(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HOWLIN’ FOR YOU”)
THE BLACK KEYS: (Singing) All proper.
EMILY FENG, HOST:
Within the early aughts and early 2010s, many listeners discovered The Black Keys by commercials. There was Nissan and Cadillac and Victoria’s Secret. The duo’s bluesy rock ‘n’ roll has a grungy, up-tempo really feel that feels subversive, and that model win them half a dozen Grammys.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GOLD ON THE CEILING”)
THE BLACK KEYS: (Singing) They need to get my gold on the ceiling. I ain’t blind. Only a matter of time.
FENG: Fifteen years later, they’re nonetheless going sturdy, and so they’re experimenting with some variations to that bleeding electrical guitar sound. Their new album “Peaches!” is one thing of a return to the blues-heavy rhythms that drove their early profession. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys be a part of me now from their tour bus on the aspect of the highway on the way in which to Mississippi. Thanks, guys, and welcome.
PATRICK CARNEY: Thanks for having us.
DAN AUERBACH: Thanks.
FENG: So I need to start along with your lead observe. It is a cowl of a Willie Griffin tune referred to as “The place There’s Smoke, There’s Fireplace.” Can we hearken to a bit little bit of it.
AUERBACH: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WHERE THERE’S SMOKE, THERE’S FIRE”)
WILLIE GRIFFIN: (Singing) There’s fireplace. I am burning for you. I want your love.
FENG: I am curious, why did this tune name out to you?
AUERBACH: Properly, I believe that the tune – simply the recording, the unique recording – is simply sort of haunting and spooky and bizarre and maniacally out of tune. And I simply bear in mind, the primary time I heard it, it sort of blew me away.
FENG: And what did you do with that magic? How did you adapt it to one thing that sounded extra like The Black Keys?
AUERBACH: Properly, we did not give it some thought, actually, and we did not reference the unique. And, you recognize, most people within the group recording with us had by no means heard the unique, both. So I believe that is actually what helped, you recognize?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WHERE THERE’S SMOKE, THERE’S FIRE”)
THE BLACK KEYS: (Singing) The place there’s smoke, babe, there’s fireplace. The place there’s smoke, babe, there’s fireplace.
AUERBACH: So I wrote the lyrics out and had them on a music stand and sort of simply found out the chords. And we simply – we went for it with out actually any plan. We sort of obtained to the core of what we sound like extra so than if we might tried to do one thing and spent hours and weeks, you recognize, honing it, you recognize? I believe what got here out was primary intestine intuition.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WHERE THERE’S SMOKE, THERE’S FIRE”)
THE BLACK KEYS: (Singing) Flashing lights imply hassle. You bought to get to me so we will cuddle.
FENG: So what makes this album a bit bit completely different out of your earlier ones is an effective variety of these songs are covers on this report. You’ve got stated earlier than you don’t need this album to be generally known as a covers report. So inform me what the distinction is.
CARNEY: Properly, you recognize, I believe that the story of this album actually is that Dan’s father obtained identified with terminal most cancers, and we have been speculated to be on tour. And along with his father dying, we canceled our tour, and we discovered ourselves at residence in Nashville and Dan’s dad dying.
It was a really heavy time, and I believed that Dan wanted, like, one thing to do relatively than simply hold in there along with his father. So we – I urged we go within the studio and reduce some songs. Dan had this checklist of covers, and it was sort of the perfect remedy, was to get in there with a few of our mates. We’d reduce the tune one or two occasions, more often than not not even pay attention again to what we had simply achieved and simply transfer on.
And we by no means actually took a toll of what we had achieved till, months later, we sat right down to hearken to what was recorded. And that is sort of once we realized that there was an album right here. So it is – in a approach, the report’s – it is nearly like a tribute to Dan’s dad. That is sort of just like the model of The Black Keys that Dan’s dad, Chuck, appreciated probably the most, you recognize, the uncooked, sort of off-the-cuff approach that we began.
FENG: Dan, is there a tune on the album that you just really feel actually reminds you of your dad, epitomizes who he was?
AUERBACH: Yeah, I believe there is a tune referred to as “It is A Dream.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “IT’S A DREAM”)
THE BLACK KEYS: (Singing) Is it a dream that is obtained a maintain on me?
AUERBACH: That, most likely, he would have actually additional appreciated. You already know, simply, like, the minimalism of it and the way uncooked it’s, I believe he would have liked.
FENG: Did the method of creating that album, the time interval wherein it was made – does that carry over to how the album sounds now and what it means to you?
AUERBACH: I believe the sound of the report is – boy, you recognize, I imply, it is the sound of me grieving and going by the entire feelings and sort of letting it out a bit bit. You already know, I might spend a pair hours a day within the studio with these guys, simply sort of getting away from the arduous actuality of what was happening. And it was a launch for me, and I obtained to go in there and scream a bit bit.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “IT’S A DREAM”)
THE BLACK KEYS: (Singing) Why you need to try this to me?
AUERBACH: And, you recognize, I believe that it ended up – we unintentionally made one thing that was, like, so direct, we could not have actually made it every other approach. That is why I sort of really feel prefer it’s nearly, like, probably the most pure Black Keys report since our very first one.
FENG: Is there a recording on the album that you just actually need to spotlight the place you are feeling that feeling of jamming collectively, of launch, actually comes by?
CARNEY: For me, once I sat right down to sort of hearken to what we had there, the tune that first sort of, like, put hair up on the again of my neck was “Tomorrow Night time.”
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BLACK KEYS SONG, “TOMORROW NIGHT”)
CARNEY: I do not know what it’s about it, however I really had by no means heard the unique model of this tune earlier than we reduce it. Dan simply pulled it out and performed the riff and sort of confirmed us a bit little bit of what it was.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BLACK KEYS SONG, “TOMORROW NIGHT”)
CARNEY: Once I went again and listened to the unique after we did this after which listened to our model, I used to be similar to, oh, my God, like, you recognize, there’s simply – there’s some power right here. You possibly can actually hear, like, all of our musical influences sort of converging into this recording without delay.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TOMORROW NIGHT”)
THE BLACK KEYS: (Singing) Tomorrow night time, oh yeah, the whole lot’s all proper.
FENG: That is your third album in three years, and I obtained to say, every album sounds fairly distinctive from the opposite. How are you two so prolific? How do you end up an album yearly, 3 times in a row?
CARNEY: We have been simply working at a clip, I assume, that bands used to work at, again within the, you recognize, late ’60s, early ’70s. We have achieved – I believe we have achieved six albums within the final eight years, and that is our fourteenth album.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LO/HI”)
THE BLACK KEYS: Whoo.
CARNEY: You already know, we began the band as a result of we had an curiosity in making information. You already know, we have all the time sort of recorded our stuff on our personal. There’s all the time that pure pleasure to creating one thing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LO/HI”)
THE BLACK KEYS: (Singing) Out on a limb within the wind of a hurricane.
FENG: I believe you guys have the uncommon honor of creating music lengthy sufficient and being profitable at it that this style you got down to subvert a long time in the past has come again round to mimic you in some style. How does it really feel to have your sound be one thing that is foundational to this style now as a substitute of perhaps being the newer factor on the block?
CARNEY: What drew us into music was our completely different musicians’ aesthetics, completely different musicians’ model, and we have all the time tried to pay homage to them. And I believe it is cool when you possibly can hear different bands perhaps doing the identical factor, perhaps even impressed by us. The entire motive why we make music is as a result of we heard music, and it impressed us, and that is from the very get-go. We used to sit down across the studio in my basement and hearken to Wu-Tang Clan and simply be like, how do they try this? We must always attempt to do one thing that appears like that. And I believe that that is the entire thing, is that we come to this as followers, you recognize?
FENG: That is Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys. Their new album “Peaches!” is out Could 1.
CARNEY: Thanks.
AUERBACH: Thanks, guys.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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