Jack White is ‘Bored’ of Writing Songs About Himself

Jack White finds it "boring" to write songs about himself.

The singer and guitarist released his first album under his own name earlier this year, and while he makes up different characters who his songs are about, he admits they are based on his own experiences.

"I always find it kind of boring to write about myself. But whatever happens to you, if you've gone through anything - sort of a literal train wreck in your life, for example - you have to have that inside of you in some way. Even if you choose not to write about being involved in a train wreck, it would come out of you no matter what choice you have. So whatever characters I was writing about during the record, I'm giving them these problems. But the problems are only things that I probably have seen or experienced sometime along the way. The funny thing is, I always think I'm writing about, you know, a couple of characters, but by the end I'm mixing the song and listening to it back and thinking, 'Oh, now I know exactly what this song is about. I'm the only one who's going to know.' It's very funny."

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Jack White Already Has Enough Songs for a New Album

Jack White already has enough material for a follow-up to Blunderbuss. The former White Stripes man still has 12 as-yet-unfinished songs that didn't make it on to his debut solo offering and is already considering its follow up.

"We had enough for an album at one point, but I just kept going. I've got another 12 songs that I haven't finished yet," he said.

Jack is planning to play tracks from across his career and various bands when he performs live, but they may not be in the form fans expect: "There's songs that White Stripes never really played live, or Raconteurs never really got that into, or songs that I brought to the table in a band - songs like 'I Cut Like a Buffalo' - and now I can elaborate on them."

Additionally, Jack revealed he refuses to draw up a set list before shows and his backing musicians include one all-male and one all-female band because he doesn't want to "bore people."

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Jack White Improvised Entire Track

Jack White improvised one of the songs on his new record on the spot.

The singer is about to release his first solo album, Blunderbuss, and was keen to challenge himself, so invited some musicians over and composed one of the tracks spontaneously.

"I had six sessions musicians invited to come in in the morning, and I had no song, I had no idea, nothing. And I went in the room and I pretended like I had a song. I sat down at the piano and played a C chord and then an F and thought, 'I gotta write something. Right now, right now!' These aren't friends of mine, they're studio session musicians waiting for me to tell them what to play. That forced me to do something I would never have done!" he told NPR.

Jack - who previously fronted The White Stripes - recorded the album with a number of different musicians, both session players and friends, including an all female band and an all male band, and was interested by how the dynamic of the recordings changed depending on the sex of the players.

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