Sunday Conversation: The Black Keys Gear Up For A Big Year
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 13: (L-R) Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach at THE BLACK KEYS launch ... More of their new single 'Beautiful People' at Chateau Marmont's Bar Marmont on January 13, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by)
Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, also known as The Black Keys, are getting ready for a huge rest of 2025. The beloved alternative rock band hit the road for a major tour next Sunday (May 23) and they just announced their superb new album No Rain No Flowers, out August 8.
Buoyed by the spirit of collaboration, the duo tell me that 20 years into their career they feel like they're making their best music. After collaborating with the likes of Beck and Oasis' Noel Gallagher on last year's underrated Ohio Players album, this time around they brought in industry heavyweights such as Rick Knowles, Desmond Child and Scott Storch.
I spoke with Auerbach and Carney about their now iconic record hangs, the new album, collaboration and more.
Steve Baltin: Congratulations on the new record. We really gravitated to the last song 'Neon Moon.' It's so different.
Dan Auerbach: Thank you. We wrote that one with our buddy Daniel Tashian who lives in town and is one of the first people that Pat met here in town. But that one happened so quickly, we almost overlooked it. We've got our buddy Leon Michaels and Tommy Brennick playing on that track. We cut it live, and it was one take
Baltin: Did you work with a lot of different people on this record again? Because when we talked last year you brought in a lot of new energy?
Auerbach: Yeah, we continued that to a certain degree. I don't think we over did it, I think each song relied on maybe a couple key people. We find it really fun to do the collaborating. Like you said, there's an energy there and we really feed off of that.
Baltin: You guys have both produced and worked with other people so much. You understand the spirit of collaboration.
Auerbach: Absolutely, it's more fun for us. We really like it.
Patrick Carney: What really was effective on this record was that we were really proud of the work we had just done on Ohio Players. And then we're aware, even though we felt this is one of our strongest albums what can happen if things aren't all completely lined up appropriately. We can only do so much on our side; the writing, the recording, the performing live, overseeing artwork, picking the band, rehearsing the band. And on top of that there are other pursuits that we have. We have families, Dan has a label, so when it comes to like the rollout of a record to see something fall flat for various reasons it adds a little bit of fire to us to just want to make more music. In this instance, for No Rain No Flowers, it started with the idea that the last album we'd worked with some heroes of ours like Noel Gallagher and Beck and we did a lot of material with those guys. I think for this one we wanted to do something similar, but we went right to the source. We're trying to look for some songwriters that have stuck around and been putting out good work for a long time. The guy that came to mind first was Dan suggested we check out Rick Knowles, who when Dan produced the Lana Del Rey record Ultraviolence, he had noticed that Rick was involved in quite a few of Lana's tracks and we reached out to Rick and like a week later he happened to be coming to Nashville for the first time in his 50-year career. He had never been here before and we happened to be like, 'Do you want to work?' He said 'Of course.' He came to the studio and within two days we had written four songs. It became a really fruitful collaboration and component of the album. One of the first songs we wrote was the title track 'No Rain No Flowers.' It was great to get in a room with this heavy-hitter songwriter, who was just there. The way that song started was Rick asked Dan, 'Do you have any song titles? I like to start with a song title.' Dan threw out the title, "No Rain No Flowers." Then from there, Rick's like, 'Well, how would you sing that?' So, in the space of nothing, Dan now has the title and the melody happening. And Rick then just helps us compose it.
Auerbach: With chords that we never would have come up with on our own in a million years. But it was also very easy and quick.
Baltin: At what point did you realize that these pairings you were doing for this album were really coming together?
Auerbach: Instantly with Rick, I think we knew. It was very strong because it just started on such a high. And being in the studio with Scott and Desmond, we mentioned that we need some strings for this song because it has a Philly soul type of feel to it or something like that. And he gets us on FaceTime with Larry Gold, who did all the strings for the Philly Soul Records (laughs). It was incredible. It was multiple generations of music makers in the room FaceTiming, it was incredible. And the whole experience with the collaboration, what you end up hearing is us reacting to the person in the room.
Carney: Yeah, I think when you're assembling these guys, like a guy like Scott, we didn't we didn't know him. So, we invited him to Nashville, and we spent five days with him just trying to feel him out and getting to understand what his real strengths were. So, by the time he came back we knew to pair him up with Desmond and pair him up with Daniel and jump off on this stuff. But I think that the cool thing that Dan and I realized is that if the core of the song is Dan and I then people can come in and we can work with them and it ends up still feeling like The Black Keys, cause we're only playing the stuff that we want to play and stuff we like cause we're editing the whole thing and pushing ideas through. So, it's like getting to filter your idea through someone else's brain and then getting someone else to sit there and show you like how they would approach it.
Auerbach: It's such a thrill, honestly. And it makes it so exciting. Just knowing that every day when you walk into the studio, anything is possible. When I know that I'm about to walk into the studio with somebody like Scott, I'm excited, like it's Christmas.
Carney: I feel like that just happens a lot for us. There's an interesting thing though, too, a lot of times bands, throughout history, would go work with a new producer and a new studio and all of a sudden the band would have a whole new sound, like every sonic element is now different. Whether it's like Nirvana, Nevermind to In Utero or something like that. Sometimes it's really fascinating and works and sometimes it doesn't work. I think what's fascinating about Dan and I is that we've recorded our stuff ourselves the entire time. So, there's this aesthetic change that happened over time as we've gotten different abilities or tastes, but it's all rooted in this kind of sonic template. So, as we bring in influences to songwriting and stuff, it's always going to sound like us.
Baltin: Talk about your record hangs.
Carney: We have definitely been heavily influenced also by spinning records collecting 45s and DJing playing records out and how crowds react to different records. I think it definitely opens our minds to sonic possibilities.
Auerbach: That's been a huge thing, doing our record hangs, spinning our 45s, realizing what works. If you're playing something to somebody that they don't know then you're at a disadvantage. It's got to have all these components. And the records that work in that context are records that have an economy of space where it just hits in. There's this great intro. There's a verse. There's maybe a solo section. There are these things. Well, no matter it's a real formula, but what it is is that it never drags. And when it does drag, the whole room drags down and you see it. And so that was like a nightmare when that happens. And you're spinning records, but you can't make every song like that. That doesn't apply to 'Neon Moon.' 'Neon Moon' is not one of those songs. That's a go for a nighttime drive type of song or something. But 'Baby Girl' for sure, 'No Rain No Flowers, you know. So, it's just exciting to be doing something for over 20 years and feeling like at least personally, we feel like we're doing our greatest s**t. I think that's all that matters.
Baltin: Talk about the upcoming tour.
Carney: We have made some lists of songs you want to learn and songs of ours we want to play, and I think it is important to us on this tour to get in there and mix it up a bunch. That's the plan, have fun. That's the real key, if you're having fun on the road and you're enjoying what you're doing on stage I think it translates pretty heavily to the fans. And I think part of that is picking the right venues, making sure that it's an enjoyable experience. If you're going to go out of your way to leave your house and go see a band let's make it memorable.
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