The Daily Cardinal recently talked with Patrick Carney""drummer of garage rock/blues duo the Black Keys""on how they harness their low-fi warmth, the relevance of modern blues and Steely Dan's influence on post-punk. The Black Keys are from Akron, Ohio, the Rubber Capital of the World"" as well as the land of Alcoholics Anonymous and the hometown of underground New Wavers Devo. The Black Keys recently signed with the major label subsidiary Nonesuch and are touring in support of their fourth release, Magic Potion. They will play tonight at Club Majestic.
Daily Cardinal: Can you tell me a little about how the Black Keys started out?
Patrick Carney: Dan [Auerbach] and I grew up in the same neighborhood, on the same block. I had a drum kit and we both wanted to play music, so we started playing together.
DC: As you've gained a fair bit of recognition and praise, how have your aspirations for the band changed? Where are you guys headed?
PC: When we first started out, we had no aspirations at all; we were trying to get a record put out. It was just fun to make music. We've gotten to a place I never thought we'd be at, doing what we do.
DC: Do you intentionally try to stick to blues-oriented material?
PC: Dan just grew up listening to a lot of blues music and that's just what he likes to play. That's his style.
DC: How closely do you identify with that sort of music? How would you define your sound?
PC: We think of ourselves as a rock 'n' roll band, definitely. Whenever I hear the term ‘blues band,' actually, it makes me nauseous.
DC: Well, you guys are radically different from much of the other standard blues out right now.
PC: I just think that by today's standards, blues means Jonny Lang or whoever the fuck they are, who play brand new Fender Stratocasters, you know. I think John Mayer or something when I hear that. We're rock 'n' roll.
DC: Do you think blues is a basically dead format then?
PC: I think so. If it's not dead now, it's almost dead. Our old label, Fat Possum, hardly puts out blues anymore; they just can't find real blues musicians.
DC: So what kinds of things are you listening to these days?
PC: It depends on the day I guess. We just toured with the Black Angels, I really like their record. I like the new Camera Obscura a lot. Let's see, I've got my Steely Dan record out on top. [He starts shuffling through a pile of records.] And Paul McCartney. Here's Exile on Main Street. My music tastes have slowly turned into garbage [laughs].
DC: Nah, Exile's a classic.
PC: [He continues] Jerry Butler, that's good. The White Album. Oh my God, the Feelies. You heard of them? Crazy Rhythms is one of my favorite records. There's a little Steely Dan in the Feelies I think.
DC: Now there's an idea. So how does your songwriting process work?
PC: Usually we set up in the basement, and we just kind of noodle for a little while. One of us will come up with something; hopefully it will turn into an actual song. It can start from a guitar riff or drum beat, whatever comes up. It just happens.
DC: The pictures in the sleeve of Magic Potion show you recording in a basement. Is that usual?
PC: Yeah, all the records were recorded in a basement. Except Rubber Factory. That was done in a rubber factory, which is just as fucked up I guess.
DC: That certainly lends new meaning to the title. Thickfreakness was recorded in just 14 hours, right? Are your recording sessions usually that impromptu?
PC: We try not to over-rehearse our music. We want the final thing not to sound too canned... I don't know. I grew up hearing a lot of bands rehearse their songs to death, to the point where they lost any sort of nuance. I find that strange. We constantly try to not do that.
DC: At the same time, it seems your sound has gotten more professional.Specifically, your drumming sounds more upfront and prominent than on [the Black Keys' debut] The Big Come Up. Has your playing style changed or grown over the years?
PC: When we first started off, I could barely play the drums. We both have gotten much better as musicians, I think, after playing, you know, hundreds of shows a year. I still like things to be unstable or sloppy or lose, though.
DC: Has staying a duo been a conscious decision? Have you ever tried adding another member?
PC: We have, but it's been pretty obvious that it doesn't work out. On our first record, we tried having someone play a moog and bass with us, and it wasn't working at all. At one point we had someone play another guitar, and after 10 minutes of practice I went upstairs and watched TV 'cause I couldn't fuckin' take it. We're used to the way it sounds now. We had been looking to add a third person because the first few months of us playing as a two-piece sounded pretty strange... but the more we got used to playing concerts, the more we figured out how to adjust things so it would sound alright. Basically, we learned to just turn everything up louder.
