Jack White felt he no longer had any control over The White Stripes.
The duo – who have not released any new material since 2007 – recently confirmed they had split, with a statement saying the band "no longer belonged" to them and is in the hands of their fans.
The frontman explained this further, claiming he and bandmate Meg White felt it would prevent further questions about their work being raised.
He said: "People say, 'Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that?' Or, 'Don't you owe something to somebody, or to yourselves?' All those questions.
"That line was the idea of explaining to them that at a certain point as an artist, you paint your painting, you do your sculpture or your music, and you release it into the world.
"You don't own it anymore. You have no control over it. You put it out there to share with other people. You can only hope for the best."
Earlier this week, Jack played a short solo set at the South by South West (SXSW) festival, an event he first played with the White Stripes before they landed a record deal.
Despite admitting performing at such a large show opened doors for them, the rocker says he had always vowed never to play there.
He added in an interview with the New York Times newspaper: "It's a funny story. I swore never to play South by Southwest coming out as a teenager. But we got offered $3,000 to play a party, in 2000 or 2001. And we said, we've got to do it. That was the most money we'd ever heard of in our lives.
"About a week before we got down they said, 'Oh, you also have to play the festival because it's illegal for us to have you if you're not part of the festival.'
"So we had to do it. But it ended up being really good timing for the band. It really broke the band in a bigger level. So it was like, O.K., maybe I shouldn't have been so hard about it."
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