feature: meet drummer daru jones – “jack white’s secret weapon”

Renowned drummer Daru Jones (most notable for being the drummer of Jack White) recently sat down with Esquire magazine for an in depth interview; discussing music, childhood, and his predecessor Meg White. Check out some excerpts, below, and get into the full interview here. 

By Alexander Aplerku, AFROPUNK Contributor

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She may only have stood 5’6″, but Meg White left huge shoes to fill. While critics often dismissed her drumming as rudimentary, the style was intentional. As Jack White explained to Charlie Rose in 2007, “It’s sort of that Picasso saying, ‘It took a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child.’ I couldn’t play drums like that if I wanted to.” Following that legacy would be no small order for anyone. Perhaps not uncoincidentally, then, Jack White couldn’t have chosen a replacement who’s more opposite to his old partner, in both appearance and professional demeanor. Now in the stage-right post previously occupied by that pale-skinned, diminutive white chick who drummed with a beguiling low-key quality is a brawny, occasionally bespectacled black dude with a hip-hop background who ferociously bangs the skins with dazzling technical virtuosity and an almost vaudevillian theatricality. His name is Daru Jones, and if he stops short of providing the same symbiotic sustenance as his predecessor, he has unquestionably helped define Jack White’s solo sound and bolstered his reputation as one of the greatest live acts in popular music today.

“The church drum set was everybody’s drum set,” says Jones, who is the youngest of three children. “My moms did several things at the church. She was a janitor at one time. There were times when we were there every day. When I got out of school, I got my chance to practice. Drums was like the Bible. I just was hooked.”

* https://www.facebook.com/darujones