It's no secret that Jack White is a throwback rock star who would take vinyl over MP3 any day, and in tonight's (Sept. 16) interview with Dan Rather on AXS TV, the guitarist will explain his love for the days of old.
The Big Interview will air at 8 p.m., and in an exclusive, advanced clip over at Rolling Stone, White talks about why he's a little jealous of artists like Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan. "I was talking to Bob Dylan and I said, 'In a way, you guys had it so lucky in the Sixties,'" White tells Rather. "All these recording techniques that had never been tried before, the Civil Rights movement was coming to a head, the Vietnam War. The whole world was changing...There was so much to sing about. It was like shooting fish in a barrel."
The guitarist went on to say that he has trouble connecting with today's younger population. "I don't see beauty in teenagers sitting next to each other texting and not talking face to face," he says. "I don't see that beauty in the way that pop music is all recorded on computers and Auto-Tune and presented in that really plastic way." White goes on to say that he tries to present his work in a way that highlights truth and beauty, but it's a challenge. "It is a lot harder now, and I am a little bit jealous of the artists from the other decades because it seemed like you could just do your job and not worry about this periphery of stuff," he said. "The idea that I just have to be a hustler now just to be a musician, you sort of have to sell yourself all the time now. I think you could have just been a songwriter and everyone else would do that around you. I doubt Frank Sinatra cared what was on his album cover."
Other points of interest in the interview include White's decision to move South from native Detroit. The musician's second solo album, Lazaretto, is out now.
