It’s Long Past Time to Give Meg White Her Respect

There’s a scene in School of Rock where drummer Freddy Jones asks Katie, the bassist, to name two great “chick drummers.” Katie (played by Rivkah Reyes) quickly replies, “Sheila E? Meg White from the White Stripes?” Jones (played by the late Kevin Clark), looks aghast. “She can’t drum!” he tells her.

“She’s a better drummer than you!” Katie quips in response. “At least she has rhythm.” 

School of Rock was released in October 2003, six months after the White Stripes released Elephant, the explosive garage-rock masterpiece that won Jack and Meg White several Grammys and turned the peppermint-candy-themed duo into household names. Those households loved to discuss the band’s quirkiness (“Why are they always in those matching outfits?”) and their mystery (“Are they siblings or ex-spouses?” It was the latter). 

But many, if not most, of those conversations back then resembled Freddy and Katie’s, arguing over Meg and whether or not she deserved to be there. This week, that debate will hopefully be laid to rest, when the White Stripes are inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — and Meg will finally get her due. 

The White Stripes broke up almost 15 years ago, but discussions of Meg’s drumming are still taking place. Just two years ago, a viral tweet calling the drummer “terrible” sparked outrage online, with everyone from Jack White himself to Questlove coming to her defense. (Jack’s other ex-wife, musician and model Karen Elson, said it best: “Keep my ex husband’s ex wife’s name out of your f-cking mouth.”) 

But you’ll never find Meg, one of the most famously private and reclusive musicians in rock, speaking about any of this herself. Even during the White Stripes’ run from 1997 to 2011, she rarely gave interviews, usually nodding along and smiling while Jack did the talking. In 2007, the White Stripes released their final album, Icky Thump, and canceled their tour for the album due to “health issues.” In a letter to fans, they explained that Meg was “suffering from acute anxiety and is unable to travel at this time.” At the time, this explanation raised eyebrows; it’s now a common reason to postpone or cancel tours, with artists like Chappell Roan and Shawn Mendes prioritizing their mental health, another way that Meg was ahead of her time.

Meg’s mystery only grew after the White Stripes officially called it quits, and she retreated from the public eye and became every music journalist’s white whale interview, alongside artists like the Smashing Pumpkins’ D’arcy Wretzky and Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha. In 2014, Jack admitted to us that he was barely in touch with her. “I don’t think anyone talks to Meg,” he said. “She’s always been a hermit.”

Meg’s decision not to weigh in on ridiculous arguments about her talent only make her more awesome, especially in the age of social media, when younger artists regularly reply to criticism in sometimes ill-advised ways (see the recent TikTok drama with Sombr). She knows the power of not speaking. “Meg always says, ‘The more you talk, the less people listen,’” Jack told Rolling Stone’s David Fricke in the band’s 2005 cover story. “She’s right. She doesn’t open her mouth very much.”

Meg did, however, talk about her approach to her instrument in 2002, when she gave a rare interview to Modern Drummer. “I get [criticism] sometimes, and I go through periods where it really bothers me,” she said. “But then I think about it, and I realize that this is what is really needed for this band. And I just try to have as much fun with it as possible.”

That fun is felt all over the White Stripes’ six albums, with Meg’s raw, deceptively simple technique serving as the linchpin of the band. Her brilliance shines on songs like “Little Room” (White Blood Cells), “The Hardest Button to Button” (Elephant), and “My Doorbell” (Get Behind Me Satan), and that’s just when she’s drumming. She provides backing vocals on several songs, too, like on Icky Thump’s “I’m Slowly Turning Into You” and White Blood Cells’ “This Protector.” But her singing highlight will always be “In the Cold Cold Night,” her deliciously haunting moment from Elephant. It’s a sparse cut, with little else besides Jack’s guitar and Meg’s voice, begging for a lover to return. It’s the magic of the White Stripes bottled into one track: profound beauty in the minimalism, and Meg White.

Meg is only the third female drummer to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, after the Velvet Underground’s Maureen Tucker in 1996 and the Go-Gos’ Gina Schock in 2021. She is most likely not attending the ceremony in Los Angeles on Saturday, but thankfully Jack will be there to stand up for her, as he always has been.

“I never thought, ‘God, I wish Neil Peart was in this band,’” he told us in 2005, referencing Rush’s famously virtuosic drummer. “It’s kind of funny: When people critique hip-hop, they’re scared to open up, for fear of being called racist. But they’re not scared to open up on female musicians, out of pure sexism … Meg is the best part of this band. It never would have worked with anybody else, because it would have been too complicated.”