John Anthony Gillis Quotes

• My mother was 45 when she had me, so when I was in high school my parents were the same age as my friends’ grandparents.

  John Anthony Gillis

• It is a myth that art has to be sold. It is not like stocking a grocery store where people fill a pushcart. Art is a product that has no apparent need. The salesperson builds the need in the mind of the buyer.

  John Anthony Gillis

• If you want to put out a million CDs and sell them and get them played on the radio, and even videos, or whatever, if that still exists, that kind of muscle can only come from a label like Columbia.

  John Anthony Gillis

• If you have twenty guys in the room and you just bring in one girl, you change the entire mood and everyone plays different.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I’ve always loved the word blunderbuss. I’ve always thought that it was a beautiful word and that it could mean several different things.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I’ve always felt it’s ridiculous to say, of any of the females in my life: You’re my friend, you’re my wife, you’re my girlfriend, you’re my co-worker. This is your box, and you’re not allowed to stray outside of it.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I’d make a White Stripes record right now. I’d be in the White Stripes for the rest of my life. That band is the most challenging, important, fulfilling thing ever to happen to me. I wish it was still here. It’s something I really, really miss.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I would never purposely sing a song about someone I love, I wouldn’t want to embarrass them. But for someone I don’t like… I would definitely do that.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I won’t join another band again.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I was in a Montessori school. There was a drum circle with all the kids passing around a little bongo drum. I was the last person in the circle, and when it got to me I played ‘Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits’ – in front of all the parents. Blew the crowd away at five years old.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I wanted to be able to talk with people who have trade jobs and make records with them. I want to do more records with carpenters, electricians, people who specialize in even more bizarre trades that are off the beaten path.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I think you can’t really escape any kind of spiritual education as a child, whether it’s I want to be part of the resurgence of things that are tangible, beautiful and soulful, rather than just give in to the digital age. But when I talk to people about this they just say, ‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ and stare at their mobiles.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I think the sensitivity that you need to create certain things sometimes would spill over into things that shouldn’t have bothered me.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I think that sometimes love gets in the way of itself – you know, love interrupts itself. We want things so much that we sabotage them.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I think it takes a lot of trickery to keep up with the media and its perception of you. I don’t know if I have it in me most of the time to care. The music is made first, and the interviews or photos to keep it alive come later as a necessary evil, I suppose.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I really don’t like to take the easy way out, if I can help it, on anything I do, I like to really make it a challenge. I don’t know how to create by taking the easy routes. I’ve tried, you know, I’ve tried to let myself, but I always struggle to compensate.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I know that’s blasphemous when you are from Detroit, but I was never a fan of Motown stuff. I don’t care for the production much.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I keep guitars that are, you know, the neck’s a little bit bent and it’s a little bit out of tune. I want to work and battle it and conquer it and make it express whatever attitude I have at that moment. I want it to be a struggle.

  John Anthony Gillis

• I just think old old movies, they make you concentrate and pay attention so much more. They feel so warm. A lot of modern digital videotape, it’s just too bright. Don’t know why, it’s not warm.
  

  John Anthony Gillis

• I have so much music inside me I’m just trying to stay afloat. I don’t tend to write for a particular band – you have to just write the songs and then let God into the room and let the music tell you what to do.

  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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