Lawrence, Mosshart, White, Fertita
Busy people know how to get things done. Take The Dead Weather. The latest band to come into the Jack White indie fold is comprised entirely of members who each belong to other working bands, yet since their inception in 2009, have managed to crank out two albums in under a year, squeeze in some touring, and shoot a short film documentary about the band as well as record a song for inclusion on the upcoming Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack. To hear them tell it, though, the band's productivity has less to do with ambition than it does the thrill and immediacy of an illicit love affair.
It all began in 2008 when the London-based gothic-blues duo The Kills toured with Jack White's band The Raconteurs. After wrapping their final show in Atlanta, Kills' vocalist Alison Mosshart traveled to White's Nashville studio for what was to be a one-day project to record a 7-inch single with White and a couple of his fellow Raconteurs' bandmates, Jack Lawrence and Dean Fertita. A few months later, after Mosshart had already returned to London to begin work on a new Kills record, she received a call from White who thought maybe things shouldn't have ended there in Nashville.
So the foursome reconvened in January 2009 for some impromptu jamming. Holed up in Third Man Records, White's soup-to-nuts Nashville headquarters, a little music making among friends quickly turned into a frenzy of songwriting and recording and within three weeks, White, Mosshart, Lawrence and Fertita had their first album in the can. "Things just started to happen," says White. "We didn't have a direction. We just went a song a day, two songs a day, whatever we could do and recorded them on the fly. There was no time to think about what it was. It just was."
Mosshart (The Kills and the now defunct punk rock band Discount), bassist "Little Jack" Lawrence (Blanche, The Greenhornes, and The Raconteurs), guitarist Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age and part of The Raconteurs' touring lineup), and Jack White (The White Stripes and The Raconteurs), doubling out on drums and vocals, called themselves The Dead Weather and put their individual musical projects on hold to focus on their fledgling band (all except the workaholic White, that is, who managed to issue a live soundtrack to The White Stripes' tour film, Under Great White Northern Lights, produce a couple albums for other artists, and cut a few Third Man singles all while writing, recording, and performing with The Dead Weather.) The band adopted an organic, improvisational approach to songwriting with everyone gathered together in a room, playing their various parts, until a song emerged from the chaos. Mosshart says of the experience that, "The whole point was to make something without intention, and the result was pretty dirty and loose and like nothing any of us had ever done before. That's been really exciting for me: to work that fast, to write that fast, to just make stuff up really fast. Instead of sitting around, buried in my journals and books thinking about lyrics, it's just: 'I need lyrics right now, so I better open my mouth and sing something.'"
The group defied expectations with the July 2009 release of their debut album, Horehound. With its raw, raunchy sound, the record hinted at the band's potential and proved The Dead Weather were more than just another offshoot of The White Stripes. White and Mosshart have some serious chemistry. Their duets on Horehound are dirty and sexy as all hell as the two egg each other on like Burton and Taylor. Horehound charted at #6 on the US Billboard 200 and at #14 on the UK charts.
While out on tour last summer, the band continued to write new songs and whenever they had a couple days off between gigs, headed right back into the studio to kick out a few tracks. Apparently downtime is not in their vocabulary. So enamored are they with making music together that they just can't seem to stop themselves.
And this isn't to say the band are rushing things. After the wrap of the brief Horehound tour, the prolific quartet returned to Third Man with the luxury of time to slow things down a bit and experiment more on their next effort, but as it happens, the second record came just as fast as the first. Instead of sitting on what was their sophomore record while Horehound made its way in the world, they decided to put that album out too.
Sea of Cowards, whose title the technology-eschewing White says is a reference to people who hide behind the anonymity of the internet, hit record stores in May. It entered the Billboard 200 at #5 and the UK charts at #32. The album, with its creepy, voodoo vibe that evokes films noir like Blue Velvet and Eyes Wide Shut, is darker than Horehound and is generating a buzz among fans and critics alike. Where Horehound suggested the band's potential, Sea of Cowards realizes it with songs that are taut, lowdown and spooky. The band have grown tighter and have found their voice on the new album, proving that they are more than just a Jack White side project. With back-to-back albums charting in the top ten, The Dead Weather are a real band, and on Sea of Cowards, White seems to be saying deal with it.
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The Dead Weather are getting behind Sea of Cowards with a tour of the States and Europe that kicks off at Tennessee's Bonnaroo Festival on June 12th and runs through August 3rd, where it wraps with a gig in Brooklyn, New York.
If you haven't sampled The Dead Weather's music yet, be sure to visit the band's website at www.thedeadweather.com for concert dates. And check out some of their videos, too, which are very cool.
