With a signature sound and style reinforced with a mystery about the nature of their duo-ship White Stripes came on the underground garage punk landscape more than a decade ago and have continued to garner popularity when garage punk bands have faded away. Their twelve year streak has won them 14 awards and 50 nominations for both their music and video achievements.

The White Stripes - Big Sound from a Twosome

"There's an overall structure of simplicity, and it revolves around Meg's drumming style."

With a signature sound and style reinforced with a mystery about the nature of their duo-ship White Stripes came on the underground garage punk landscape more than a decade ago and have continued to garner popularity when garage punk bands have faded away. Their twelve year streak has won them 14 awards and 50 nominations for both their music and video achievements.

The White Stripes - Coming Together

Megan Martha White (born 12/10/1974 in Grosse Point Farms, Michigan) was tending bar in a downtown bar in the Detroit suburb called Royal Oak when she met John Anthony "Jack" Gillis (born 7/9/1975 in Detroit, Michigan) a self-employed upholsterer. Jack also wrote songs and had played in a number of bands in the Detroit area throughout the 1990's. The two married on September 21, 1965 and Jack took on Meg's surname. Jack consistently claims that when Meg picked up the sticks and began playing drums something clicked and the young couple became the musical group White Stripes on Bastille Day in 1997.

The formation of the group was followed within a year by signing with the independent garage punk label, Italy Records. The first three single's released by White Stripes, Let's Shake Hands, Lafayette Blues and The Big Three Killed My Baby were limited to 1,000 vinyl copies each and are prized today. Their first album, White Stripes, was released in 1999 and was followed by De Stijl in 2000. While as a musical duo the two were enjoying more success each year their life as a married couple ended in divorce on March 24, 2000. From the beginnings both Jack and Meg had made claims that they were siblings reportedly to keep the focus on their music not their private life. The two continue to be intensely private individuals and loyal to each other although each has gone on to marry other individuals.

Climbing the charts

De Stijl was well received and appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, MTV Movie Awards program and music profiles in The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly and Time magazines followed De Stijl and had the world primed for their third album release in 2001. White Stripes signed with V2 Records and released White Blood Cells on their label in 2002. The album went gold and was #61 on the Billboard 200 and #55 on the UK charts. Elephant, their fourth album, went platinum in several countries and won them the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. Get Behind Me Satan and Icky Thump albums won the same Grammy for the band in 2005 and 2007.

Continuing on

Jack married British model Karen Elson in 2005 and they have two children.

And while Jack tours and works continuously as a musician involved with several bands, managing his independent record label, Third Man Records, productions and doing some acting Meg spends her time away from the band involved in animal photography and dabbling in taxidermy. Meg's shy temperament and more laid back life style while not with the band has been viewed as the cause of the anxiety attack on September 11, 2007 that required the band to cut-short their Canadian tour and cancel their 2007 UK tour altogether. In an interview with Self Titled Jack White explained that the extreme difference between life on tour and a year off the road was to much to fast for her. Ten months later Meg White appeared onstage again and White Stripes preformed live for the final episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien on February 20, 2009. At that time the two had already started laying tracks down for their seventh album, which is as yet untitled.

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