In the summer of 2002, Steven McDonald, bassist for seminal rock group Redd Kross, was so taken by Jack and Meg’s recent explosion onto the mainstream music scene, that he took it upon himself to become the fully fledged, third member of The White Stripes. Well, at least on record.

In an art experiment that came to be known as Redd Blood Cells, McDonald dropped his surname and transformed into Steven White: the fictitious and uninvited bassist for the usually bass-less band. The project, originally restricted to two songs from White Blood Cells, caught the attention of the press and took off. Eventually, with permission from the band, McDonald added bass-lines for the entire album, and even threw in some backing vocals for good measure, and posted the whole thing online.

McDonald didn’t butcher the original songs, but respectfully and subtlety, ‘became’ a member of a band he adored, resulting in one of the more innovative musical mash-ups in recent times. Here’s the entire project, for your listening pleasure. See if you can pick out each of the song’s differences – like the dirty fuzz bass on “Little Room”, and the extra layer of sound McDonald brings to quiet “We’re Going To Be Friends”. Was McDonald’s experiment an improvement to the original record? Or a crazy, fan-fuelled obsession gone astray?

Red Blood Cells (2002)

1. Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.mp3
2. Hotel Yorba.mp3
3. I’m Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman.mp3
4. Fell in Love with a Girl.mp3
5. Expecting.mp3
6. Little Room.mp3
7. The Union Forever.mp3
8. The Same Boy You’ve Always Known.mp3
9. We’re Going to Be Friends.mp3
10. Offend in Every Way.mp3
11. I Think I Smell a Rat.mp3
12. Aluminum.mp3
13. I Can’t Wait.mp3
14. Now Mary.mp3
15. I Can Learn.mp3
16. This Protector.mp3