John Anthony White (né Gillis; born July 9, 1975) is an American musician who was the guitarist and lead vocalist of the rock duo the White Stripes. He was a key artist of the 2000s indie and garage rock movements, noted for his musical techniques, eccentricity, and use of analog technology. After the White Stripes split up in 2011, he found success with his solo career and business ventures.
White began his career moonlighting in several underground Detroit bands as a drummer and guitarist. He met Meg White in the 1990s, and the two founded the White Stripes in 1997. He co-founded his record label and studio Third Man Records in 2001, the same year that the White Stripes earned international fame with their breakthrough album White Blood Cells. This, along with the three subsequent White Stripes albums released throughout the decade, established White as a key artist of the decade's rock revival. In the latter half of the 2000s, he founded the rock groups the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather, recorded the Bond theme "Another Way to Die" with Alicia Keys (the only duet to perform a Bond theme), and collaborated with numerous artists.
White released his debut studio album Blunderbuss (2012) to strong reviews and sales. His second studio album, Lazaretto (2014), broke the record for most first-week vinyl sales since 1991, holding that record until 2021. His following three experimental albums garnered critical and commercial success. His sixth and seventh albums, No Name (2024) and Frozen Charlotte (2026), are noted for their unique release methods and earned general acclaim. Other ventures by White include acting in the films Cold Mountain, Coffee and Cigarettes (both 2003), Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), joining the Library of Congress' National Recording Preservation Foundation in 2013, and opening an art exhibit in 2026.
Among several accolades, White has won twelve Grammy Awards. Rolling Stone included him on their 2010 and 2023 lists of the greatest guitarists of all time. The New York Times called White "the coolest, weirdest, [and] savviest rock star of our time" in 2012. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the White Stripes in 2025.
John Anthony Gillis, named after John the Baptist, was born in Detroit, Michigan, on July 9, 1975. He is the youngest of ten children of the late Teresa (née Bandyke; 1930–2026) and Gorman M. Gillis (1927–2006). His mother's family was Polish, while his father was of Scottish heritage by way of Nova Scotia, Canada. He was raised in large part by his siblings, the first of which was 21 years older than him. He equated them to having additional parents.
Gillis was raised in Mexicantown, Southwest Detroit. The Gillises lived in a predominantly Mexican and African-American community and were one of the only families in the neighborhood that did not leave as a result of white flight. He was raised Catholic and both of his parents worked for the Archdiocese of Detroit, his father as a building maintenance superintendent and his mother as a secretary in the cardinal's office. Gillis became an altar boy, which landed him an uncredited role in the 1987 movie The Rosary Murders, filmed mainly at Most Holy Redeemer Church in southwest Detroit. In 1987, Gillis met Pope John Paul II when he visited Detroit and received a blessing.
Gillis's early musical influences were his older brothers, three of whom were in a band together called Catalyst. He learned to play the instruments they abandoned when they moved out of the family home; he began playing the drums in the first grade after finding a kit in the attic. He became so obsessed with learning to play music that he removed the bed from his bedroom to make space for his instruments and resorted to sleeping on foam. Although he grew up in a musical household, Gillis was not actively encouraged to pursue his musical endeavors and assumed his desire to work with other performers was "jealousy" rather than "inspiration." As a child, he was a fan of classical music, but in elementary school, he began listening to the Doors, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. As a "shorthaired [teenager] with braces", Gillis began listening to the blues and 1960s rock that influenced him in the White Stripes, with Son House and Blind Willie McTell being among his favorite blues guitarists. He has said in interviews that Son House's "Grinnin' in Your Face" is his favorite song of all time. As a drummer, his heroes include Gene Krupa, Stewart Copeland, and Crow Smith from Flat Duo Jets.
In 2005, on 60 Minutes, he told Mike Wallace that his life could have turned out differently. "I'd got accepted to a seminary in Wisconsin, and I was gonna become a priest, but at the last second I thought, 'I'll just go to public school.' I had just gotten a new amplifier in my bedroom, and I didn't think I was allowed to take it with me." At 15, he began a three-year upholstery apprenticeship with a family friend, Brian Muldoon. He credits Muldoon with exposing him to punk music as they worked together in the shop. Gillis had only considered himself a drummer, but Muldoon goaded his young apprentice into forming a band: "He played drums", Gillis thought. "Well, I guess I'll play guitar then." Gillis started learning the guitar to play along to music he enjoyed and have others to perform with. The two recorded an album, Makers of High Grade Suites, as the Upholsterers.
He attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit. As a senior in high school, he met Meg White at a coffee shop in either Ferndale or Hamtramck. Together, they frequented the coffee shops, local music venues, and record stores of the area. After a courtship, they married on September 21, 1996. In a reversal of tradition, he legally took her last name.
After completing his apprenticeship, he started a business of his own, Third Man Upholstery. The slogan of his business was "Your Furniture's Not Dead" and the color scheme was yellow and black—including a yellow van, a yellow-and-black uniform, and a yellow clipboard. Although Third Man Upholstery never lacked business, he claims it was unprofitable due to his complacency about money and his business practices that were perceived as unprofessional, including making bills out in crayon and writing poetry inside the furniture. By 1997, he had bought the family home from his parents and was paying the mortgage of his own volition. It was in this home that the White Stripes recorded their second album De Stijl.
1994–2004: Beginnings and formation of the White Stripes
At 19 years old, White had landed his first professional gig as the drummer for the Detroit band Goober & the Peas, and was still in that position when the band broke up in 1996. It was in this band that he learned about touring and performing onstage. After the band's split, he settled into working as an upholsterer by day while moonlighting in local bands, as well as performing solo shows. Though a bartender by trade, Meg began to learn to play the drums in 1997, and according to Jack, "When she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing." The couple became a band, calling themselves the White Stripes. Two months after forming, on July 14, 1997 (also known as Bastille Day, which White recounted), Jack and Meg performed their first show at the Gold Dollar in Detroit; of the three songs on the setlist, one of them was "Jimmy the Exploder", which would be the intro of their debut album in 1999. Despite being married until 2000, they publicly presented themselves as siblings. They kept to a chromatic theme, dressing only in red, white, and black. They began their career as part of Michigan's underground garage rock music scene. They played along with and opened for more established local bands such as Bantam Rooster, the Dirtbombs, Two-Star Tabernacle, Rocket 455, and the Hentchmen.
In 1998, the White Stripes were signed to Italy Records—a small and independent Detroit-based garage punk label—by Dave Buick. The band released its eponymous debut album in 1999, and a year later the album was followed up by the cult classic De Stijl. The album eventually peaked at number 38 on Billboard's Independent Albums chart. In 2001, the band released White Blood Cells. The album's stripped-down garage rock sound drew critical acclaim in the US and beyond, making the White Stripes one of the more acclaimed bands of 2002; it also made the White Stripes forefront figures in the garage band revival of the time. John Peel, an influential DJ and the band's early advocate in the UK, said they were the most exciting thing he had heard since Jimi Hendrix. The New York Times said of White, "beneath the arty facade lies one of the most cagey, darkly original rockers to come along since Kurt Cobain."