his transformation.

You recorded two LPs during the pandemic. Was it hard to stay still for so long?

I don't really usually write about myself, but I wrote a song a few years ago (“That Black Bat Licorice"] about a hospital, a prison, an asylum, any place where I could lay on a cot and clear my vision and clear my head. I push myself so hard that sometimes I would find myself in the middle of a 16-hour day. I might fantasize about breaking my leg, that way I'm forced to lay in a hospital bed and forced to take a break and reevaluate what I'm working on.

I got to work on furniture again (during the pandemic), and it cleared my head. I didn't write a song for eight months. Creatively, that took me to a place I had missed.