Jack White says he has no interest in turning public breakups into chart material like Taylor Swift.
The 50-year-old rocker admitted he finds that style of songwriting “a little bit boring”.
Asked by The Guardian whether he writes much from personal experience, the former White Stripes frontman replied: “Not too much.”
He then expanded on why he avoids the confessional approach dominating mainstream pop.
Jack said: “Now it’s become very popular in the Taylor Swift way of pop singers writing about all of their publicly aired break-ups, which I don’t find interesting at all. I think it’s a little bit boring for me to write about myself.”
The Seven Nation Army hitmaker said he prefers to channel difficult or emotional experiences into fictional characters rather than present them directly.
He explained: “If it’s something really painful, I’m not going to put this important, painful thing that I went through out there for some idiot on the internet to stomp all over.
“So I put a percentage of that into what I do and then morph it into somebody else’s character. I can’t really learn about myself until I put it into somebody else’s shoes.”
The musician also addressed why he has never written overtly political songs, despite being outspoken about figures such as US President Donald Trump.
He said: “Well, when [Bob] Dylan said the answer was blowing in the wind he didn’t tell you what the answer was.
I think a lot of people in the protest days were torn: you want to make a statement but the speaker can be chewed up and spat out. The search for hypocrisy becomes intense once somebody takes the podium and condemns somebody else.”
Jack added that while he feels comfortable speaking plainly about politics in interviews, he wouldn’t take that same direct approach in his music.
He added: “When it comes to the president, I know a lot about it so I feel comfortable saying it. But if I were to put it in artistic form, I don’t think I would say those things directly. I wouldn’t say the names. I would make up a character.”