Saturday Night Live was recently put in a bit of a bind when when a Tik Tok showing maskless country artist and formerly slated musical guest Morgan Wallen pandemic-partying hit the internet. In response, SNL complied with COVID protocols and quickly revoked his invitation, but it left the late-night sketch show in a scramble to find a replacement for the upcoming episode. On Friday morning, just one day before the episode is set to air, SNL confirmed that rocker Jack White will be stepping fill the spot.
“We’re still in the middle of it,” said EP Lorne Michaels, who announced the change on the Today show. “Calling somebody on a Thursday to be here for Friday, it’s complicated. It has to be people who are ready to go. And he’s always good on the show.” Michaels also noted that while his carelessness was enough to earn him the boot this time around, Wallen will inevitably be invited back to the show at some point: “It probably isn’t the first person from rock ‘n’ roll who partied after, in that case, a football game or a concert. But we’re just living in a different time and everything is scrutinized.”
After the party footage was released, Wallen make a video of his own to apologize for his choices. “My actions this past weekend were pretty short-sighted and they have obviously affected my longterm goals and my dreams. I respect the show’s decision because I know that I put them in jeopardy and I take ownership for this.”
In the meantime, SNL fans are probably in for a decent time, as White has performed on the show three times thus far—once with the White Stripes and twice more as a solo artists. He’ll be joining host Bill Burr on October 10 while Issa Rae and musical guest Justin Bieber are set to stop by Studio 8H next weekend, October 17.
[Via The Hollywood Reporter]
60 Comments
I know it’s just, like, my opinion man, but I think this is a step up in the musical guest category.
It’s not your opinion, it’s mathematically provable, but it would require a long proof to be written up.
by “long proof” do you mean “one or two songs”?
A blistering solo. That would be proof.Wallen who?
well then it’s good that blistering solos will likely be on the menu. As I said otherwhere, I think it’s possible White will go all out and do a cover of “Eruption” because Jack White can cover that song. If he does that, I’m gonna watch it like 20 times.
My DVR is already set.If he does that—walk out on stage alone and without a word just rip into Eruption, then walk away as the final note is still echoing through Studio 8H—it would indeed be the best tribute he could do for EVH. Just let the music speak for itself.
I think there is a more than decent chance he does something like that. He is one of the few people on earth over the last 50 years who could. Which could really help him. Like…he hasn’t done much worthwhile music lately. If he did an album that was just him being the best living guitar technician (not using that word in a bad way)…shit I’d stream the fuck out of an ONLY instrumental album from him.
I’ll be honest, White’s lyrics can be a little out there. The main reason I’ve listened has always been his playing. So I agree, a Jack White instrumental album would be something I’d buy.
Apparently White has made it clear that his tribute to Van Halen will be using his EVH-designed guitar tonight, not covering any music.He wrote in his Instagram post, “i wont even insult the man’s talent by trying to play one of his songs tonight. thanks again eddie for this guitar and rest in peace sir.”So no Eruption, but still a nice gesture.
White was true to his word and didn’t do a Van Halen cover, but that solo he whipped out on his custom EVH guitar for Lazaretto was indeed blistering and very Van Halenesque.The clip of EVH’s own impromptu SNL performance with G.E. Smith and the SNL band, when Valerie Bertinelli hosted in ‘87, was also a nice touch.
yes, yes, and yes. Jack White instead of a country artist? Yes please, and thank you.
White has been using a couple of Eddie Van Halen’s Wolfgang Signature Models and amps for the last couple of years. He’s given several interviews about how much easier they are to play than the guitars he’s been rescuing from pawn shops most of his career.I’m kind of hoping Jack sits in with the house band a bit and does a little EVH tribute during the commercial breaks. That would be really nice. Just a few riffs to say good bye.
an EVH tribute by Jack White would stir up a LOT of dust in my house.
I can see that. Jack’s a weird dude, but he’s also a serious guitarist. He’s probably one of the few around these days who can pull it off and actually have it sound good.
Some of his Raconteurs stuff could pass as country. Good country, not like the stuff this Morgan guy does.
I agree, dude records at a throwback studio in Nashville and has a lot of the same influences/sound as old school (AKA good) country musicians.
Jack write could probably give a better Morgan Wallen performance than Morgan Wallen.
Jack White wrote and produced for and performed with Loretta Lynn. He’s a country artist as well.
It’s always fun to see musicians you’d never expect to see in the same zip code get together and jam. And jam well. Jack White can and has been willing to play with just about anyone.Here’s another guy jumping out of his genre and showing that it’s not his only comfort zone. Yes, the guy in the Dodgers cap is who you think he is.
Thank you for this! Brad is a guitar God, too bad many of his fans don’t appreciate it.
I always knew he was good, but there aren’t too many country songs that call for shredding guitar solos. He looked like he was having a really good time getting to let loose and just plain jam.
Maybe he’ll play Seven Nation Army. Cuz that’s the only song of his I know or want to hear. Please skip to the part where it goes “whoa – oh oh oh oh ohhhhhh.” that’s the part I like.
We’ll be sure to inform him and Lorne.
I suggest he plays “Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine.”
Nice, I see what you did there.
The following is a list of words I never want to hear on television again. Number one: bra. Number two: horny. Number three: family jewels
If the show were being filmed in a sports stadium or arena it’d be a near certainly. There’s a law on the books that Seven Nation Army must be played at least once daily in those venues. MetLife Stadium got fined pretty hard for attempting to skip it during a Giants game once, I think.
Zorro on Doughnuts strikes again!
Jack White replaces Morgan Wallen as SNL’s next musical guestSpecifically, Jack White Blood Cell.
I’d be down if he played some stuff off of “White Blood Cells” because that is their best album.
“It probably isn’t the first person from rock ‘n’ roll who partied after, in that case, a football game or a concert.”“Rock ‘n’ roll”? Confirmed, Lorne Michaels has no idea who Morgan Wallen is.
That makes…all of us.
Aw shucks, what a sad turn of events for the Bill Burr White Power Hour(-and-a-Half).
Never heard of that guy. Wondering if he’s legit country or Top-40 b.s. country? Guessing the latter and SNL was trying to attract more Trumpers.Sure, Jack White is great, but if it was country they wanted, Tyler Childers is ripe for a SNL debut.
Wallen went gold and made the country charts with a mainstream-country cover of Jason Isbell’s “Cover Me Up”.Isbell’s Twitter fans were outraged, until Isbell told them to calm down and reminded them that, you know, he gets paid when other people sell copies of his music. Wallen subsequently had a big hit with a song called “whiskey glasses”.SNL needs to book Sturgill Simpson to play songs from “Sound and Fury”.
Got this backwards -whiskey glasses was before “cover me up”.
OK, being tied to Isbell never hurts.Sturgill has done SNL, and killed it. It’s Tyler’s time!
Tyler Childers is kind of the obvious man of the moment.I’d like to see Sturgill do the new rock record. We lost the tour, it would be great to see it on SNL.
I really need that tour to happen eventually.
I feel like the ven diagram of musicians who don’t give a shit about social distancing and the ven diagram of country music singers is a pretty close set of circles. I may be wrong but I just feel like that industry attracts a lot of the Trump loving “Don’t step on our freedom” types.
Yeah, I say that’s mostly fact with a few outliers here and there.
I assume they wanted Wallen to sing “Cover Me Up”… in which case… I mean…. Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires are RIGHT THERE.
Ok. All’s well that ends well, I guess
Jack White is releasing more White Stripes related stuff now, so there is a decent chance he plays White Stripes songs…can you imagine if Meg showed up? I do expect at least one of the songs will be an Eddie van Halen tribute.I think it’s pretty shitty SNL is putting on Chris Rock, Bill Burr, and was trying to put on some country schmuck who parties maskless during the weeks before the election. Rock did his best to encourage voter apathy and encourage “both parties are equally to blame” nonsense (“the Nazis, and the people who didn’t stop the Nazis, but not including me despite that I’m not trying to stop the Nazis right now”), Burr is Joe Rogan-lite.
I’d tune in for a White Stripes version of Hot for Teacher.
I’d expect him to do more with tapping less of a group hit, and either use a van Halen guitar or homemade. I can imagine him doing “Eruption”
SNL has had its share of “both sides” over the decades, but I didn’t see Rock’s monologue as encouraging voter apathy as much as saying there are longstanding problems that need solutions (I don’t think his solutions are worth a great deal, admittedly). I don’t agree with most of what Bill Burr has to say, but I’m not sure I can see him having big political commentary either. I don’t think a generic bro country guy was going to have any big political effect either, unless viewers were so demoralized after seeing his performance that they immediately went into a comatose state. After the embarrassment with Lin Manuel Miranda singing “never gonna be President” to Trump’s portrait a few weeks before he won, I tend to wonder if Lorne and co chose to dial back political content with hosts this season. I guess we’ll see what Issa Rae or the two hosts after her have to say.
I know they don’t want to self-own, but given their responsibility (with the Lonesome Rhodes show episode Trump hosted) they need to do more to turn out the vote. Rock is more “I’m going to say the exact things that have been proven to make people think their votes are worthless and then give lip service to the importance of voting”; Burr is worse, he’ll probably tell people not to vote outright. They’re just not the people to have on in this moment. Rock shouldn’t be such a surprise, Sandler is a republican and all of Rock’s movies are about wanting to cheat on your wife or trying to cheat on your wife (surprise, he cheated on his wife).At least they didn’t have Kanye on.
Aside from his rant about Michelle Obama and then SNL firing Shane Gillis, I think the last thing I saw with Burr was when he was going back and forth with Rogan about masks. I do expect a lot of “everybody sucks,” so I see your point now…SNL is in a weird place because they do need to own up for having Trump host, but I don’t think they are capable of political writing in these times (not for a long long time now) and I am not sure how much influence they have these days. That is probably one of the reasons they seem so paralyzed.
I think it’s the other way, they have enormous influence, for one thing Trump actually watches the show because having Baldwin play him bothers him so much he can’t stand it. In addition to that a lot of people watch and enjoy SNL who would never read this site. A lot of those people, for example, watched The Big Bang Theory. A lot of those people vote.
I felt like that burnt out around 2017 or 2018, as Trump slowly stopped responding and the whole “have all the women dress as men to make Trump mad” phase mostly wound down, but I see what you mean.
that still makes Trump mad, they should go back to it. Baldwin playing him and people saying he has no money, those things make him mad.
I felt like that burnt out around 2017 or 2018, as Trump slowly stopped responding and the whole “have all the women dress as men to make Trump mad” phase mostly wound down, but I see what you mean.
Finally a musical guest I won’t FF over. (We do not watch anything live in our household Long Live TiVo!)He’ll play instruments, and he’ll play them live without a backing vocal or sound track. He won’t need to twerk to get your attention. His songs won’t be about himself and how horny he is.
Definite upgrade.
This is the best possible outcome, barring perhaps Beck showing up unannounced.
Reminds me of the cut for time sketch he did the last time he was musical guest.
Reminds me of the cut for time sketch he did the last time he was musical guest.