The White Stripes

Meg White

Megan Martha White (born December 10, 1974 in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan) is best known as the drummer and backing vocalist of Detroit rock duo The White Stripes.

Background information:
Birth name  :  Megan Martha White
Born  :  December 10, 1974 (age 32)
Origin  :   Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Genre(s)  :  Alternative rock
Occupation(s)  :  Musician
Instrument(s)  :  Drums, Vocals, Maracas, Tambourine, Timpani
Years active  :  1997–present
Associated acts  :  The White Stripes
Website  :  WhiteStripes.com


Early life

White grew up in the Detroit area. Despite their own assertions to the contrary, White and fellow bandmate Jack White are not siblings. In the early 1990s, Meg White worked as a bartender at Memphis Smoke, a bar in downtown Royal Oak (a Detroit suburb), where she first met John Gillis. They were reportedly married on September 21, 1996. In his characteristically unorthodox fashion, Gillis took her last name.

Career

Jack White spent much of the 1990s (and the early part of their marriage) hopping from band to band, but it was in 1997 that Meg first took her hand at the drums. In Jack's words, "When she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing. There was something in it that opened me up." The young couple then became a band, and the newly christened White Stripes soon played their first gig at the Gold Dollar in Detroit. In keeping live performances to three basic elements, Jack did the guitar and vocal work while she played drums.They divorced in 2000 (before becoming nationally famous) but the band survived.
Though Jack White (the duo's guitarist and songwriter) usually sings the lead vocals, Meg White sings lead on "In the Cold, Cold Night", a song from the band's fourth album, Elephant, "Passive Manipulation", from the band's fifth album, Get Behind Me Satan, and on "St Andrew (This Battle is in the Air)" from its sixth album Icky Thump. . For his part, Jack White has declared her to be the key component in the White Stripes' sound. In reference to her "primal" approach to drumming, she remarked, "That is my strength. A lot of drummers would feel weird about being that simplistic."
White has appeared on the cover of Whirlwind Heat's single Pink, in a Detroit Cobras music video "Cha Cha Twist" as Little Red Riding Hood, and appeared with Jack White in a segment of Jim Jarmusch's 2003 film Coffee and Cigarettes.
On October 7, 2005, a picture posted on the Nine Inch Nails website of White with the band led to speculation that she replaced drummer Jerome Dillon, but two hours later, the photo was replaced with one of the band with Alex Carapetis. The significance of the photo featuring White is unclear, as she was never officially announced to be Nine Inch Nails' drummer, nor has any other explanation been given regarding the photo.
Fulfilling a longtime dream, Jack and Meg White guest starred on the long-running animated TV series The Simpsons in an episode titled "Jazzy and the Pussycats", which first aired on September 17, 2006. . She has done some modeling for Marc Jacobs' 2006 Spring line. Two of her pictures appeared in the March 2006 issue of ELLE.
Meg White was chosen by Comedian/Director Bob Odenkirk to compose a drum theme for one of his characters in the film Let's Go to Prison, which was released in November 2006.

Personal life

She is, by her own admission, "very shy" and gives few interviews. When the band is interviewed, she will often contribute little or nothing, while Jack White will do most of the talking. In her time away from the band Meg enjoys photography and amateur taxidermy. Animals are also something of a motif in her photography (mainly album covers and music videos). Among those photographed with her are a snake, rats (the video for Hotel Yorba and the back cover of Elephant), a cow, rabbits, and raccoons (the 7 inch cover of the Denial Twist single). She guards her privacy in a manner that she identifies with Bob Dylan, whom she admires.
On September 11, 2007 the White Stripes were forced to cancel 18 tour dates due to White's suffering from acute anxiety problems. The following day, said problems caused the duo to cancel the remainder of their 2007 UK tour dates as well.


Equipment:
Drum kits:
Pearl
Ludwig-Musser
Signature peppermint bass drum head
Drum sticks:
Vater
Cymbals:
Paiste 14" Signature Medium Hi-hats
Paiste 19" Signature Power Crash
Paiste 22" 2002 Ride

Source: Wikipedia