You can’t be Jack White. (And that’s OK.)

The Japandroids are a two man band.

They make loud, fun rock n roll.

Recently, Pitchfork interviewed them about about their new album. The interview was great, but one question stuck out to me. They were asking the band about other musicians who seem to have almost mythic back stories. Here is the question and the answer:

Pitchfork: As far as contemporary artists, I feel like that mythic aura is present in somebody like Jack White, too. Is that something you personally aspire to?

BK: I don’t know if you can aspire to be that necessarily. In some respect, Jack White became that because he’s Jack White. If you listen to the early White Stripes records, it’s the same Jack White. That voice is the same. The songwriting ability is there. The guy just has that special thing. People like us cannot aspire to be that; you have to accept that it’s OK not to be a Jack White. It’s unfair to put that burden on yourself.

There’s a difference between people who are born with that special thing and people who love the people who are born with that special thing so much that they want to try their best to get as close as they can to it. I don’t consider myself to be a very creative person. We have to work really, really hard to write a song we think is really good. I mean, we have two records in three years, and the records only have eight songs each. It’s a slow process. It might take a whole month to write a song we think is good.

If you lock Jack White in a room with an acoustic guitar, he’s gonna come up with something great. If you don’t have that gift, you have to grind away– that’s more what our band does. (Click here to read the rest of the interview).

I think there are 3 great lessons for anyone chasing a dream.

1. You can’t be Jack White. And that’s OK. You’ve got to chase your dream, not his.

2. Trying to be anyone but you puts tremendous pressure on your dream. Comparing the success of your dream to someone else’s life always ruins your own life.

3. Just because you don’t have great talent, like Jack White has, doesn’t mean you can’t do something great. You just have to do the grind. And the grind is available to all of us. I don’t care who you are, we all have access to hard work and the consequences it generates.

Will you be Jack White? Nope. We’ve already got one of those.

We need you to be you. If you’ve got an immense amount of natural talent, awesome. Work hard at it.

Natural talent without hard work is an unopened gift.

If you don’t have an insane amount of talent, awesome. Work hard at it.

The Japandroids did and they made a great album.

And maybe so can you.