Jack White Says He’s Never Owned a Cell Phone
Jack White, once again proving his own personal brand of uniqueness, said in a new interview that he’s never own cell phone.
The topic came up when White was speaking with Krishnan Guru-Murthy from U.K.’s Channel 4 News. For someone like me, who is one of the few who doesn’t own a cell phone, it is pretty funny to walk down the street and see everyone doing this,” said White.
“You’ve never had a phone?” asked Guru-Murthy. White continued, “I’ve never owned one. So, when I’m out there, I’m an anomaly and I’m looking at everybody and to me everyone sort of looks silly. And then you’re like, whatever, that’s their lives. Or who knows, maybe this is the way everything is going to be from now on. I have no idea. Nobody really does. Maybe it’ll turn into implants. Probably it’ll turn into a microchip behind our eyeball or whatever.”
White was famously one of the first musical acts to ban cell phones at his shows, and he said, “I thought it was a big art project at first just to see if people would think it was funny or cool or just a new experience, almost like an escape room or something like that. ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we had this arena show and everyone who showed up we told them they couldn’t use their phones?’ We thought maybe even at first people would be mad enough to demand their money back, and it might be something interesting would happen. To my surprise and everyone around me’s surprise, everyone loved it, and we’ve been doing it now for over a year.”
“If you can’t just put that [mobile phone] down for an hour and experience life in a real way, that’s sad.”
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 19, 2019
Musician Jack White talks about why he doesn’t own a mobile phone and why he’s banned mobiles from his concerts, in the latest Ways to Change the World podcast. pic.twitter.com/hFkSQI9hTr
You can expect this same cell phone ban when The Raconteurs kick off their tour supporting their new album, Help Us Stranger, beginning July 12. Help Us Stranger comes out tomorrow (June 21), and the band is celebrating its release with a two-night stand on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert beginning tonight (June 20.)
Erica Banas is rock/classic rock news blogger that loves the smell of old vinyl in the morning.
