Jack White (musician)

Jack White (born John Anthony Gillis on July 9, 1975 in Detroit) is an American rock musician, producer, and actor. He is best known as the leader of the rock duo The White Stripes.

Early Life

White's father and mother worked at the local Catholic church (as the maintenance man and cardinal secretary respectively), and White himself was an altar boy. According to the September 8, 2005 issue of Rolling Stone, this landed him a role at the age of ten in the movie The Rosary Murders, which was filmed at the church. Although White grew up in Mexicantown, the lower-middle-class Hispanic district of southwest Detroit, his musical preferences were not those of his classmates, who listened to electronica and hip-hop. White, as a teenager, was already listening to the blues and 1960s rock that would influence him in the White Stripes.

Related Topics:
Rolling Stone - The Rosary Murders - Mexicantown - Electronica - Hip-hop - Blues - 1960s

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At fifteen, White began a three year upholstery apprenticeship with a family friend, Brian Muldoon. After working in various shops, he started a one-man business of his own, called Third Man Upholstery. The slogan of his business was "Your Furniture's Not Dead" and the color scheme was yellow, white and black -- including a yellow van, a yellow and black uniform and a yellow clipboard. While "Third Man Upholstery" never lacked business, White claims that it was not profitable, due to his complancency about money and his business practices that were perceived as unprofessional, including making bills out in crayon and writing poetry inside the furniture.http://www.believermag.com/issues/may_2003/white.php

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White met Meg White in the mid-1990s, and they were married in 1996. He took her last name, and soon formed their band. They later divorced (2000), though well before becoming nationally famous.

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