Ben Blackwell is a drummer, journalist and record label executive. Originally from Detroit, Blackwell has been a member of the Dirtbombs since 1999, playing hundreds of live shows and on dozens of recordings. Blackwell's writing has been featured in numerous books and publications and won him the 2004 Rolling Stone college journalism award. As an executive at Third Man Records in Nashville, he's directly overseen the release of over 400 different titles and the pressing of over three million pieces of vinyl.

"I wish I read more people who talked about Jack White as a writer of lyrics, or as a narrator of a very specific kind of interior. He writes in between compelling contradictions, ones that delight me, as both a listener and someone who lives within the contradictions most commonly at play, and who doesn't necessarily view them as contradictions. There are ghosts everywhere in the lyrics, obsession with colors, obsession with exits. Evil and optimism wrestle with each other, longing and a hunger for loneliness tussle in the same bed. Cynicism and desire, rage and tenderness. All of these things seamlessly stitch together and come alive on the page."-Hanif Abdurraqib

Publisher: Third Man Books

Pub date: 2025-12-09

Length: 315 pages