-New York City loves Jack White.
Come on, buddy. Great to see you.
Congrats on the record. -Thank you.
-How cool -- I am right. That is your eyes, correct?
-Yeah, if you cover up this girl's face --
-Oh, yeah. That's you. -It's me.
Then you now got that.
And now, it's a beautiful, beautiful model.
-Ingenious, buddy. Hey, congrats. "SNL."
This is your third time. -It is.
Yeah, you were with me on the first one.
-I was. Absolutely. Yeah, man.
-Back in the '80s.
-Back -- Exactly. It was me and Eddie Murphy.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's a great cast.
Are you doing any sketches?
-You know, I asked -- I sent over to Mulaney,
'cause I heard that he was an altar boy when he was a kid too,
just like me.
I said, "You know, we should write a sketch
where we're both altar boys."
I don't know if he has, though. -I was an altar boy too.
-You were an altar boy too? -Yeah. I loved it.
I was really into it. Were you into it?
-Are we supposed to do the secret handshake?
[ Laughter ]
-Well, I mean, we're frals. I mean, we have to.
-We're old frals. -I loved it.
I think that was -- I think we had Bill Maher on the show,
and he was saying maybe that was my first experience performing
onstage, was being an altar boy.
-Yes, because no -- you probably know.
-Nothing's funnier when you're not supposed to be laughing
during mass, so...
-Imagine, dude, me. -Oh, yeah.
-I was giggling.
I mean, I was laughing before we even got out.
-We did a joke one time, me and this other altar boy.
We were laughing so hard.
He went up to get the host and, you know, body of Christ.
He put out his tongue and he went...
[ Laughs ]
The priest was not happy with that.
-No.
We had one where I think it was a funeral --
and this is a bad story.
But it was a funeral, but my friend's shoes squeaked.
-Mm. Ouch.
-That was awful.
And everyone is crying and quiet, and then you hear...
[ Squeaking ]
-Do you remember when they would hold the Eucharist up
and you would ring the bell?
-I was the best at that.
-So we would fight over who got to do it.
-Yeah. That's the best job.
-I thought it would be funny one time
and just kept doing it really long.
[ Laughter ]
So long that the priest just looked over.
[ Laughter ]
That was the end of us getting to do the bell.
-That's your big move, yeah.
I remember my parents --
It was almost they would come see me just to see me.
-It's like performance.
-Yeah, they're coming to see my gig or something.
Like, "We're going to go see Jimmy this Sunday.
He's performing. He's doing the bell." You know?
And then I'd give them a wink and ring the bell.
Yeah, it was awesome. I dug it.
You know what's fun?
I was looking at this.
"We're Going to be Friends"
is one of my favorite songs that you've written.
It's now a children's book.
And I think it's brilliant.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Elinor Blake did the illustrations.
April, March, he did the illustrations for this.
He's incredible.
-How cool is that though?
-Yeah, it's great.
And you have written a children's book.
-Yeah, I have a kids' book as well.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-Who would have ever thought me and you
would be children's book writers?
[ Laughter ]
-It's pretty crazy, right? Think about it, right?
We were young and edgy.
-I'm working on a new one.
It's called "Anybody can be President."
[ Laughter, cheers, applause ]
-Hey, man.
Someone will make it.
-Might sell a few copies.
-I played this song for my kids.
You probably can't enjoy it
the way the way I enjoyed it because you're you.
But I play your music for my kids,
and they are obsessed with this song.
And they went to a choir --
They're only 4 years old, and they went to a choir thing.
We take them after school, and they learn the song.
There's nothing cuter than little kids
singing "We're Going to be Friends."
-Oh, wow. -It's heartbreaking.
-I love to hear that. That's incredible.
-Do you play your songs for your kids or...?
-Absolutely not. No. [ Laughter ]
-You're banned. You're banned in your house?
-No, I do. I love playing any new music I'm working on.
I love to play to them because they are completely honest.
Kids don't lie.
Obviously, anyone who has children here --
You know children don't lie about stuff.
So they'll -- And I like to trick them, too.
I'll say something like,
"Yeah, I don't think I'm putting this one on the album."
"No, Dad, what are you talking about?
[ Laughter ]
You have to put this song on the album."
-"That's the best one on there."
How old are they now?
-They're 25. -Wow.
[ Laughter ]
They look smaller backstage. -They are small for their age.
-They look small for their age, yeah.
-No, they're 10 and 11 now. -10 and 11.
And you're -- Are you touring now?
-I am. We just did shows in New York, L.A., Paris, London.
Getting the band -- getting our feet wet, the sea legs.
-What's the band like? You switched it up a little bit.
-It's incredible, man.
It's really, sort of, two synth keyboard players
that are amazing.
Quincy McCrary, Neal Evans, and me and Carla Azar on drums.
Dominic Davis on bass, who's played with me
since I was 12 years old.
And it's just very heavy up front, really, really heavy.
-Really?
-So, yeah, I've never been in a band this loud before.
-Is that right?
-And I thought I had been loud before.
-Yeah, you've been pretty loud.
-It's gotten louder.
-Is that right? -Yeah.
-But you -- I heard you're doing this thing now
where you're doing two weeks on and then you do two weeks off,
so you can just hang out with the kids.
-Yeah, I've been doing that since they were born, actually.
It's not a good financial idea to do this.
-No. -You go on out for two weeks
and then I have two weeks with them, so it's nice.
And then I can visit them in prison and, you know,
bring them some care packages. [ Laughter ]
-They really got off to a bad thing.
They really got off to be a bad thing.