The Dead Weather

The Dead Weather was formed at the end of a long Raconteurs tour when Jack White retreated back to his Nashville home with bandmate Jack Lawrence, Alison Mosshart from support band The Kills and touring keyboardist Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age. An impromptu jam soon turned into an album's worth of sleazy, gothic, bar-room blues inspired by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Captain Beefheart and The Rolling Stones. Fronted by Mosshart with White on drums, debut album Horehound (2009) strutted with snake-hipped, swampy voodoo; a lot darker, sexier and more full-throttle than any of the members' previous bands. Released through the White's newly-founded label Third Man Records, it reached Number 6 in US album charts before follow-up Sea of Cowards (2010) snarled and bit at cynical critics desperate for White to reform his former band, The White Stripes. Pale-skinned, clad in black, underneath heavy mops of dark hair, The Dead Weather take the stance of a lost biker gang from the 1970s, but strike as unhinged, sexually-charged thunder that belies the easily dismissed tag of a side project.