No Rock And Roll Fun

BLACK AND BLUE AND BLACK AND WHITE: Jack White has returned to the time he beat the shit out of Jason Von Bondie in a fans Q and A. Here's his tale in full:

let me first say that the reason for me not giving out information about this incident was an attempt to keep from giving jason what he wanted: recognition and fame from negativity. and i still don't want to talk about this for fear of them getting more yardage from it, but i'll try to sort out some of the lies. the entire event was completely exploited by him, his band, and his managers and legal professionals. the two of us did have an argument. and i did spit at him. but what he doesn't say is how he then grabbed me to pull me down and pulled out a good deal of my hair. my retaliation was to hit him to get him off of me. then he landed on my hand, which became cut on the broken glass underneath it. the whole thing lasted less than ten seconds. the photo that jason insisted on having taken (BEFORE the ambulance he called came to get him to take him ONE BLOCK away to the hospital,) was sent to the nme magazine THE NEXT MORNING with the photo credit being that of the von bondies manager rick canni. jason would not allow the dried blood from his bloody nose washed from his face before taking the photo. take a look at it again. it's a black eye once you wash the dried blood off. his face isn't full of cuts. the "permanent damage" that he claims was done to his eye from this is also false. having toured extensively with the man i know that he would refuse to drive the touring van because as a teenager jason left a contact lens in his eye for over a year and then tried to pull it out! he tore his eye in doing so. so jason said he could never drive the van because of his eye! sounded more like laziness to the rest of us. it's the same eye he tried to blame me for permanently damaging. all lies. so ridiculous. the whole thing was this. in jason's mind if he made me out to look like i 'ATTACKED HIM BRUTALLY' and he played the victim the whole time, then his name would get well known and the name of his bands, while mine was "dragged through the mud". he had been doing it to me for almost two years at that point. spreading lies and gossip to friends and especially the press. all of the detroit music scene were laughing at the von bondies by this point. remember also that the band was just about to release their album. so it was perfect timing for them. it's so funny that when the aroma of money and fame is in the air old friends will quickly step on your face to get to it. i was so nice to jason and his band you wouldn't believe it. i let them rehearse in my house for free. i got them signed. i produced their album for free. i didn't credit myself on their album for singing, playing guitar, organ, piano, tambourine, etc. out of respect, we took them on sold out tours around the world where i paid for their plane tickets and food out of my own pocket. but none of that matters when fame and money come into the picture. i really tried to talk to jason, over and over again. i called him several times to ask why he was doing this to me and meg, i tried talking, arguing, ignoring, and forgiving. but nothing would stop him from using me like this. it was me trying to be rational with an irrational person. violence is a ridiculous notion. and i would never walk up to someone with the intent to inflict pain on them. but i'm not going to let someone do the same to me without protecting myself.
it really saddened my to see that a lot of people were believing his lies. but the more you repeat something the more people believe it. if you keep saying it, it becomes true. like how my car accident was in a porsche. that's funny because i remember it being in a ford!

We really love the White Stripes, but why must Jack always try and prove he was in the right, all the time, everytime? Jesus, man, you pleaded guilty, because - presumably - you had no defence for beating him up; let it go now instead of moaning on. Can't you be a bit more secure in yourself than needing to whine that "Jason wouldn't drive the van when we were on tour, either." It's a little rich to now try and claim "well, he wasn't that badly injured anyway", as if that makes it somehow alright. Really, if White didn't want a photo of a man he'd punched to be in the NME "the NEXT MORNING" (take off the caps lock, Jack, there's a sweet) it would have been really simple not to actually punch him. "He pulled my hair." How old are you, Jack - about six? And as for Jason "exploiting" it all - clearly, Stollsteimer really doesn't want to talk about the incident (he nearly walked out of a Guardian Glastonbury Pop Quiz because a question about White came up.

What's clear from reading the whole interview is that jack's convinced that everyone is exploiting him to make their own names - he says the same thing about the guy who's made the movie that they've taken against:

i know for a fact that he's doing that. and i don't want to say his name because that's WHY he's doing all of this, to make a name for himself. seems to be a refrain for the white stripes lately. he's breaking the law, and worst of all he completely broke our trust and confidence in him.

The trouble is, when he's not moaning about how howwible the world is to him, he can actually be quite funny:


i've got a lot better things to do with my time then "write" songs for people. seriously, i would love to hear more from meg. i would love if there was more meg than me. or less me than meg. i would love for meg to call once in a while, or pop in for toast. i would love to have her phone number for instance. you will always see more and more of meg, with or without my help.

We did only say "quite" funny.