BY rights, I shouldn’t really be talking to The Black Keys duo, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney.
But here they are on a Zoom call with me to discuss their thirteenth studio album, No Rain, No Flowers.
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The 11 tracks are coming kicking and screaming into the sunlight earlier than expected — and for good reason.
Last September, The Black Keys were supposed to start a North American arena tour in support of their previous album, Ohio Players, noted for songs written with Noel Gallagher and Beck.
But, to their dismay, the dates were scrapped, prompting the pair to fire their management team.
Without going into detail, Auerbach says: “The first thing I wanted to do was kill somebody and the second thing I wanted to do was kill somebody.”
Carney adds: “I don’t want to get into it too much because we’ve gotten letters telling us not to talk about it by one of the most powerful people in the music industry.
“We got f***ed by the person who was supposed to be looking out for us.
“So, because of some bad advice, we were left with no plans for the summer. We had to take one on the chin.”
The situation was a rare mis-step in The Black Keys’ upward trajectory, which stretches back nearly 25 years.
Starting out in a dingy basement in Akron, Ohio, childhood friends Auerbach and Carney took their exhilarating mix of bluesy garage rock to the world stage, drawing on soul, hip hop, psychedelia, you name it, along the way.
Their new album, however, is the product of unplanned time on their hands. Still smarting from losing their tour, they convened at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in his adopted hometown of Nashville — and set about turning adversity into triumph.
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‘Reminder of the power of our music’
“We realised that maybe we’d better do something positive with this free time,” says the singer/guitarist.
“So we dove head first into working with people we’d never met and trying things we’d never tried before as a band. Ultimately, it really helped us.”
For drummer Carney, it was a natural reaction to what had happened.
“When Dan and I are not on the road, we’re in the studio,” he says.
“So we thought, ‘Let’s just get back in there and reboot’.”
One thing that remains undiminished is the cast-iron bond between Auerbach and Carney.
The latter affirms: “We’ve been doing this together for almost 25 years — from the struggle to the big s**t.
We got f***ed… so we thought we should do something positive
Carney
“Dealing with being broke, dealing with getting money, headlining Coachella, dealing with getting married, getting divorced, having kids, we’ve been through it all.
“As screwed up as last year was, it had very little to do with us so we got back on it, to prove to ourselves what we can do.”
As we speak, The Black Keys have been back on tour — on this side of the Atlantic.
Carney says it can be “brutal chasing the festivals, sleeping on the bus or in hotel rooms.
“But getting out here and getting in front of these crowds has been the biggest reminder of the power of our music.
“Seeing the fans flip out has helped us to get our heads out of music-business bulls*t and back into what it’s all about”.
Auerbach agrees: “The show in London [at Alexandra Palace] was the biggest headliner we’ve ever played.
“It was great after the year we had. Whatever happens, we know the fans are still there for us.”
Another thrill was playing Manchester’s Sounds Of The City festival two days before the first Oasis homecoming gig at the city’s Heaton Park.
“The atmosphere was electric. Our audience was so up for it,” says Auerbach.
Noel and Liam are both incredible — we’re really happy for them
Auerbach
He credits Oasis with lifting the mood. “I feel like they’ve transformed the continent. We’ve never seen anything like it.”
And he couldn’t resist visiting the Oasis Adidas store. “I had one of the black soccer jerseys made — Oasis on the front and AUERBACH on the back. Had to do it, man, they’re the kings.”
It was in 2023 that The Black Keys visited Toe Rag Studios in Hackney, East London, to write three songs with Noel Gallagher, who they describe as “the chord lord”.
Auerbach says: “It was amazing. We just sat in a circle with our instruments and we worked things up from nowhere.
“Not too long after that we played a song with Liam [in Milan] and hung out with him afterwards. He gave us some really good advice about our setlist.
“Noel and Liam are both incredible — we’re really happy for them.”
‘We’d never written with a piano player’
We return to the subject of their new album, No Rain, No Flowers, which involved a new approach for The Black Keys.
Instead of big-name guests like Noel and Beck and, before them, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, they turned to acclaimed songwriters — the unsung heroes — for their collaborative process.
They welcomed into their world Rick Nowels (Madonna, Stevie Nicks, Lana Del Rey), Scott Storch (Dr Dre, Nas) and Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves).
Auerbach had encountered Nowels while producing Lana Del Rey’s 2014 third album Ultraviolence and had long been impressed with his keyboard skills.
He says: “We’d never written with a piano player before. After 20-plus years in the band, it was cool to try something new in the studio.”
Carney adds: “The way we worked with each one of these people was completely different.
“With Daniel, for instance, we’d start with a jam session. With Rick, it was all about getting the title of the song.”
And Auerbach again: “Scott’s all about instrumentation. He didn’t want to think about the words. He just lets you do that stuff afterwards.”
One of the co-writes with Nowels is the life-affirming title track which begins the album.
With lines like, “Baby, the damage is done/It won’t be long ’til we’re back in the sun”, you could be forgiven for thinking it reflects on the band’s recent woes.
Auerbach says it does, but only up to a point. “It started with the title and we built it from there.
“We tend to shy away from diary-type songs. It gives us ‘the ick’ when it sounds like somebody’s reading from their diary.
“But there’s a lot of truth in the song. It’s us trying to be positive, which maybe wasn’t how we were feeling.
“It was a nice thought to write a positive anthem but still have blood in the eye.”
If The Black Keys’ go-to sound has been the blues, this album is remarkable for its funky, airy and soulful vibe.
Auerbach says: “We were heavily influenced by soul growing up, maybe more than anything, and it really shows.
“With us, it’s all about the feel. When we started out, we didn’t know what the hell we were doing, but we knew when it felt right.”
Another strong touchstone has been hip-hop, which is why Auerbach and Carney are thrilled to have worked with Scott Storch, another dazzling keyboard player, who started out in the Roots and went on to work with Dr Dre, 50 Cent, Beyonce and Nas.
“We are a product of where we were raised,” affirms Auerbach. “We grew up in the golden age of hip- hop. That’s what pop music was for us.
“The first time I heard the Geto Boys was at the middle- school dance and it affected us.
That’s the s**t on those blues records I love so much. You hear Son House grunting when he’s playing slide guitar
Auerbach
“But then my mom’s family played bluegrass — I would listen to my uncles sing. And when The Stanley Brothers sing, it’s white soul music. I love it all.”
As for Storch, Auerbach continues: “We’ve obsessed over videos of him since we were in high school. Seeing him play all the parts of his hits makes our jaws hit the floor.
‘You can hear Scott physically grunting’
“The idea of getting him in the studio seemed crazy because he seemed like a larger-than-life figure.”
Auerbach was mesmerised by Storch when he arrived at Easy Eye Sound.
He says: “Scott’s a real player, an absolute musical savant. As a hip-hop producer, he tends to spend 99.9 per cent of the time in the control room.
“But we have all these acoustic pianos, harpsichords and analogue synthesisers. He was in heaven, and so were we watching him go from keyboard to keyboard.
“On Babygirl, he’s on an acoustic piano with microphones and you can hear him physically grunting in time with his playing. That’s got to be a first for Scott Storch on record.
“That’s the s**t on those blues records I love so much. You hear Son House grunting when he’s playing slide guitar.”
The No Rain, No Flowers album is loaded with hook-laden songs — the exhilarating rocker Man On A Mission, the psychedelic Southern rock swirl of A Little Too High.
One explanation for their eclectic approach is The Black Keys’ regular Record Hang in Nashville, which involves Auerbach and Carney hosting all-vinyl DJ dance parties.
For these, they scour online marketplaces and record shops for obscure but revelatory old 45s.
Carney explains: “We end up exposing ourselves to thousands of songs that somehow we’ve never heard.
“It’s really cool to be so deep into our career and uncovering all this incredible music. It’s totally reinvigorating — particularly when one of us finds a record that the other hasn’t heard and it’s a banger.” So check out Carney’s discovery Nobody Loves Me But My Mama by Johnny Holiday, which he describes as “f*ing insane — psychobilly fuzz rock”.
Then there’s Auerbach’s fave, Yeah Yeah by Blackrock, “a rare 45 instrumental which rearranged our minds. It still hits like crazy”.
We just fell right into it, started playing it and luckily we were recording
Auerbach
With The Black Keys, you always get a sense of passion for their craft, and for other people’s.
Auerbach says: “Pat and I were talking about this earlier — music can hypnotise you. You can use it for good or for evil. It’s a very powerful tool.”
And Carney: “It’s my biggest passion and it has been since I was 11.
‘Sensitive about what we listen to’
“I also think about the delicate balance you need when you do it for a living. You’re taking the thing you love the most but you never want to ruin it for yourself.
“Dan and I are very sensitive about what we listen to. We were at a music festival in a spot in between seven stages. It sounded horrible. I said, ‘This is the kind of thing that could make me hate music’.”
Finally, we talk about another of their own songs, the sublime, festival-primed anthem Neon Moon, which closes No Rain, No Flowers.
Written with Daniel Tashian, Auerbach modestly calls it a “first-take jam” but that doesn’t really do it justice.
“I think it just started with the ‘neon moon’ lyric,” he says. “We just fell right into it, started playing it and luckily we were recording.”
As the song gets into its stride, he sings: “Don’t let yourself get down too long.”
It’s a line that The Black Keys have taken to heart.
THE BLACK KEYS
No Rain, No Flowers
★★★★☆
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