The Dead Weather

The Dead Weather came together in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2009, born out of a chance collaboration rather than a planned project. The group began in 2008 after the Raconteurs' U.S. tour with the Kills, when bronchitis made it difficult for Jack White to sing as much as usual, so Alison Mosshart was drafted to sing several of his songs. Her on-stage chemistry with the band led White, Mosshart, Lawrence, and White's house guest Fertita to record a cover of Gary Numan's "Are Friends Electric?" and the newly formed band began working on a full album at White's Third Man Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, with White on drums for the first time since his days with Goober & the Peas. The lineup brought together four accomplished musicians from other notable bands: Alison Mosshart, Jack White, Dean Fertita, and Jack Lawrence , each already known through The Kills, The White Stripes and The Raconteurs, and Queens of the Stone Age respectively. In January 2009, Mosshart, Fertita, Lawrence and White got together for an impromptu jam at White's Third Man studio, and the session was followed by two and a half weeks of song writing and recording, during which the Dead Weather formed, with White later recalling, "Things just started to happen. We didn't have a direction." The band's breakthrough came fast and loud. Their first public performance took place on March 11, 2009, at the opening of the Third Man Records headquarters in Nashville, introducing audiences to a band whose energy felt both spontaneous and carefully sculpted. Their debut album, Horehound, followed that summer, arriving in July 2009 to worldwide critical acclaim and a top 10 Billboard 200 chart debut. More specifically, Horehound peaked at No. 1 on the US Top Alternative Albums and US Indie Store Album Sales charts, and also climbed to the No. 2 spot on the US Top Rock Albums chart. Critics took notice immediately, with Rolling Stone giving it four out of five stars, calling it "an excellent album of sex sweat, bourbon breath, gun smoke, and guitar sleaze." The band's second album cemented that they were more than a side project. Their sophomore album, Sea of Cowards, received critical acclaim and debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 chart, solidifying their position in the music world. It was later ranked eleventh on Rolling Stone's list of the thirty best albums of 2010. Following the rapid one-two punch of Horehound and Sea of Cowards, the band's momentum shifted into a slower, more sporadic rhythm. The four musicians celebrated the release of Horehound with a 23-date North American tour before reconvening at Third Man in December for three further weeks of writing and recording, and Sea of Cowards, released less than a year after their debut, made it abundantly clear The Dead Weather had become more than a side project. The group had a burst of activity in 2009 and 2010 when they released two albums and toured behind them, but they didn't put out another album until 2015 and didn't tour for that one. That third record, Dodge and Burn, released in 2015, completed a trio of albums that showcase their blend of blues rock, garage rock, and psychedelic influences, establishing them as a unique force in alternative rock. Throughout their run, each member continued to juggle other high-profile projects, which contributed to the band's stop-start pace but also gave the music its restless, collaborative character.