Jack White Is Guest Vocalist on Danger Mouse's New 'Soundtrack' Album

Jack White has been revealed as one of the guest lead vocalists on producer Danger Mouse's forthcoming self-funded collaborative album with Italian composer Daniel Luppi.

Inspired by 60s film soundtracks like Ennio Morricone's 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,' the album 'Rome' has been recorded sporadically in the Italian capital over the past five years. Other guests to contribute include Norah Jones and a reformed Cantori Moderni choir.

"For the lead vocalists, I definitely wanted a man and a woman," Danger Mouse aka Brian Burton told The Guardian about how he chose White and Jones to take part on 'Rome.'

"The female vocal needed to be soft, not polarising. But the male needed to have a bit more angst to it. I played some of the music for Jack White when I was on tour shortly after doing the first session, just to show him what I was doing, because at the time everyone thought I was just a hip-hop guy, or whatever."

Burton continues that the White Stripes frontman "liked it, but at the time I wasn't even thinking of using him. You know, it's Jack White. But in the end, I thought, he's really into it, why not?"

"We all understood that if it didn't work, it didn't work. But he tried it in different voices -- a high voice, a low voice -- and I thought, why don't we leave them all in? And it sounded great. There's a bunch of his vocals on ['Rome' album track] 'Rose With the Broken Neck,' and it doesn't always sound like him. Sometimes you're like, is that Jack or not?"

Trying to explain the the vibe of the new record, which has yet to have a release date or tracklist confirmed, Luppi also added, "I don't think there is a narrative to the record, but there is a feel. It is about love, death, happiness. The visceral connection of man and women. It's a dark vibe, melancholic, a little foggy."

As well as working on 'Rome' with the composer, Burton has been simultaneously working on U2's new studio album -- working title 'Songs of Ascent' -- as well as touring with Broken Bells, his collaboration with the Shins' James Mercer.

Noting the album's influence on his other projects, Burton concluded, "'Rome' seems to have fed into everything I've done, you can hear it in a lot of Gnarls Barkley, it's all over Broken Bells too. I get a lot of offers to do film soundtracks and I've never said yes -- because no one has heard this yet."

"But this is what I would actually do, if I were to make a soundtrack."