The white stripes: after 10 years how does one of the world's hottest bands maintain their hipster cool while still riding mainstream success? As writer Matt Diehl discovered, by blurring lines and ferociously guarding their mystery

MATT DIEHL: Hi Jack. Hi Meg.

JACK WHITE and MEG WHITE: [in unison] Hello.

MD: One of my favorite things about the new record, Icky Thump--beyond the music, of course--is that you thank drummers Gene Krupa, Mitch Mitchell, Buddy Rich, John Bonham, and Louie Bellson in the liner notes. The whole idea of swing is kind of lost in popular music today. Obviously that's important to the White Stripes.

JW: There are not enough drummers capturing people's imaginations these days. Any way that we can capture people's imagination for playing an instrument is doing something right. You look at the Billboard Top 100 or whatever, and you're hard-pressed to find people who are known for playing an instrument.

MD: This year, you're celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the White Stripes. We did some research and found that the typical American marriage lasts 9.4 years--

MW:Really? That long? [laughs]

MD: For bands it's even less. What's the secret to making it last?

JW: I don't think anybody knows. People just hammer away and try whatever comes to mind to keep the train rolling. We have rock history to learn from--people didn't really have that in the '50s and '60s, They had the benefit of having the whole world in front of them, with no one having tried out all these things yet. It didn't matter if it lasted more than a week, because it was so explosive.

MD: But the history of rock doesn't help if you're in the middle of nowhere and grumpy because you haven't slept.

MW: It helps if you're a girl and a guy too, because you don't get a lot of male-ego combat, which sometimes happens in those situations.

JW: I could know in my heart exactly why we lasted 10 years, but it doesn't matter. Anything I say isn't going to do me or anybody else any good by saying it, because it's just going to come off as egotistical. Maybe a rap star can get away with it, but I don't think I could. [laughs]

MD: A lot has already been written about Icky Thump. What have people gotten right and what have they gotten wrong?

JW: I'd say 90 percent of what they got is from the press release. We have fun putting funny things in there--like in the press release for Elephant [2005], somebody inserted a joke about how none of our studio equipment was made after 1963. Journalists are inherently the laziest people on earth. Even in the age of Google, they don't do any work to check what they're writing about. Before you knew it, people thought we wouldn't touch a piece of equipment unless it's 60 years old or something! It. gets to the point where you're answering questions based on a joke somebody made. [laughs]

MD: But part of the fun of the White Stripes is your sense of mystery, which is why people get things wrong. It's like the way Led Zeppelin was mysterious: People had to invent stuff to make sense of it all.

JW: It sucks, because it affects everything I read now. Anytime I pick up a music magazine, I assume 90 percent of it is incorrect, so I make up my own things to believe. Everyone knows the phrase "Don't believe everything you read," but how many people actually practice it?.

MD: You guys have made six records--what propels you to make another one?

MW: Because that's what we do. [Meg and Jack laugh] We only make records. We're a band.

MD: It's what you do, but I know from experience it's not always easy--it's work.

JW: Oh, it's definitely work. The hardest part for me has always been trying to discover what part of it has the "enjoyable" and fun aspect to it. I almost don'.t know where that occurs; I almost don't want to be satisfied with what I'm doing.

MW: It's definitely about that moment when you get done with a show and there's that sense of accomplishment. Everything is work, but it's supposed to be. I think that's part of what's held us together.

MD: Tell me about the title Icky Thump.

JW: [laughs] That came from this phrase from the northwest of England that my wife [Karen Elson] was saying, "Ecky thump." I was just shouting It out at the beginning of every verse when we were writing and rehearsing that song, thinking I'd remove It and put something else there, but I liked hearing it when I played it back ... We don't usually demo things, but we did some for this album because we were pressed for time. We do a lot of writing in the studio and I think with this one, there were so many things going on I wanted to make sure we got a lot of the bad ideas out of the way--[laughs] out of my head, out of our system.

MD: Other than help name the title song, did having a wife and child change the creative process for you?

JW: Not really. I mean, your environment affects you all the time. I could say my wife and child are involved in my music as much as my front lawn is, you know?

MD: Years ago, Jack, you were an upholsterer, and Meg, you were a bartender. Before you two ever met, what were your hopes, dreams, frustrations?

JW: Those teenage dreams of doing things, you never really get back. The gravestone of our friend John Peel, the great English DJ who passed away a few years ago, has the lyrics from that song by the Undertones, "Teenage Kicks": "Teenage dreams, so hard to beat." Any dreams I had about music, they're not the same as when you experience it. My dreams have always been rooted in realism. Everyone was telling me that you can't put out a record--you have to be extremely lucky. It was the same as dreaming about winning the lottery. I didn't really think it could happen.