Jack White grew up in Detroit, a city that helped launch The White Stripes, but he cites the area's "cynical environment" as a reason for relocating to Nashville in a recent interview.
In a conversation with Dan Rather for his new AXS TV show, The Big Interview, White discusses his move to the South. "It was very hard for me to move," White says in an exclusive clip over at Rolling Stone. "Detroit, I always imagined I was going to be there my whole life. It always felt like my home - even as hard as it is to live there, it always felt that way to me." The guitarist, along with then-bandmate Meg White, began to see signs of cynicism as they rose to stardom. "It was hard for me to understand. . .When you win the lottery, what do you do? You give your brothers and sisters a million dollars if you win the lottery, they're going to end up hating you a couple of years later."
White found Nashville to be a better fit for his creative endeavors, eventually opening the now highly regarded label Third Man Records in the area. "They look at music and the business of music so differently than I do that I thought, 'Well, maybe this is the perfect place,'" he explains. "I can just kind of be comfortable here, and I won't be in competition with anybody else."
The entire interview airs tomorrow night (Sept. 16) at 8 p.m. and includes a tour of the White's studio, some of the musician's guitars, and a performance of a Hank Williams cover, RS reports.
