John Anthony Gillis Quotes

• It is the pursuit of happiness that brings us happiness, and not the happiness achieved.

  John Anthony Gillis

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• With the White Stripes we were trying to trick people into not realising we were playing the blues. We did not want to come off like white kids trying to play black music from 100 years ago so a great way to distract them was by dressing in red, white and black.

  John Anthony Gillis

• When you put something out there into the world, there’s all these words you don’t want to hear, that you hope people don’t say. I don’t like anything that starts with ‘re’ – like retro, reinvent, recreate – I hate that. It’s always like living in the past – copying, emulating.

  John Anthony Gillis

• Well, as a songwriter, it’s really dangerous to use the word love in a song. It’s a word that has been used in songs so many millions of times before, and it’s the most popular topic to ever write about.

  John Anthony Gillis

• We were like a white family from the 1920s or something. My parents had this bizarre, different way of looking at things from the people that surrounded us. I went to an all-Mexican grade school and an all-black high school, and not many people in those places liked the same stuff as me.

  John Anthony Gillis

• We have a secret project at Third Man where we want to have the first vinyl record played in outer space. We want to launch a balloon that carries a vinyl record player.

  John Anthony Gillis

• Vinyl is the real deal. I’ve always felt like, until you buy the vinyl record, you don’t really own the album. And it’s not just me or a little pet thing or some kind of retro romantic thing from the past. It is still alive.

  John Anthony Gillis

• This generation is so dead. You ask a kid, ‘What are you doing this Saturday?’ and they’ll be playing video games or watching cable, instead of building model cars or airplanes or doing something creative. Kids today never say, ‘Man, I’m really into remote-controlled steamboats.’

  John Anthony Gillis

• There’s Catholic guilt about things, then there’s the guilt of being the youngest of 10, so when nice things happen to you, you’re not really allowed to enjoy them.

  John Anthony Gillis

• There aren’t that many things left that haven’t already been done, especially with music. I’m interested in ideas that can shake us all up.

  John Anthony Gillis

• The way I like to start a new project is to take a cover song and make a stab at it, ideally one that has nothing to do with the people in the room.

  John Anthony Gillis

• The Guinness book is a very elitist organization. There’s nothing scientific about what they do. They just have an office full of people who decide what is a record and what isn’t.

  John Anthony Gillis

• The fact that we elected Obama was a sign that the black struggle inherent in the blues and so much of the music I have loved can triumph.

  John Anthony Gillis

• The auctioneer is talking for both people, and that’s the big revelation about, ‘Oh, that’s what they’re doing.’ They’re just doing it very fast, so you could kind of miss on that. He’s speaking for you, because people in the crowd don’t have a voice, so that’s what really makes it compelling.

  John Anthony Gillis

• That’s what happens nowadays with people working on computers. They can so easily fix things with their mouse and take out all the, ‘Oh, somebody coughed in the background; we need to take that out’ – or somebody hit a bad note. Those are all the best moments.

  John Anthony Gillis

• Some people remaster their records six, seven times, remix it three, four times, spend a million hours, then they always go back and hear a demo of it and they’ll say, ‘Aw that sounds so much better than the final mix.’

  John Anthony Gillis

• Playing drums feels like coming home for me. Even during the White Stripes I thought: ‘I’ll do this for now, but I’m really a drummer.’ That’s what I’ll put on my passport application.

  John Anthony Gillis

• People aren’t buying records like they used to, so it’s nice to try to figure out a way to make them do it. I would enjoy the same thing to own an old movie house, to try to trick people to come in – like having 3-D or Smell-o-Vision or Vibra-Vision or something. Mcguffins to get people interested.

  John Anthony Gillis

• Nowadays, everybody assumes, when they wake up in the morning, if they have a question, it will get answered. Because they have the internet. No matter what the question is, someone will answer their question.

  John Anthony Gillis

• My mother’s the youngest of 10 children too, so we have sort of a special bond in that we know what that feels like. It’s a strange spot to be in.

  John Anthony Gillis

John Anthony Gillis (49)

Birth:	9th July, 1975
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Musician, Record Producer, Singer, Songwriter

About

John Anthony "Jack" White was born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. He is known as the lead singer and guitarist of duo The White Stripes. He has won twelve Grammy Awards, and both of his solo albums have reached number one on the Billboard charts. He is also a board member of the Library of Congress' National Recording Preservation Foundation. His record label and studio Third Man Records releases vinyl recordings of his own work, as well as that of other artists and local school children. His albums list shown below: Blunderbuss (singles: "Love Interruption") and Lazaretto (singles: "High Ball Stepper", "Lazaretto", "Would You Fight for My Love?"). His role in several films include: Coffee and Cigarettes, Cold Mountain, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, and The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights.

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