Earning their Stripes

If The Strokes eventually become the Menswear of our times (albeit one with far superior material) then at least we’ll have The White Stripes back catalogue to get our kicks from. If it is all about location, location and location, then look no further than their Detroit hometown for reference points for the scorching blend of deranged blues pop the Stripes have patented in the mould of their own genius. As an urban musical heritage goes, it doesn’t get much better than the Motor City; a musical magpie’s paradise that gave birth to the primal pulse of techno, the pop soul of Motown, the kicking-out-the-jams white-noise sermons of the MC5, the sensational stage antics and outfits of Kiss, the uber-celebrity of Madonna and Eminem and a close-knit garage rock underground populated by madcap bands and colourful characters – now best known by the garish red and white colour code of Jack and Meg White.

Last August, there was a particularly quiet week for the UK music and non-music press alike. Suddenly, the usual Reading preview issue plans were shelved to make room for the most surreal and welcome hype machine of 2001; the word of mouth frenzy that instantly followed the first UK tour from Detroit’s new finest.

"I think it was a kind of a shock for us because when we came over we weren’t expecting all the press we got," explains Meg White. "We weren’t expecting to be known too much over here at all. It was great playing the 100 Club. It was crazy and people were going insane. With the history of that place (venue for legendary Sex Pistols performance and widely accredited as birthplace of punk) it was such an honour to play there. You feel more confident with three albums under your belt. It helps with the shows having more things to play."

And that fantastic three album back catalogue on the Californian independent Sympathy for the Record Industry label will have a big grown up general release sometime this year on XL. "We really like XL and they are really easy to work with," enthuses Meg. "They are very supportive of what we are doing." Before the self-righteous ‘indier than thou’ contingent work themselves up into a lather of hyprocrisy, the White siblings haven’t got too corporate on your PC asses. High street fashion chain The Gap have used music from Depeche Mode, Badly Drawn Boy and Daft Punk to plug their clobber – but the White Stripes said no siree.

"We’ve been around for a long time but we haven’t been well known for very long so we just don’t want to start doing stuff like that," Meg reflects. "The idea of advertising I just find kind of weird to us. We have done Levi’s endorsements and stuff but its not like posters or stuff. We're not necessarily not going to do stuff like that but we are not really into the Gap thing. We also turned down Reebok." Meg refuses to disclose how much the Gap offered, but affirms that it was no where near as much as the million previously reported.

So you won’t hear the first Stripes XL release, ‘Hotel Yorba’ – a smashing hollered ode to a budget hotel in Detroit – on any telly advert. "The mythology when we were kids is that The Beatles stayed there," Meg recalls. "But there is no way that could have happened because it’s a bum hotel. We actually got kicked out of there because the b-sides of that single were actually recorded in the Hotel Yorba, and we were supposed to do the video there too but they got suspicious of us for no particular reason. We just used a different hotel in Detroit where they actually let us use the room for free and all that kind of stuff. When we got kicked out of the Yorba we were sitting outside in the van and they played it (‘Hotel Yorba’) on the radio. It was just so frustrating."

Just to finally put it on the record – Jack and Meg are brother and sister and not divorcees. Meg has got all the documentation and ID to prove it, and has grown a little weary of the persistence of this bewildering piece of Stripes’ mythology. "I think it was kind of amusing at first but its become a big monster. It kind gets old after a while. It comes up in every interview." Whoops! Sorry. "Its OK! Its just how things go. You’re going to get some kind of gossip no matter what you do or say about it."

Even though they’ve adorned magazine covers and have been bizarrely cited as one the most important developments in rock since Jimi Hendrix, Meg’s career highlight to date is something far more touching. "There is this kindergarten class and their teacher taught them one of our songs, ‘Apple Blossom’ from our second album (Destijl). They sent us a video tape of them all singing it," Meg fondly remembers. "They also made us drawings of us. We both almost cried when we saw that video."

Don’t believe the hype, because the kids are definitely alright.

Hotel Yorba is out now on XL

The White Stripes will tour Europe in 2002 with the strong likelihood of Irish dates