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The White Stripes Talk Canada And Everything Else
Friday June 22, 2007 @ 05:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff
The White Stripes |
The White Stripes released Icky Thump on Tuesday, and to celebrate they're coming to the Great White North for the next three weeks. The tour will take them from Burnaby, B.C., to Iqaluit, Nunavut, to Toronto, to St. John's, Nfld. and almost everywhere in between.
We caught up with singer/guitarist Jack White in April to discuss his connection to Canada, The White Stripes' 10th anniversary (which they'll celebrate in Glace Bay, N.S.), the new album and The Raconteurs. Here's part one of two:
ChartAttack: So you're about to embark on maybe the most comprehensive Canadian tour ever. What made you decide to do it at this point?
Jack White: I just felt like we'd never gotten to do a real tour of Canada. So it just seemed like it's about time. We always got to play one or two shows and then had to go back to something else. It was always kind of left undone. In the early days when we were in the van it was because of permanence and paying the fee, getting across the border and all that trouble that kept us from doing it. But now we don't have an excuse. So I said since we've never done one after so many albums, let's do the biggest and best one we can. Let's go everywhere. I didn't even want to go to the major cities. I just wanted to go everywhere else. We made a compromise.
What do you like about the country?
Canada's beautiful, feels comfortable to me. When you play on these things, you realize there's not just one reason you do them. There's 15 reasons why you go on tour. You're promoting your record, you're paying the bills — you know, some people even like to make money when they go on tour. But we do a lot of tours that don't really make any money because we go to such weird places. On Satan we went to South America and eastern Europe, places where they don't even sell our records. Because we look at it from a different angle. We want to get something else out of it.
You're doing a lot of the cities in quick succession. Will you make an effort to see the cities you're visiting?
We're doing it in a short amount of time, so I hope we can see as much as possible. We're trying to make more of an effort to do that when we go out on the road. It used to be nothing but a hotel room and that was it. You'd see nothing. And we're trying to do a little bit better. It's not easy when you're out on the road because as soon as you get into town you have lunch, then you soundcheck, and then before you know it it's the show, and then bed, and then suddenly you're driving to another town. It's not always a vacation.
What's the significance of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, where the Stripes will celebrate their 10-year anniversary?
Sydney Mines and Antigonish, that's where our family comes from. The Scottish side of our family came through Nova Scotia on the way to Detroit. We were trying to book a show in Sydney Mines, but the theatre that was more appropriate was 10 minutes away in Glace Bay. It's a beautiful theatre: red, white and black. It's perfect.
Have you ever been there?
Never had the chance, been wanting to go. Luckily all these things coincided. Meant to be, I think.
What are your feelings on the band turning 10?
It feels like a year to us. It does not feel like 10 years. It honestly feels like it's been about a year. That was the most we could come up with. That's the most time we could add up in our heads. It's very strange in that sense. It didn't feel like when we started, there's no way we were going to be doing it for 10 years. We didn't consider it something that would be viable. It would be a side thing to our day jobs.
Check back on Monday for more of our interview with Jack White.
Here are The White Stripes' Canadian tour dates:
- June 24 Burnaby, BC @ Deer Lake Park
- June 25 Whitehorse, YK @ Yukon Arts Centre
- June 26 Yellowknife, NT @ Shorty Brown Multiplex Arena
- June 27 Iqaluit, NU @ Arctic Winter Games Arena
- June 29 Calgary, AB @ Pengrowth Saddledome
- June 30 Edmonton, AB @ Shaw Conference Centre
- July 1 Saskatoon, SK @ TCU Place
- July 2 Winnipeg, MB @ MTS Centre
- July 3 Thunder Bay, ON @ Thunder Bay Community Auditorium
- July 5 Toronto, ON @ Molson Amphitheatre
- July 6 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
- July 7 London, ON @ John Labatt Centre
- July 8 Ottawa, ON @ Cisco Systems Bluesfest
- July 10 Moncton, NB @ Moncton Coliseum Arena
- July 11 Charlottetown, PEI @ Charlottetown Civic Centre
- July 13 Halifax, NS @ Cunard Centre
- July 14 Glace Bay, NS @ Savoy Theatre
- July 16 St. John’s, NF @ Mile One Centre
—Noah Love
 
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