Becca. Hi, Steven. I am so looking forward to today's pod show intro. Me too. Me too. Thanks for doing these. Because this one will be a synaptic key for all the ones that we have done before. And I just, before we go any further, I just want to thank you for producing this podcast for so many years now. And, and let you know how much I've enjoyed the almost meditative respite it has been to sit in this little quiet room with you. It's like we're not in the building at all. I know. It's almost like you and I years later are meeting to talk about what it was like to do the show. Yeah. But we do it like every five weeks. Yeah. But it really has felt like there's like we have little bits of nostalgia for things we just did. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The crazy thing about doing the show is that because it's such a gallop every day, or as I like to call it, the flaming toboggan ride, and that you cannot hold on preciously to the memory of any of it. You've got to fully flush what you just did and then just do the next show. Yeah. Just because it just makes it easier to focus on the next thing you have to do. And that's great. I'm glad yesterday's show went well. I can't really tell you much about what happened yesterday. Mm-hmm. Because I am fully focused on what we're going to do tonight and like 5% on what's going to happen tomorrow. Yeah. So that's only to say, I feel like you and I have set ourselves up really well to see each other after the show's over because we've already got the vibe. I know. I love talking to you, Steven. Oh, I love talking to you too. This is, you're a great conversationalist. But I mean that like, I know that you are the celebrity boss, which is a game we played on this podcast before, but I feel like, I've been watching you in the writers meeting. We're around each other all the time. I have a much lower rule than you do at this show, but I've always just felt like this guy is just down to hang out. And I'm really, there's so many things I want to say that I will write in a card and we'll talk about later. And we have a month to go, so I'm not going to cry on the podcast today. Sure. But my goal for these podcasts is that they're centered around the gratitude we both have for getting to work someplace like this. I hope so. I hope so too. And I will not have time to do everything I want to do for everybody I want to do it for here. So I'll just use this opportunity right now. Oh, Steven, thanks so much. All right. To say thank you. Thank you. Becca, you're an absolute joy to work with. You too, Steven. All right, let's do it. All right, all right, all right, this podcast. Well, I have something kind of also centered around gratitude today. I want to do the Nick Offerman, Jeff Tweedy combo interview we just did. Right. And also a Jack White extended interview because here's what I want to group up with all these people who are people you've met through this show who are now your friends. Yeah. And that's a really beautiful thing. And for Celebrity Boss, which I just said is a game we play sometimes where I ask my Celebrity Boss questions about being a celebrity. Yes. Because I have access to it and I don't have access to other celebrities. I guess who was the last rock star or musician of great acclaim that you sent a personal text to? Jack. I mean, Jack, because we're doing this other thing that people don't need to know about yet. Cool. We're doing this other thing kind of a surprise thing. I don't know. I'll look in here. Elvis Costello. Yeah. I mean, come on. Sure. Yeah, he's in my phone as Declan. What's that? I know you. That's his name, Declan McManus. Oh, great. He was born, he was born, Declan McManus. I think Declan, I'll always just McManus, but I might be throwing the I'll always just in there just because I love the name. Now, is Jack White someone you became buddies with during the rapport years? Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah. I went down to Nashville to interview him a third man. Oh, so cool. And we had a great time. And what I didn't know was that he's one of 10 kids. He's the youngest of 10. I'm the youngest of 11. Youngest of 10 kids and just how Catholic his upbringing was. And it felt very similar to Catholic. So we had a Catholic throwdown where we fought each other with like liturgical or relic trivia, stuff like that. You know, I'm hitting him like, I tried to get him to name what a surplus is, you know, he tried to hit me with a monstron. And I don't know what your religious upbringing was, but Jewish with a little bit of Catholic in there. Throwing in there. Okay. So, but we hit it off. And I also hit it off just because some people actually some famous people really like talking to that old character because he gave nobody any respect whatsoever. And I think they found it refreshing to be fucked with. Matter of fact, like if I had Paul Simon on the other night, oh, I texted Paul Simon. Yeah. Okay. And he, I fucked with him. I don't know. And he seemed to like it because I guess people don't fuck with Paul Simon that much. It might be refreshing. And I was like, I should do a show called fucking with legends with your host, Stephen Colbert, where I just don't give them any respect as opposed to be like the sort of the, you know, the soft focus Barbara Walters, you know, you know, oprah treat, or something like that. Just give him hell. Hell to breakfast. Definitely. So anyway, anyway, we got all we just hit it off. We just hit it off over Bob Seeger, you know, also another Detroit rocker. Yeah. It's time for Seegers to have a comeback in my opinion. Yeah. We're time for the reseagerance. Oh, that's a t-shirt. Yeah. Oh, it's time for the reseagerance. Oh, okay. Yeah. And the Silver Bullet band. Yeah. And so I don't know, we just hit it off and I don't know, we just kept in touch over the years. Yeah. Yeah. I admire him. Yeah. Sweet guy. I'm going to be doing a little bit of a review. We got all the good bits in there. Please enjoy. And before we end this podcast, I just want to tell you that the thing that you said about like, oh, we delete what happened the day before and we keep going forward. Yeah. That's been, this is the first like real job I've had. I got very lucky that this is the first like real TV job I've had in my life. And how long have you been here? Like six and a half years, almost seven. That's good. That's good. TV jobs usually don't last that long. I know. I hate to tell you. No, I'm going to be scrappy and I'm going to figure it out. It's all going to be fine. But I can't tell you how amazing that has been to learn how to do a job like this or any job, which is that if I, I mess something up one day, the amount of like grace people have around you that's like, it's okay. We have another show tomorrow. Like nobody remembers the mistake you made yesterday as long as you go in the next day, you know, totally. I don't know. It's just been, because you know why it's been a great training ground. Because I, and I know everybody who works here because their pros is remembering at the same time themselves. Yeah. Yeah. You don't need to remind anybody. Exactly. There's a great line from Jackson Brown, which is don't remind me of my failures. I had not forgotten them. Exactly. Exactly. All right. All right. Enjoy the podcast. Becca. Wait, we have one more. If you have time. There's another one after this. Oh, there's no handshake then. Okay. No handshake. Okay. Jack White, Nick Offerman, Jeff Tweedy. Enjoy. Welcome back, friends. Ladies and gentlemen, my next guest tonight is a 12-time Grammy award-winning rock and roll hall of famer. Please welcome back to the late show, Jack White. It's so welcoming. Yeah. Nice to see you again. Nice to see you too. The great Lewis Cato over there. Yes. Come on, man. Yes. The great big joy machine. Yeah. Now, last November, I was invited to be here. I was invited to be here. I was invited to be here. I was invited to be here. So, last November, White Stripes were inducted in rock and roll hall fame. All right. Congratulations. Thank you. That was a nice night. Yeah, it was wild. Yeah. So, in your speech, you thanked your family for a lot of things, but for letting you, let's see, make all that noise in the house all the time growing up. Yeah. So, what kind of noise were we talking? Well, there was 10 kids in the family, so there was already a lot of noise going on. And you fall. I'm the youngest of 10. You know what that's like. Sure, I'm the youngest of 11. You beat me. Finally got it right. Yes. Keep trying. Right. Okay, so it's already noisy because there's 10 people there. Exactly, yeah. It's chaos. Yeah, and then, but it's also in inner city Detroit too, which in the 70s and 80s was kind of you could probably set up your band on the front lawn and nobody could do whatever you wanted, you know, so we were, that was in the mix too, but it was really gracious of them to let me, my parents to let me make so much noise. Did you up or down to the basement? Up in the attic. Up in the attic. Yes, yeah. So you're broadcasting to the entire neighborhood. Yes, exactly. Why the act did it not have a basement? I think the basement was full of about 60 years of clothing from all these kids, you know, so there it is. Yeah. My dad's tools and stuff too. Was it always his guitar to play other instruments? No, drums was all I played growing up was drums. Oh really? Yeah. All I wanted to be was a drummer, Gene Krupa, Mitch Mitchell. Wow. And this was, guitar was, you know, not in my mind at all. I'm so sorry that he didn't work out for you. I'm sorry, yeah too. Yeah, so I thought maybe tonight I could guitar. Yeah, well if you went at the end of the interview, if you want to jump in over there, no one is going to stop you. He's doing too good already. I'm not going to mess with him. How is it different? So how do you think, do you get a sense of how it's different for like when you were a young musician coming up to when it's like a young person coming up today, like what the different challenges are? Yeah, I think it's kind of easier in certain ways because people learn how to record on their own. They learn how to produce themselves in their own kind of living rooms or own bedrooms. And you know, but at the same time, the lack of playing together is kind of becoming a disease, you know, like young bands might come and- Too much laryngeal. They've never actually played live in a room together. They record all at the same time. You know, you record that part and then we'll do this part. Right, right. So it's, but I think that's finally starting to come back and go away. Right? You want to say that, right? Yeah. I saw that soulfulness is becoming more of a, as AI takes over more and more and more. Does anybody like AI? It seems like our species, like it's this thing we created that nobody likes, but we're just not going to do anything about it. It's just going to ruin the universe. The money likes it for some reason. The money's already spent so much money on the money. Yeah, so, yeah. I don't know how- I think AI might be good for live performances because people want to be able to see human beings with other human beings performing things written about being human for humans in front of real humans. Exactly. It'll ensure, yeah. Yeah. You've got to go live to know that it's real. Where did you discover your own musicality? Where did that, where did that, was there a moment or is there like a year that was big for you? There was a moment when I went to a Montessori school. It was like a Salvation Army building for unwed mothers and they had a Montessori school in there and my mother got me in there and they had like a little recital when we were five years old. And so there was a little semi circle of kids and they handed a pair of bongos to the kid on the end and it was going around. Everybody play. And I was the last person on the end and I was so filled with anxiety. Not for the reason that you think though. The reason I was filled with anxiety is was I want to do shaving a haircut two bits but some other kid's going to do it before it gets to me. And? Well, and what you're witnessing anytime you've ever seen me make music, I'm still trying to beat that kid and do shaving a haircut two bits first. Did somebody beat you? No, I got to do it. So yeah. Wow. So that's nice. But I got not only that it went around and I did it also I was still in the mindset I remember this doing it for myself. I got that that's what I wanted to do and it killed you know, a group of parents of 20 parents or something. Everybody laughed those but that was the first showbiz moment really. Yeah. I said youngest of 10, youngest of 11. Yeah. We've never done the race. Like who could say the brothers and sisters faster than the other. You're going to beat me. I've got one more than you though. Right. You're going to still be. So I've got a handicap. I don't think I'm going to do this. I can see the one, two, three go. How about that? We remembered it was Mars, J, Blah, J with the first initial. So Maureen and Ray Steve Joe. Wait, wait, no, no, no. We're going to do it together. Oh, at the same time? It's called a race baby. Okay, all right. Okay. So one, two, three and then we'll go. Ready? Okay. One, two, three. Jimmy Eddie Mary Billy Martin, Tom and J. Barb Leo Eddie Allinger. You are now. I knew it. I can't play the guitar. I can't do that. You know, I wrote you about this recently. I was very sorry to hear about the passing of your mom. Yeah. You know, especially a big family. The mom is so important. Holds everybody together. Just last month, you posted some beautiful photos. I mean, I were looking at these this weekend. Some beautiful photos of you and your mom. There you are. There you are. On stage. On stage. And you're going to be on stage. And you're going to be on stage. And you're going to be on stage. And you're going to be on stage. And you're going to be on stage. And you're going to be on stage. We're looking at these this weekend. Some beautiful photos of you and your mom. There you are. On stage. On stage. Look how much pride she's got on you. And this, this is just fantastic. This is her doing your hair. For you backstage. In this photo. I'm sitting down in this photo. She's standing up. Other than Miniscule. How do you best remember your mother? of your mother. Tell us about it. She's the best. She's a saint. She's just a saint, you know. And she said something. She was kind of, she was incredibly funny without realizing how funny she was. If you love that kind of person, you have someone out in your life like that. A winter, last winter, I was driving, she wanted to go to Mass, so at this Capuchin monastery. So I took her to Mass and there's my kids in the back, Scarlet and Henry, and my mom in the front. And we were driving in this Jeep. And it's icy in Detroit in the wintertime, of course. So just to get a little reaction out of her, I thought I'd give her, just slide the truck a little bit. There's no cars, no people around in all. It's empty streets of Detroit. So I just went, you know, just, just a little turn. She goes, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop that. That's not funny. And I'm like, mom, it's really icy. I can't, I don't know if I can control it that way. She goes, well, you have to get control of it. And I said, well, listen, when I get to the church parking lot, I'm going to be doing donuts when we get to the church parking lot. And she goes, well, they have coffee and donuts after Mass. Oh. Oh. Seriously worse. Oh. People think of you, obviously, as a musician, but you're also a very, very visual guy. You're about to do your first public sculpture show. Yes. Yeah. First art show. Here we go. This is where's the big, where's the big turn? B. Innerst Gallery in London. OK. He invited, he asked, I showed him some pictures of my sculptures I've worked on over the years. It's called Platinum. Yeah. This is a, so this is a, I was garbage picking these wood pallets, you know? And I found that they made metal ones. So I had this one chrome plated. So you can't, it's hard to see in the photo, but it's fully reflective like a mirror. The idea is this is a fake company, this part of the art show, it's a fake pallet company that thinks they need to make pallets for different industries. So that's the Platinum Edition. That's the Platinum. Oh. And this is the thing. Oh, for the finest in your pallet needs. OK. And this one, this is the fruit sellers roadside pallet. OK. So, you know, a country, they think that they need to make this specifically for them. And this one? Oh, and this is the presidential model. Also, also, does that make you nervous at all that people show you another, like, another side of yourself, another form of your art? It's nice to be in a spot where, you know, Damien Hurst of all people encouraging me to do it. And because when I was first doing it in the 90s, I was doing a poultry in my studio and sculpture. Nobody said, hey, you should do a show. Or why don't you do a show? No one, I just assumed I couldn't do one. You know, so it took this long. You've mentioned before that writing a song is like re-upulstering a chair. Yeah. OK, I'll bite. It was something I kind of just learned about myself a couple of years ago, which was, you know, when people say, oh, you make furniture. I said, no, I don't make furniture from scratch. I take old beat-up, kind of half-destroyed furniture and bring it back to life. And I started to realize maybe that's what I've been doing with all the art I've been working out with, these sculptures or music or taking something from the past that I really enjoy and incorporating something brand new and remaking it and synthesizing it into something different. And then I think it's interesting. And so I think I accidentally just formed all my art opinions based on re-bring furniture back to life. Now, what do you like not metaphorically? What do you like about re-upulstering chairs? They're softer. And do you still do it? Yeah, I do. I need some work on the chairs. If I sent you a chair, could I get a re-pulster? Do I get to pick the fabric? Yes, yeah, yeah. We can do whatever you want. All right, because I don't want to come back. My chairs are actually sculptures, the interior of them. You would never know. The interior of them is what I put all kinds of things that I creative inside of them. I started off writing poetry inside of them and then also adding things that. So like years from now, if I cut it open? Oh, absolutely, yeah. I got to the point where we actually hid records in a lot of them on many pieces. That seems uncomfortable. So I thought it'd be nice because upholsters, they're the only people who see the insides of it. We should have our own inside jokes and tell the stories to each other. Because I'd never seen anybody else right inside of one of all the chairs and couches I opened. Wow. All right. Yeah. How about the Artemis mission? Oh, baby. How great is that? Look at this art he's got. This is got this in his, that's on the side of his house. He's got one of the old NASA signs. That's. How exciting is that? Yeah. They're the farthest humans have ever been from. I know. I know. I said that in the monologue. Did you not watch? I was prepping. I was prepping. Prepping? You were doing push-ups. What's that? You were doing push-ups. Lewis, they were teaching me some chords backstage. There you go. No, it's so exciting. My kids are really excited. And I'm like, no, this is what it felt like when Apollo was going on. Exactly. This is it. Yeah. Yeah. I wish we could just divert some funding to NASA. No, what I love about it is that I've got a couple of people who work writers for me who were not some American citizens now, but they weren't raised here. And they said, people around the world are going, oh, look, we're doing this. Yes, America is doing it. But there's a real sense that humanity is. That's a wonderful feeling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And how is going back to the moon like reupholstering a chair, Jack? Well, it is a dark side to every couch. You also have a new book. Yes. They have a new book out. OK. The book is called Jack White, Collected Lyrics and Selected Writing Volume 1. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Lyrics. Yeah. Why? Good question. There's like a, this is kind of my tested to write a book of poetry, which I thought I'd sneak it in with the lyrics of someone who has. Is there poetry in here other than your lyrics? In the back. Yeah. So you've snuck in a couple things that are not... Can I read you one? Oh, I'd love it. We love poetry. Yeah. Please. I know. It's a quick one. It's called, Just Suppose to Juxtapose. All images are pornographic, they say, taking something living and breathing with a soul and reducing it down to a two-dimensional object you can crumble up and dispose of at will. All crime is a variation on theft, they say. Murder is theft of another person's life. Graffiti is theft of someone's property, a razor-thin veneer of someone's property. All glory is fleeting, they say, desired and sought after by so many. But all too often, maybe always, the reward is empty and pointless. But love cannot be compared or dissected or defined to be negative or pulverized and destroyed by cynical sentences and sour ravings. It cannot be denied or ignored. It is. Love is. And we desire it and need it and deserve it. But it's not free. Well, it should be. Yeah. Yeah. I like Jack. That was beautiful. Jack White, everybody. Coming up, Nick Offerman and Jeff Tweedy. Ladies and gentlemen, my next guests have won Grammys and Emmys and our New York Times bestselling authors. They're also best friends. Please welcome back to the late show, Nick Offerman and Jeff Tweedy. Hey, fellas, nice to see you. Nice to see you, sir. Good to see you. As is appropriate, for wherever you guys are out here, we have the table that you made for me. That's right. Over there. Nick, and then everyone's using their Offerman Workshop coasters. Thank you very kindly. Out here. There you go. You made it. Yeah. Limited edition. You made him a table? I did. Yes. Has he ever made you a table? No. You'll get there. Yeah. We were best friends. Stick around. How did you two become such friends? Where did this come about? I mean, you know, Jeff has had a couple major bands in my life. First for briefly Uncle Tupelo in the 90s. My cooler friends turned me on to them. And then soon enough, that became Wilco. And so for about 20 years, Jeff was particularly, he was like my John Lennon. I would get his records and say to my friends, how does he see into my soul? Like, we are in love, but he just doesn't know it yet. And I mean, literally after 20 years, I had the opportunity, I was directing an episode of Parks and Rec, and there was a role. And I got to meet Jeff by casting him on Parks and Recreation. And what was the part? Jeff. Washed up Midwestern rocker. How'd you feel about that? They said, I don't, I mean, I was hurt. A little bit. It just goes to show what a great actor you are. Right. They're able to pull it off. I haven't that yet. Good for you. I mean, I get cast as like overweight, indulgence, hedonists. Yeah. That took a lot of training. Yeah. Okay, now you, people may not know that it's the two of you are dear friends along with the great writer, George Saunders. And I found this out and I know all three of you, but I did not know you together as a group. And I, and I weedled my way into a group text. That's right. You guys have. So there's a group text with all four of us here. And I'm just curious, do you have a group text that does not include me? Is there a, because it doesn't light up that often. And I'm wondering, they have to, there has to be another one that I'm not part of. Well, I mean, you're busy, Steve. I will soon be extremely available. That's why we're here. Oh, really? That's right. Yeah. What? You know, we were friends before you solicited us. But some of you became friends because of me, right? That's true. You met, I met George on the finale of the Colbert Report. All right. Yeah. So, I want my, I don't, daddy wants his 10% of that friendship over here. You sent, I got this, I got this recently from you. Uh, maybe last year, I think maybe he sent it to all of us. I know it was unsolicited. What's happening here, Nick? Well, that, I have a new show coming out called Margot's Got Money Troubles on Apple TV. And I, that's right. I play a former pro wrestler named Jinx. And so a guy named Grant Roberts helped me get my, my body in that shape. Yeah. And a guy named Jimmy Coco sprayed me with spray tan. Is this what Jimmy Coco does professionally? It is. It's a volunteer job. Jimmy Coco is the Kardashian spray tan guy. Oh, is he real? I got, yeah, I went to the top. Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy having the cocoa butter tan? It is disgusting. I hate it. It's terrible. I mean, you're sprayed with a sort of paint and then you're not allowed to sweat or touch anything. And everything in my house is white. And so I was forced to canoodle with my wife out in the yard. That's what the picture is from. It's hell on the grass. I'm getting ready. It's hell on the grass. Have you guys collaborated like musically in any way? Yeah, we have. I wrote some songs with Nick for his woodworking book, songs about woodworking. That's right. Sure. At the end of my woodworking book, Good Clean Fun, Jeff agreed to do some songs with me on the condition that they would only be available at the end of the audiobook of a woodworking book. It's called Good Clean Fun. It is available at offermanwoodshop.com. And at the end of it, there are like five or six songs that we do together, a couple of instrumentals. Nick sings of them. I do. You sing them. Yeah. So when you do a song with Jeff, he has this wonderland called the Loft where he produces his records. And he and Spencer, his son, like they, I would come up with the woodworking words and Jeff and Spencer would come up with the songs and they would, they're so prolific, they would say, well, here are three choices for melodies. And you pick one and then they just lay down the tracks and then Jeff would sing the melody. And then I would, my, my dear, the Bob Dylan of my life is in my headphone and I have to hear him sing and replace his voice with this. So you would sing along? Yeah, because, because he didn't agree to be on the record as a singer. That's, that's, that's a lot. It was, it was the most. That's beyond woodshop cash. That's right. Right there. It was like some sort of aspirational karaoke where it was, it was so torturous where I'm like, why can't we just use your beautiful dulcet tones? Nah. Well, I know that we tried, we, the four of us tried to go hiking four years ago, right around now, April up in Piska National Forest, Western Oakland. Didn't work out. I had, I had COVID. You guys kindly went and used the cabin. I rented anyway. Honestly, I was very happy you did. It was beautiful. We missed you. Now, but I missed this too. What, what is happening here? This is you and George, you guys and George out. Where are you? We're in Glacier National Park. We were, we were on a hiking trip together that was for friendship, but also fuel for a book I was working on. Okay. And that, I mean, that was the story of that was that Jeff saved the day by saving George's glasses from the river. I did. Dive in? I didn't dive in, but I was, I mean, cat like reflexes. That's what people associate with you. I'm fast movement. Fast movement. So high energy. I've always been high energy. He's always been like this. He's like the bear grills of mid tempo rock. That's right. Well, again, I'm going to be available soon. If you go white water rafting in Glacier, could I come next time? So we're here to figure out. What, what is, did I look, well, I mean, George, did I ask George sent us. Okay. Oh, George. He's the ringleader. Okay. I'm going to evaluate your behavior and comportment for one last time. Okay. And if you pass tonight, then we take you with us to a second location. And I hope that's where the spanking machine is. Well, I hope I pass. I'll look, I'll look for my letter in the mail. I hope it's a thick one. Yeah. You know, that's exciting when you get the thick letter. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be amazing. Yeah. Well, this is Nick Offerman and this is Jeff Tweedy. He's going away, but he's not because you are going to stay and perform. That's right. That's right. With Haley Williams, stick around for performance. That's Nick Offerman. That's Jeff Tweedy.
