Before Jack White was the artist we know today, he had somewhat of a unique business. He opened Third Man Upholstery in Detroit when he was 21, after apprenticing with future bandmate Brian Muldoon. There, he crafted one-of-a-kind furniture that evolved into a sort of performance art.
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“I was so strange with it,” White told Conan O’Brien on an episode of O’Brien’s podcast in 2022. “I was doing sculpture as well. Everything became an art form with me—I was filling the inside of the furniture with poetry, and the bills I was writing in crayon. It would be yellow paper with black crayon: ‘You owe me $300.’ I would present it to them, and I’d deliver the piece in a yellow-and-black uniform in a yellow van that was an old Detroit fire-department van. People were like… ‘What?’“
During that time, specifically around the year 2000, White and Muldoon formed the aptly-named garage punk band The Upholsterers. They never officially released any music. At least, not in the way you’d typically expect.
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The Upholsterers released one single in 2000 titled “Makers Of High Grade Suites”. They pressed a limited number of the 7″, and included various odds and ends in the insert. There was a sticker and business card for Third Man Upholstery, a business card for Muldoon Studio, a sample of sandpaper, and a reproduction of a WE Klomp upholstery tag.
In 2004, the duo celebrated the 25th anniversary of Muldoon Studio by recording another single, pressing only 100 copies, and hiding them in various pieces of furniture they worked on.
“We even made it on clear vinyl with transparency covers, we thought you couldn’t even X-ray it to see if it was in there,” Jack White told NPR in 2011. “Really, you could rip open a couch and think it’s not there ’cause it’s inside the foam, sliced inside the foam and slid in there. I mean, we really went to great lengths to make sure possibly no one would ever hear our record!”
“But it’s there,” White continued. “It’s so great. It’s there. There’s [100] pieces of furniture out there that have those records, and maybe one day someone will find them.”
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In 2014, someone did find them. At least, two of them. In a since-deleted post, Third Man Records announced that two of the 7″ records were found. The label also revealed the cover art, which was featured in a report by The Guardian.
Speaking in 2011, Jack White predicted that someone would find those singles, but didn’t seem to have much hope that they would be preserved.
“My guess is what’s gonna happen is it’s going to be passed down a generation and some upholster will re-upholster it 40 years from now and pull the record out and throw it away,” he said. “That’s probably what’s gonna happen.”
Featured Image by Nicky J. Sims/Redferns
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