Meg White left the music world in 2009 as quickly as she had taken it by storm with the White Stripes in 1997.
A small message that caused a stir in 2009 and prompted a radical withdrawal: “Meg White is suffering from acute anxiety and is unable to travel at this time.”
An artist who deals honestly with her illness, who can’t go on, doesn’t want to go on.
In 2011, what was probably the final end for the once united duo, which always had more to offer than just reviving blues classics in a lo-fi guise.
The White Stripes had an incorruptible musical and aesthetic concept and the impact of their music can also be seen in the contrast between extroverted guitar playing and radically introverted drum sound.
Jack became more delicate without his Meg, but never better. The White Stripes’ albums only gain more power and sovereignty with each passing year.
Of course, it’s a fine rock irony: Meg White, who was very quiet and, according to her own statements, also very shy, played the drums louder than any other woman – and, for that matter, no other man in the recent history of rock’n’roll.
Nevertheless, to this day, Meg White has to endure demeaning comments about her supposedly simple, snappy, unspectacular playing on the drums. As if the minimalism of their beats, their uncomplicated drummed rhythm, wasn’t an unmistakable part of the White Stripes concept.
But that’s exactly what it was. Compare her development as a drummer between the somewhat clumsy, self-titled debut album of the White Stripes and the artfully noisy “Icky Thump”.
Jack White has made bitter comments about his former partner and colleague several times in the past. She was emotionally closed, there were no “high fives” in the studio and the production of the White Stripes songs was primarily a matter for the manic guitarist.
A one-man production with a studio and stage drummer. Also visible live: the sweaty Jack White gasps for air after every single performance. Meg White smiles softly to herself, her face dry and calm. Her drumming is strenuous even to the untrained eye.
Since 2009, there has been no trace of Meg White apart from joint background activities with Jack White. She had already established a withdrawn life and staged her introversion, for example in the insightful “Coffee & Cigarettes” article by Jim Jarmusch. Jack White said in an interview that he always had to drive to her house when he wanted to talk to her.
In 2009, Meg White married Jackson Smith, the son of Patti Smith and her late husband Fred “Sonic” Smith. The marriage lasted until 2013. Meg White doesn’t give interviews to anyone. Inquiries, including those from ROLLING STONE, always remain unanswered.
During her time with the White Stripes, Meg was seen at many parties and occasionally worked as a model. She also gave that up after her inner exit in 2009 and the official exit in 2011.
As is known, Meg White still lives in Detroit (Michigan) and therefore continues to live in the US state in which she was born and spent a large part of her life.
The great restraint of rock music remains gone, at its own request. She lives her life outside of any artistic need to work on a piece. She left as she came.
And if the historiography of rock music were not still written according to masculine criteria, then the self-imposed retirement of the most important female drummer of the 21st century would be worth a myth. Meg White will turn 50 on December 10, 2024.
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