Jack White and The Black Keys’ relationship has had a lot of back and forth where the musicians could call it truce. It all started when White’s emails about The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach were made public during his custody battle with his ex-wife, British model Karen Elson.
After the emails surfaced where White called Dan a ‘a**hole’ The Black Keys initially took the high road. Drummer Patrick Carney told Rolling Stones that even though it was messed up that Jack thought of Dan in that way, it was a private conversation that got leaked.
Not long after, Jack had more to say to Rolling Stones in 2014 about how The Black Keys were ripping off his sound. The singer said:
“There are kids at school who dress like everybody else, because they don’t know what to do, and there are musicians like that too. I’ll hear TV commercials where the music’s ripping off sounds of mine, to the point I think it’s me. Half the time, it’s The Black Keys. The other half, it’s a sound-alike song because they couldn’t license one of mine. There’s a whole world that’s totally fine with the watered-down version of the original.”
After a year of radio silence between the musicians, in 2015 Carney claimed that he had an altercation with White. The drummer was at a Lower East Side bar called ‘The Cabin Down Below’ performing at a Neil Young tribute show at the Bowery Ballroom when the quarrel happened.
Patrick took to Twitter to explain what happened with Jack at the bar. He shared how he was bullied by the singer by writing:
“I’ve never met Jack White until last night. He came into the bar in NYC, I go to a lot with a few friends, and he tried to fight me. I don’t fight and don’t get fighting but he was mad! He is why I play music. The bully a-hole who made me feel like nothing… Jack White, a 40-year-old bully tried to fight the 35-year-old nerd. It might get loud but it might also get really sad and pathetic.”
After the tweets went viral, Jack immediately shared his side of the story on Twitter and wrote:
“Nobody tried to fight you, Patrick. Nobody touched you or ‘bullied’ you. You were asked a question you couldn’t answer so you walked away. So quit whining to the Internet and speak face to face like a human being. End of story.”
Even though it seemed like the two musicians were fired up, Carney erased most of his tweets regarding White and tweeted one last time that he had talked to White and everything was ‘cool.’ Jack responded and said:
“From one musician to another, you have my respect, Patrick Carney.”
You can read Jack White’s 2014 interview with Rolling Stones here. You can also read White’s and Patrick Carney’s tweets here.
