Will Meg White attend White Stripes’ Rock Hall induction?

The White Stripes are being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Saturday night in Los Angeles at the 40th annual induction ceremony, where they’re joining a class that includes Outkast, Soundgarden, Cyndi Lauper, Bad Company, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Salt-N-Pepa and Warren Zevon.

It’s the first official order of business on the White Stripes’ docket since the band dissolved in 2011, after rocketing to fame out of Detroit’s garage rock community a decade earlier and becoming one of the most successful twosomes in music history.

The induction ceremony raises the question of whether Meg White, the White Stripes’ drummer and the band’s reclusive, quiet soul, will show up to accept the honor alongside her former musical partner, Jack White; if Jack White appears alone; or if they both skip the shindig to preserve the sanctity of the band’s own ending, on its own terms.

When contacted this week by The Detroit News, reps for the White Stripes had no comment, and there’s been no official statement from the White Stripes on the Rock Hall induction since it was announced back in April that they made the cut. Historically, induction is no guarantee of attendance; front man Axl Rose skipped the ceremony when Guns N’ Roses entered the Rock Hall in 2012; only guitarist Tom Morello showed when Rage Against the Machine was inducted in 2023.

But if it does happen, it would mark the most public appearance of Meg White in more than 15 years, as she has largely retreated to a quiet life of solitude in Detroit, which she has long called home. She hasn’t given an interview, posted on social media or done a single thing to draw attention to herself since the band folded up shop all those moons ago, after making their final appearance together as a band during the final episode of “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” in 2009.

It’s rare that someone in such a high-profile position in the entertainment industry leaves the spotlight entirely, of their own free will. But Meg White has always marched to the rhythm of her own drumbeat, which is what made her the secret sauce of the White Stripes in the first place. “Meg is what defines what the White Stripes are,” says Alan Light, a rock journalist and author whose most recent book, “Don’t Stop: Why We (Still) Love Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors,” was released this week.

He’s paraphrasing a Jack White quote in which the singer once told a reporter that Meg is “the best part of the band.” But Light believes it’s Meg’s style of playing — simple, direct and unadorned, never showy or technically audacious — that allowed the White Stripes to blossom into what they became.

“There’s a focus and there’s a clarity that comes with what her kind of playing was,” he says. “I think especially as time goes on and we see all the things that Jack White can be and what he can do, the parameters established by what Meg’s playing was, and what her approach was, really did stake out the territory for what that band was going to be.”

Jack and Meg White formed the White Stripes in 1997 and released their self-titled debut album in 1999. The duo — who presented as a brother-sister act but were actually a formerly married couple — exploded with the release of 2001’s “White Blood Cells,” which brought its raw, bluesy, unvarnished rock sound to MTV and the masses, and 2003’s “Elephant” provided “Seven Nation Army,” which remains a staple during sporting contests in stadiums worldwide to this day.

The band — which favoured a minimalist aesthetic and utilised a strict red, white and black colour scheme on stage, in music videos and on its album covers — released six albums before calling it a day. Jack White has since released six solo albums, along with albums with his bands the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather, while Meg has remained largely silent, which has helped keep the legacy of the White Stripes preserved in amber.

Tribune News Service