Jack White, Patrick Carney Feud Rekindled After Alleged Altercation
UPDATE: Patrick Carney and Jack White appear to have reconciled. The Black Keys drummer tweeted, “Talked to Jack for an hour; he’s cool. All good,” while White, tweeting from his Third Man Records account, wrote, “From one musician to another, you have my respect Patrick Carney.”
Jack White has responded to Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney’s allegations that White tried to start a fight with him after running into each other at a New York City bar. Carney accused White of “bullying” him in a series of tweets Sunday night and said of the Lazaretto rocker, “Jack White is basically Billy Corgan’s dumb ass zero T-shirt in human form.” However, White denied that he attempted to start an altercation with the rocker in a statement following Carney’s Twitter tirade.
“I’ve never met Jack White. Until last night. He came to a bar in NYC I go to a lot with a few friends and tried to fight me,” Carney tweeted Sunday. “I don’t fight and don’t get fighting, but he was mad!!! He is why I play music. The bully assholes who made me feel like nothing. Music was a private non-competitive thing.” Carney then continued, “Not the best drummer, but a passionate one. But anyway, 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 really sad and pathetic.”
The incident went down at New York’s Cabin Down Below, a frequent hangout of Carney’s and the point of celebration following Sunday night’s all-star Neil Fest, where the drummer performed. However, in a statement, White, who is in Manhattan to perform with the Dead Weather on Late Show With Stephen Colbert, says he never attempted to fight Carney.
“Nobody tried to fight you, Patrick. Nobody touched you or ‘bullied’ you,” White wrote. “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.” A rep for White could not confirm to Rolling Stone the “question” White asked Carney.
Carney then responded to White’s statement with one of his own: “I got into music because of people like him. The bully assholes who made me feel like nothing. Music was a collaborative and non-competitive thing. So, to get macho bullshit from within the musical community makes me angry and sad.”
A representative for rocker Jesse Malin, the co-owner of Cabin Down Below, was not immediately available for comment.
The bad blood between White and the Black Keys dates back to August 2013 leaked emails from White’s divorce proceedings with ex-wife Karen Elson, with White saying that the Turn Blue duo “ripped off” his music. White and Auerbach are both residents of Nashville, and White reportedly demanded that his children be pulled out of the same school that Auerbach’s kids attended.
“My conce[r]n with Auerbach is because I don’t want the kids involved in any of that crap,” White wrote in an email to Elson. “That’s a possible 12 fucking years I’m going to have to be sitting in kids’ chairs next to that asshole with other people trying to lump us in together. He gets yet another free reign to follow me around and copy me and push himself into my world.”
White later apologized to the Black Keys, telling Rolling Stone in May 2014, “I wish the band the Black Keys all the success that they can get. I hope the best for their record label Nonesuch who has such a proud history in music, and in their efforts to bring the Black Keys songs to the world.” However, the feud between the two artists appears to still be simmering.