| The Dead Weather | |
|---|---|
Left to right: Dean Fertita, Jack White, Alison Mosshart and Jack Lawrence |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Nashville, Tennessee, USA |
| Genres | Alternative rock, blues rock, garage rock, psychedelic rock |
| Years active | 2009–present |
| Labels | Third Man |
| Associated acts | Discount, Queens of the Stone Age, The Greenhornes, The Kills, The Raconteurs, The Upholsterers, The Waxwings, The White Stripes, Hello=Fire |
| Website | www.thedeadweather.com |
| Members | |
| Alison Mosshart Dean Fertita Jack Lawrence Jack White |
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The Dead Weather is an American alternative rock supergroup, formed in Nashville, Tennessee in 2009. Composed of Alison Mosshart (of The Kills and Discount), Jack White (of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs), Dean Fertita (of Queens of the Stone Age) and Jack Lawrence (of The Raconteurs and The Greenhornes),[1] The Dead Weather debuted at the opening of Third Man Records' Nashville headquarters on March 11, 2009. The band performed live for the first time at the event, immediately before releasing their debut single "Hang You from the Heavens."
The band's second studio album, Sea of Cowards, was released first in Ireland on May 7, 2010, then on May 10 and 11 in the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively. The first single off the album, "Die by the Drop", was released March 30.
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When The Raconteurs were performing in Memphis, Tennessee, Jack White lost his voice and the band asked Alison Mosshart of The Kills (who were warming up) to fill in on some songs. She sang lead vocals on "Steady as She Goes" and "Salute Your Solution." White later asked her if she would record a song with him and Jack Lawrence. They met Dean Fertita at the studio and they ended up performing more than one song that night.
Ultimately they decided to form a band with Mosshart as their lead singer, Lawrence on bass, Fertita on guitar and keyboard and White on drums. White claims he wanted to play the drums in the band, having rediscovered drumming after playing on a kit on "Another Way to Die" with Alicia Keys. He had played drums as a child, and for Goober & the Peas before forming the White Stripes. White said he felt that playing lead guitar in another band would be too repetitive and saw it as an opportunity to do something different.
In January 2009, Mosshart, Fertita, Lawrence and White got together for an impromptu jam at White's Third Man studio. The session was followed by two and a half weeks of song writing and recording, during which The Dead Weather formed.[2] "Things just started to happen," said White. "We didn't have a direction. We just went a song a day, two songs a day, whatever we could do and recorded them on the fly... There was no time to think about what it was. It just was."[2]
The Dead Weather's debut album, Horehound, was released on July 14, 2009 in North America, and July 13 in Europe. It entered the U.S. Billboard 200 Album Charts at #6 and the UK Album Charts at #14. Three tracks from Horehound ("No Hassle Night," "Hang You from the Heavens" and "Treat Me Like Your Mother") were made available as downloadable content for the Rock Band video game series on the same day as the North American release.
Jack White co-directed a short documentary about The Dead Weather called "Full Flash Blank." It contains exclusive interviews of the band members and performances of "60 Feet Tall," "I Cut Like A Buffalo" and "Treat Me Like Your Mother." "Full Flash Blank" aired on Channel 4 straight after the showing of "Later . . . With Jools Holland" which featured The Dead Weather performing their first three singles.
On October 16, 2009, Mosshart confirmed that a second album was "halfway done".[3] White later announced that the first single from the new album would be called "Die By The Drop," for which he would sing lead vocals. He commented that it was "bluesier and heavier than we ever thought we could be."
Sea of Cowards was first released on May 7, 2010 in Ireland, and then released on May 10 and May 11 in the US and the UK respectively. The album peaked at number five on the Billboard 200,[4] and was placed at number eleven on Rolling Stones thirty greatest albums of 2010 list.
The song "Rolling in on a Burning Tire" is featured on The Twilight Saga: Eclipse movie soundtrack.
The members of The Dead Weather have currently gone back to their other projects; however, Lawrence predicts that by the end of 2011, the band "will either be recording or doing some more shows. I don't think we can stop; even if someone was too busy, nothing seems like it's going to be getting in the way of this," he says. "Our other bands are still alive, obviously, but this one is right up there. It doesn't feel like a side project or anything to us. It feels like a real band. And I think it's just getting better the more we get to play." [5]
Both Alison Mosshart and Jack White are heavily influenced by Captain Beefheart and have made several tributes to him in a few songs, similarly to how they covered Beefheart songs in their previous bands. The Dead Weather usually open their acts with an intro of "Sure Nuff 'N' Yes I Do". On the track "Hussle and Cuss", the first line Mosshart sings is "knock on the door and the door knocks back", a clear reference to the Beefheart song "The Dust Blows Forward 'n the Dust Blows Back".
Other influences come from the range of artists that Mosshart listened to when she was growing up. Her own frontwomanship is the result of watching videos of Janis Joplin and Patti Smith. However one of Mossharts favourite bands, Sonic Youth, have a clear influence on the sound of The Dead Weather.
Jack White's own drumming style is heavily based on that of Led Zeppelin's drummer, John Bonham.
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [6] |
CAN [7] |
AUS [8] |
NZ [9] |
NOR [10] |
AUT [11] |
SWI [12] |
FRA [13] |
NL [14] |
UK [15] |
||
| Horehound |
|
6 | 7 | 48 | 24 | 26 | 43 | 14 | 19 | 63 | 14 |
| Sea of Cowards |
|
5 | 6 | 28 | 13 | 11 | 24 | 19 | 30 | 76 | 32 |
| Title | Album details |
|---|---|
| Live at Third Man Records West |
|
| Year | Single | Peak positions | Album | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Sales | US Rock | US Alt | UK | |||
| 2009 | "Hang You from the Heavens" | 8 | — | — | — | Horehound |
| "Treat Me Like Your Mother" | — | — | 40 | 168 | ||
| "I Cut Like A Buffalo" | — | — | — | — | ||
| 2010 | "Die by the Drop" | — | 36 | 20 | 154 | Sea of Cowards |
| "Blue Blood Blues" | — | — | — | — | ||
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||||
| Year | Video | Director |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | "Hang You from the Heavens" | |
| "Treat Me Like Your Mother" | Jonathan Glazer | |
| "I Cut Like a Buffalo" | Jack White |
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