Jack White announces debut solo album

Jack White has launched his solo career, announcing he will release his debut LP in April. Recorded only over the last "few months", Blunderbuss is "an album I couldn't have released until now", he said, revealing the first single on his new website.

"I didn't really even think of recording under my own name for a long time," White told BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe on Monday night. "I thought, 'I've got the rest of my life to do that.'" The release comes almost a year after the White Stripes split. The singer and guitarist has hardly been twiddling his thumbs: he continues to play with two other bands, the Dead Weather and the Raconteurs, and is one of rock'n'roll's most sought-after producers, songwriters and side-men. But his solo album was an accident, he told Lowe.

"A few months ago, we had a session booked and someone didn't show up," White said. "So I said, 'I guess we'll do some of my songs' … It kickstarted the whole process." Blunderbuss will be issued by White's record label, Third Man, in collaboration with major label Columbia.

Although the LP isn't out until 24 April, Love Interruption, the lead single, was released online on Monday; a 7in will follow on 7 February. It's a plaintive number with clarinet, female backing vocals, and not a single electric guitar. According to TwentyFourBit, Blunderbuss features Seasick Steve, Nickel Creek's Chris Thile and Nashville songwriter Ruby Amanfu. "These songs were written from scratch, had nothing to do with anyone or anything else but my own expression, my own colours on my own canvas," White said.

White's previous solo work consists of a couple of singles and his contribution to the Cold Mountain soundtrack. "I won't join another band again," he told Q magazine last year. "If I can't say it in any of [my existing] bands, then I'll say it by myself."