Jack White

As a "shorthaired [teenager] with braces", Gillis began listening to the blues and 1960s rock that would influence him in the White Stripes, with Son House and Blind Willie McTell being among his favorite blues guitarists.

He has said in interviews that Son House's "Grinnin' in Your Face" is his favorite song of all time.

As a drummer, his heroes include Gene Krupa, Stewart Copeland, and Crow Smith from Flat Duo Jets.

John Anthony White (born July 9, 1975) is an American musician who served as the guitarist and lead singer of the rock duo the White Stripes.

John Anthony Gillis was born in Detroit, Michigan, on July 9, 1975, the youngest of ten children of Teresa (née Bandyk; born 1930) and Gorman M. Gillis.

His mother's family was Polish, while his father was Scottish-Canadian.

He was raised a Catholic, and both of his parents worked for the Archdiocese of Detroit as the building maintenance superintendent and secretary in the Cardinal's office, respectively.

Gillis became an altar boy, which landed him an uncredited role in the 1987 movie The Rosary Murders, filmed mainly at Most Holy Redeemer parish in southwest Detroit.

He attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit.

Gillis' early musical influences were his older brothers, who were in a band together called Catalyst, and he learned to play the instruments they abandoned; he began playing the drums in the first grade after finding a kit in the attic.

As a child, he was a fan of classical music, but in elementary school, he began listening to the Doors, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin.

He and Meg White married in 1996, but divorced in 2000 before the height of the White Stripes' fame.

They then began calling themselves siblings.

After moonlighting in several underground Detroit bands as a drummer, White founded the White Stripes with fellow Detroit native and then-wife Meg White in 1997.

White is widely credited as one of the key artists in the garage rock revival of the 2000s.

He has won 12 Grammy Awards, and three of his solo albums have reached number one on the Billboard 200.

Rolling Stone ranked him number 32 on its 2023 list of greatest guitarists of all time.

Their 2001 breakthrough album, White Blood Cells, brought them international fame with the single and accompanying music video for "Fell in Love with a Girl".

White subsequently began collaborating with artists such as Loretta Lynn and Bob Dylan.

In 2005, White founded the Raconteurs with Brendan Benson, and in 2009 founded the Dead Weather with Alison Mosshart of the Kills.

He was married to model and singer Karen Elson from 2005 to 2013; they have a son and daughter.

In 2022, he married musician Olivia Jean.

He currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 2005, on 60 Minutes, he told Mike Wallace that his life could have turned out differently.

"I'd got accepted to a seminary in Wisconsin, and I was gonna become a priest, but at the last second I thought, 'I'll just go to public school.' I had just gotten a new amplifier in my bedroom, and I didn't think I was allowed to take it with me."

Instead, he got accepted into Cass Technical High School as a business major, and played the drums and trombone in the band.

At 15, he began a three-year upholstery apprenticeship with a family friend, Brian Muldoon.

He credits Muldoon with exposing him to punk music as they worked together in the shop.

Muldoon goaded his young apprentice into forming a band: "He played drums", Gillis thought.

"Well I guess I'll play guitar then."

In 2008, he recorded "Another Way to Die", the title song for the 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace, alongside Alicia Keys, making them the only duet to perform a Bond theme.

White has released five solo studio albums, which have garnered critical and commercial success.

White is a board member of the Library of Congress' National Recording Preservation Foundation.

His record label and studio Third Man Records releases vinyl recordings of his own work as well as that of other artists and local school children.

David Fricke's 2010 list ranked him at number 17.

In 2012, The New York Times called White "the coolest, weirdest and savviest rockstar of our time".

His second studio album, Lazaretto (2014), broke the record for most first-week vinyl sales since 1991, holding that record until 2021.

White has an extensive collection of guitars and other instruments and has a preference for vintage items that often have connections to famous blues artists.

He is a vocal advocate for analog technology and recording techniques.

White has been known to create misdirection about his personal life.