Detroit Rock City

by Steve Miller

  Marcie Bolen: Von Bondies were playing in Buffalo, and they were playing in New York. I took a train down to New York and met him at Grand Central Station and then went on a tour with him and Meg in their van. There was me, Jack, and Meg. I drove once in a while. Then the White Stripes and Von Bondies toured together, first in the US.

  Jason Stollsteimer: We knew who Long Gone John was because he put out a record by the Makers, who were one of my favorite bands. I knew he was at the Magic Stick one New Year’s Eve. He looks like the beast from Beauty and the Beast, hair-wise.

  Joe Burdick: Von Bondies weren’t on Long Gone John’s radar until after the White Stripes. John did the Cobras then the White Stripes then Von Bondies. He had come from LA to a New Year’s Eve show in Detroit to see the Cobras and the White Stripes. Steve Nawara went up to Long Gone—he never saw him before and didn’t know who he was—and he goes, “Sammy Hagar, what up?” Steve was trying to be funny, but no one wants to be called Sammy Hagar. We were like, “Ah, shit man.”

  Jason Stollsteimer: John—which is how he gets away with murder, bless his soul—helped a lot of bands that weren’t very good at the time. We were just sloppy rock ’n’ roll. There were certain things that he required from bands. If a band had a girl in it, there was a 90 percent chance he would put it out. One girl—it doesn’t even matter if they play tambourine, if they’re the singer, or the main song—he doesn’t care. One of the opening bands was the White Stripes. We played by the men’s bathrooms, with a little PA system with one microphone, and we’re on floor level, so all you could see is me. He had no idea there were girls in the band because they were so short. The only thing he can see is from my nose up. “I really like the sound and I really think you could put out a record with this. I’m Sympathy Records. I’ll sign you for $2,500.” He was a mix between Seymour Stein and some cartoon character. He gave us the $2,500. We spent $1,300 making the record and took the rest of the money and got a van. Jack produced it, and we recorded at Diamond’s. The album with Sympathy came out in 2001. Jack produced it, and they were going on tour and invited us. The White Stripes weren’t big yet. In Montana there were 45 people. Chicago, 200 to 250 at the Empty Bottle. For the Detroit scene they were the biggest band by that time, late 2001. Kid Rock was bigger, but we never had seen him at a show in our lives.

  Marcie Bolen: Jack would call me when they were starting to break and say, “Oh my God, we played this show, and all of a sudden I looked out, and I could see these people singing all the words.”

  Ko Melina: The White Stripes went on tour with Sleater-Kinney, and that was a huge deal for anybody in Detroit. They also got offered to do an ad for the Gap for something like $75,000, and Jack turning it down. I thought, “Man, they’re a really big deal now.”

  Jack White: I think that was one of the first offers we got for some money, and we turned it down. The funny thing was, a lot of those things, we really didn’t know what to do. We needed the money, but we said no to it.

  Tyler Spencer: One of the biggest solids I’ve ever had done for me came from Jack. He sang background on our song “Danger High Voltage” and never asked for a dime. His involvement in that song was a big part of us getting a deal, and my life changed dramatically. He could have reasonably asked for money, and he didn’t.

  Timmy Vulgar: When the Stripes made it, Jack invited Clone Defects to come on a few shows and open for them. We played six shows with ’em. We played for two thousand people. He took a few bands from Detroit on the road with him. Totally cool. You know, support your buddies with what you got. When we did that tour, they were on tour in a beautiful, nice, rock-star bus, and we were in a rusty, old, shitty minivan, following ’em. We had all our equipment stored underneath, inside the bus. We’d get to where we were gonna play at 6:00 p.m. We’d set up, do a sound check, and go backstage and drink a bunch and hang out with Jack and Meg. They weren’t ego’d out at all. They made sure we were taken care of. When we played our set, we didn’t have to set up our shit—there was crew. Then the crew would help take our shit down. Then we’d go on our way. Every bar we went to afterwards we got kicked out of. After playing in Milwaukee, we were still at the hall, and I went up to a cop, that was like a security cop. Aren’t those real police that do the security? I took a Clone Defects button and I went up to him and I pinned the Clone Defects button onto the cop. He’s like, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I’m like, “That’s my button, man.” And he says, “Walk away. Walk away.” I walk away and I go towards the backstage, and I started breakdancing in this little area. Then I fell over and knocked some shit over. Then I went back in the backstage area, passed out on the couch, and they had a security guard watching the room to make sure I didn’t come out and fuck any more shit up.

  Jim Diamond: The first White Stripes record didn’t do much at the time. But they always had a good gimmick with the color scheme and the way they looked. And they toured a lot; they worked really hard. I did their second record, which they recorded at Jack’s house and mixed it here. I asked, “Why?” Jack told me the first record cost $2,000, including the tape. The second record, he said, “Yeah, all those drums, all the time it took, we wasted too much money, doing all the takes. So I’d rather do it at home.” So the second record probably cost $1,000. Who knows what I charged him to mix the whole thing. Probably nothing. The third album, that was the one. They recorded that in Memphis.

  Marcie Bolen: I went to Romania when Jack was doing the film with Renee Zellweger. He was talking about Renee a lot, but we had already broken up and got back together a few times. It was toward the end of our relationship. He was talking about how cool Renee was. He found a skull in Romania in an antique store, and he’s like, “It’s a skull, and Renee could tell how old the skull was just by looking in its mouth.” I said, “You guys have become really good friends.” He said, “Yeah, she’s really cool. Talk to her on the phone.” I talked to her on the phone, and it was like, “Hey, how are you?” Next thing I know they’re dating. We were broken up, though. We were on and off, the last five months—we were like on and off. He’d bought a new house. I don’t know about their breakup, but she got married to Kenny Chesney right after him.

  Larry Hardy: Fat Possum offered $25,000 for that third LP White Blood Cells. Sub Pop was in there too, and I understood Jack didn’t want to work with them because the Go had released a record with Sub Pop, and he didn’t like the way it was handled. Bobsled wanted to do a record with them too, but Sympathy came up with the $25,000.

  Long Gone John: I licensed and put out their records and paid for all of that. I just didn’t make money on it.

  Jack White: We were involved with all the other small labels because of their knowledge of Sympathy and Long Gone John. And I think they all kind of just backed off, like, “It’s Long Gone’s project; he’s gotten a hold of these guys” or something. But he didn’t really have a hold of us. We were loyal people, me and Meg, but there were no contracts. There was no mainstream major label, real label interest, until our third album was already out.

  EWolf: Jack was really open and friendly at the start of everything. I did some photos, and it was all fine. Later, though, after they got signed to V2, they wanted to relicense the photos. I’m used to doing things with just a handshake, and all of a sudden I’ve got their management and legal team on me, demanding possession of the negatives. I didn’t know if it was Jack, because initially I had to get the negatives back from him, after he had used them for the graphics, and he was fine. But now their management was coming back, and they’re trying to demand possession of them and all the rights and everything.

  Marcie Bolen: Jason said something to me about Jack being jealous, but I didn’t see it. Not of me and him but, he told me that Jack got jealous of me and Meg, but I never saw it. If anyone’s going on tour with their ex-wife, of course it’s a little weird. They were on tour, and we were on tour, and we’d talk on the phone. I liked Meg, and I wanted to know that I could trust him with Meg. What am I going
to do? I’m not going to say, “Don’t be in a band with her.” They were doing really well. I could either break up with him or deal with it.

  Long Gone John: I went on an East Coast tour with the White Stripes and the Von Bondies. The Von Bondies record had just come out, and there was real severe friction between Jack and Jason. Jack did not like that guy, and he was jealous of Jason’s relationship with Marcie. They were just friends, but they were in a band together. Even when Jack had nothing to do with Meg anymore, he did not like anyone else to be with Meg.

  Jason Stollsteimer: At the Magic Stick there was never a fight. I got sucker punched. I didn’t go to the police. Because there were so many witnesses, it was the state of Michigan that filed against him. I never sued him. I never took Jack White to court. How many times in history have two people from the local scene been that well documented? Within twenty-four hours he went to the police and said that I attacked him, which later he admitted he lied about that. He’s, like, six-four, and I don’t know how to throw a punch. I’m six-one, but he outweighed me by 70 pounds. He was, like, 210, like, six-four, and I was, like, six-foot-one, 140. It’s like if a high school kid beat up a middle school kid. I’ve met more people that say there were witnesses to it than physically could have been there. “Oh man, I was there.” “No, you fuckin’ weren’t. You actually were playing a show that night in another city. I know you weren’t there. Stop being an idiot.”

  Jack White: It was a bar fight with somebody who is very manipulative, and that’s why everyone heard about it. Had I gotten in a fight with Dave Buick, you wouldn’t have heard about it. Or John Krautner. He had a history of manipulation with everybody on the scene and especially me.

  Marcie Bolen: I was at the Magic Stick that night talking to Jack. We were broken up, but I gave him a present, a little stuffed baby duck, but he didn’t want it. I was like, “All right. Fine. Whatever. Whatever. We’re broken up. That’s fine. I’ll keep it myself.” Then he started going over to Jason. He was pissed, and I was like, “Oh man, something’s going to go down.” I just knew he was in such a bad mood, and I was going over to Jason, “Stop. Don’t do it.” Jack was yelling at him and I was hitting him on the back, “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t.” All of a sudden they were fighting. I had to walk away. And after that night Jack and I have never been friends again. He’s like, “You didn’t stick up for me. You told the lawyer that, what I did.” I’m like, “I just said what I saw.” What else can I do? He’s like, “Fuck you. You should have stood up for me. That guy never stuck up for you.” I have been caught between Jack and the Von Bondies.

  Tom Potter: Shit, a year earlier no one would have cared about that whole thing.

  John Krautner: It was just a bar fight. Nothing more.

  Jason Stollsteimer: The only other thing that happened that night was press related. And everybody knew this. The next morning I had a cover of Spin, Blender—a four-page article in Blender—and NME. This was Von Bondies coverage, for advance of Pawn Shoppe Heart. They all got canceled because of the incident, and we never got them back. The record came out, and they were supposed to give me all this coverage. Our record review in Spin was five out of five. All the reviews were great, but every press blurb about it was only about the incident, not about the band. Our record had already sold thirty to forty thousand copies in prerelease, and it actually killed our record sales. It did not help. It’s a total lie if anybody says it helped. We were supposed to have a cover on Blender. And instead of having the photo that they were gonna have of the band, they had one of me with a black eye. All of our interviews turned into that. The thing that sucked—we had mutual friends, local guys, who said he knew that I had all that press. So for him to pick that day, the day before our biggest press day ever, still irks me. I still have my press sheet from Sire saying what all of our interviews are, and they all got canceled. December 13 or whatever it was. I couldn’t do them. I couldn’t see. I was still in the hospital. My whole face was swollen. I was unconscious after the first punch.

  Jack White: It took a while for me to understand that guy. I let him rehearse in my house for a long time. They asked me to produce their album, and I did, but they didn’t want to put my name on the album. It was sort of like, “Well, we don’t want people thinking… .” Well, why did you ask me to produce the record? That kind of stuff. Which, in its own essence, I don’t give a damn about, but when someone starts getting insulting and saying things about you in the press, you’re kind of like, “Wait a minute, dude, I did that for free, and you guys rehearsed in my house for free, and I took you guys on tour, and I could have picked some other band. I got you guys signed to Sympathy, all of that.” Stuff I wouldn’t even have said out loud because it sounds so self-serving. I didn’t give a damn about that until it came back negatively to me, and I was like, “Wait a minute, hold on a second, get out the scorecard here for a second.” It’s also winning the fight, you know what I’m saying? It’s like, I saw someone a couple days later who said, “You should have given yourself a bloody nose.”

  Rachel Nagy: Jack White is the only person in this whole scene that I’m glad he has made it. He is ambitious, he’s clever, and he lifted up everybody in Detroit. Every interview he did, he lifted everybody up, including us. He helped a lot of people along the way, and a lot of people feel bad now, including Jason Stollsteimer from the Von Bondies. What did Jason do? Turned around and said, “Jack didn’t do nothing for me.” Ahh! Fuck you, you dick. I would’ve fucking gutted him like a fucking bitch. Jack, when he started getting successful, everybody had that sour grapes: “Well, I could have done that. I should have done that.” Oh, really? Well, you didn’t. I don’t like everything Jack does, and quite frankly, I don’t really enjoy his music. But I respect the fuck out of him.

  Ko Melina: I thought the Von Bondies were going to be the next big band, because Jack had heavily promoted them so much and taken them on tour so much, so it kind of seemed natural that they would be the next to get big.

  Jason Stollsteimer: I never defended myself in the press—what was the point? He was just becoming huge right then. You can’t stand up to the local god. My lawyer said to me immediately, “Minimum $250,000 in damages because you were about to break. Your record just came out and you had all this press, and we can prove it.” I said, “I wanna make my own money.” I really didn’t want his money. He went to court for criminal stuff; it wasn’t civil. When they said, “Do you want to settle?” I go, “Settle what? I want him to say that he did it.” I’ve never said his band is bad. People say, “What do you think of the White Stripes?” I think they’re an amazing band and very unique. I don’t like the guy. After the album came out the interviewers asked about it every time. And if you notice, 90 percent of the interviews I never answered. The 10 percent that I did I regret.

  Jim Diamond: The White Stripes made it huge and then, to a much lesser degree, bands like the Cobras, the Electric Six, the Dirtbombs, out of that whole scene. The only thing that went awry with that was I felt that I should get a royalty off the first White Stripes record. Jack was like, “You’re not getting a fucking dime. You didn’t do shit.” I had some legal counsel that had some dollar signs in this person’s eyes. So I sued, and my lawyer convinced me, “No, you don’t want to just go after royalties. What we should do is, you are involved with copyright here. You are a coauthor of the sound recording.” He showed me all this case history and said, “No, you are a coauthor of the actual sound recording.” Not the writing of the song but the physical sound recording. I said, “That’s not what I’m interested in. I just want, like, a fucking two points off the sales.” I spent $5,000 on depositions.

  Eddie Baranek: I was deposed. I called Jim and I said, “I love you Jim, but don’t fucking involve me in this shit.” Friends of mine went down there to be deposed, and I said, “How is it?” They said, “There’s a little pudgy guy who’s a real asshole, and you do not want to be in a room with that guy. You will be there for a few hours, a
nd he will just kill you.” That was Jack’s lawyer. I didn’t want to go down there. I don’t have anything against Jack. Jack got successful. Like, whatever—he got his and that’s good, you know. And it helped everyone else in this town.

  Tyler Spencer: I ran into Jack one day at Eastern Market and we had lunch. He told me he had two ideas about being sued. One was putting up billboards in Detroit that read, “Jim Diamond Sues His Friends.” The other was buying the building that Jim has his studio in and evicting him.

  Jim Diamond: I wish someone had sat down and said, “You know we shouldn’t do this, Jim. It’ll fuck up your reputation. It will make you look like a jerk. We shouldn’t go after copyright.” No one took into account this guy’s a superstar and a millionaire and a very powerful person at this point. It shouldn’t have been a jury trial. I was watching jurors sleep when I was there. I’m thinking, “Oh my God, this doesn’t bode well.” Then they just saw this star who won a Grammy. His lawyer kept saying, “Well, this is a Grammy winner who worked with Loretta Lynn and such luminaries.” I was on some entertainment show called Entertainment Justice. It was one of those like 1:30-in-the-morning shows on Channel 50. My sister called me up and told me they had a picture of me and they described me as this worm crawling out of the woodwork, just some guy hanging around in the studio. It made me look like a schmuck to most of the public. I saw shit in the NME about how “Jim Diamond claims he wrote the songs now” or “He claims he created the White Stripes.” They don’t know what coauthorship of a sound recording means. After I filed that lawsuit, my business just went, pssht. I mean garage rock was kind of done and then that. People didn’t want to work with me.