MOJO's Greatest Pics: The White Stripes, 2005

12:07 PM GMT 26/11/2007

The White Stripes, by Ewen Spencer, 2005.

Ewen Spencer has been a fan of Jack White since he heard the 1999 Sub Pop debut of The Go, Jack’s pre-White Stripes band. They met and bonded (over films, ’60s rock, Northern Soul, dead guys generally) as Jack and Meg blew through Britain promoting White Blood Cells, and Spencer became White’s court snapper, granted access to the White that lurked beneath the famous two-tone façade.

Even so, the MOJO commission – to follow The White Stripes down the Amazon and shoot them for our August ’05 cover – was irregular. More than a press trip, it became a kind of crazy ’60s caper movie.

“Manaus was the highlight,” Spencer recalls. “It’s the only city in the jungle zone and it’s absolutely exotic, filled in darkness, and Jack got to fulfil his Fitzcarraldo fantasies. We did all kinds of freaky crazy shit. We went into the jungle with the whole crew in these little canoes. One of our guides kept jumping in, pulling out these little alligators. Every hour something really bizarre happened.”

Then there was the little matter of the show. And the riot. And the riot police…

“We were in this tiny, beautiful opera house on the town square in Manaus. And they put plasma screens outside, where there were two thousand more going crazy. The Stripes played Death Letter Blues and the theatre went batshit. This whole building started of moving.

“Jack came off after that because he looked a bit freaked out, but after a while he said, ‘We’re going out,’ and I said ‘OK,’ thinking he meant back on stage. Anyway, he walked out, picked up an acoustic guitar and leapt off the stage into the crowd.

Jack, Meg, and Spencer waded through the hysterical crowd to the venue’s front doors, which opened out onto a marble balcony. There was a collective gasp as 2,000 people surged closer, and White peeled off an exquisite version of We’re Going To Be Friends.

“…And that’s when the armed police turned up,” reels Spencer. “Suddenly we were fighting our way back in and people were falling over. Meg fell over and I was helping her up. It was chaotic and incredible, hysterical, insane!”

As if to up the weirdness ante further, Jack woke Spencer the morning after the show with a shock request. And before he knew it, the photographer was taking another trip upriver, snapping White’s nuptials with his Lancastrian supermodel girlfriend Karen Elson.

“I feel like I’ve watched him grow up,” says Spencer. “When I met him The White Stripes were kind of this art school project, then he became this guitar hero and more of a man, I suppose. He got married in Brazil and he’s got two children now. Lots of things have changed for him.”

Do you think there’s a difference between Jack White the persona and Jack White the man?

“No I don’t. I think they are quite close but I also think he knows what he’s doing. He’s a really industrious person. He records very quickly and he seems to be constantly working on music – it’s part of him, not just something he “does”. He’s probably quite eccentric as well, with a wicked sense of humour.

What’s a “Jack White” kind of joke, then?

He’s a bit crafty. He’s not mean, but he’ll help you laugh at yourself! He’s a great mimic. Really – people would be surprised by how funny he is…

Interview: Danny Eccleston

To browse Ewen Spencer's 2005 White Stripes shoot, click here.

See more of Ewen’s pictures at www.ewenspencer.com

Official Site: The White Stripes

Posted by Ross_Bennett at 12:07 PM GMT 26/11/2007