On their recent UK tour, The Black Keys<\/a> found themselves swept up in the champagne supernova. \u201cWe were in Manchester for a couple days right before [Oasis<\/a>\u2019s] first show there,\u201d says the bold and bespectacled drumming half of the Ohio-via-Nashville garage rock duo, Patrick Carney. \u201cGetting to feel a whole country excited and pumped for a rock band reunion\u2026 it was kind of insane. It was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve never really seen anything like it,\u201d chuckles his quieter, more reticent singer-guitarist bandmate Dan Auerbach. But beneath the congratulatory awe, a certain injustice seethes. Recently, Carney missed a local show by his friends Mumford & Sons<\/a> because news of the gig hadn\u2019t cut through the internet\u2019s blanket big-gig coverage to reach him. \u201cIt\u2019s just Oasis,\u201d he says, ensconced today in a sweltering South Carolina. \u201cEverybody in the world knows Oasis was playing Wembley this weekend, but that just takes up so much bandwidth<\/a> \u2013 and rightfully so \u2013 on your algorithm.\u201d He considers the plight of the many less-supersonic acts fighting for feed space. \u201cIt\u2019s a weird time, man. How are you supposed to get the word out?\u201d <\/p>\n It\u2019s a raw topic for a band emerging, with 13th album No Rain, No Flowers, from a turbulent few years of teetering at the top. The Black Keys have been an arena act since their breakthrough albums Brothers (2010) and El Camino (2011), each topping 2 million sales, made them the world\u2019s foremost post-White Stripes garage blues duo and ad sync favourites. Where the Stripes had revitalised antique Mississippi blues with punkish passion and blown-amp impact, infectious retro blasts such as \u201cLonely Boy\u201d and \u201cGold on the Ceiling\u201d added a Seventies soul lustre and a dusty southern edge, as suited to the Tennessee roadhouse as the gospel chapel.<\/p>\n For much of the 2010s, The Black Keys reigned supreme as the definitive sound of US indie retro rock. But last year, they were forced to cancel an entire North American tour, sack their manager and play a controversial crypto gig to recoup lost income. \u201cWe got f***ed,\u201d Carney tweeted<\/a>, and later explained that underselling shows in riskier cities hadn\u2019t been downsized as promised by their \u201cpoorly organised\u201d management. At the time, a rep for their management said it was an \u201camicable parting\u201d. The more The Black Keys exposed the dispute in the press<\/a>, the more they whistle-blew on a monopolistic industry working surreptitiously against the artist. <\/p>\n \u201cEverybody told us not to,\u201d Auerbach says, but Carney, in full heroic voice today, is unafraid of the consequences. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely gonna affect our work in America, until it changes,\u201d he says. \u201cBut most people don\u2019t know. The game has changed over here in the United States. We just don\u2019t connect the dots.\u201d<\/p>\n He asserts that major promotion company Live Nation has financial links with large swathes of the music industry, and he believes that creates fundamental conflicts of interest. \u201cYou see, like, \u2018Jay-Z started a management company with Live Nation\u2019, [but] no one really understands what that actually means,\u201d he says. \u201cSo the people that you\u2019re supposed to be working with to negotiate with your promoter are in the pocket of the promoter. So how the f*** are you supposed to work? It\u2019s everywhere\u2026it\u2019s insidious. It\u2019s f***ed up.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n \u2018Pat and I both have kids now, and maybe moaning about our troubles directly is just not what we want to do,\u2019 says Dan Auerbach (Press)<\/p>\n This year\u2019s Black Keys shows have been a refreshing return to the stage, playing open-air and festival gigs to some of the biggest crowds of their career. \u201cWe played this festival in Valencia, one of the last shows, 45,000 people going bananas the whole time,\u201d Carney says. But despite the new album\u2019s philosophical and optimistic title track \u2013 \u201cthe damage is done\/ It won\u2019t be long \u2019til we\u2019re back in the sun\u201d, Auerbach sings over some bright-side electro-rock \u2013 they\u2019re still fuming over last year\u2019s turmoil. \u201cIt\u2019s not something that we\u2019ve ever had happen to us before, and it\u2019s been very hard to get over it, just mentally,\u201d Auerbach says. \u201cIt really is eating at both of us. I guess [the album\u2019s title track] is trying to put a positive spin on that type of situation, any type of situation. But that\u2019s not necessarily how we were feeling. I mean, we were angry. We wanted vengeance. But we wrote \u2018No Rain, No Flowers\u2019. I don\u2019t necessarily know why.\u201d Maturing into their music may have helped. \u201cPat and I both have kids now, and maybe p***ing and moaning about our troubles directly, like a f***ing diary, is just not what we want to do. It\u2019s not the legacy we want to leave for our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n The record\u2019s broad and rich retro strokes \u2013 a hazy wash of southern soul, Sixties psychedelia, modernist blues, Motown and crackling country rock \u2013 was influenced by the pair\u2019s recent Record Hangs, vinyl dance parties held across the US and Europe at which the duo would play only old 45-inch singles. \u201cWe each carry a record bag that has like 120 45s in it,\u201d Carney says. \u201cIn that bag there will be some garage rock, some soul, some funk. Dan carries a lot of cumbia stuff. And occasionally there\u2019s a hip-hop song or a pre-disco song.\u201d It recalled their formative Noughties years when these childhood friends from Akron toured the US in a van they dubbed the Grey Ghost, whiling away \u201ceight-hour hell-drives\u201d between clubs by introducing each other to their favourite CDs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like this big adventure,\u201d Carney says. \u201cWe were two kids in love with music [and] our tastes started becoming more in unison, and broader. I remember that first tour, Dan playing me a ton of blues stuff that I actually really loved, and then I would show him Spiritualized or Modest Mouse. And we\u2019d find these compilations, like this soul jazz New Orleans funk comp and just wear it the f*** out. It was just this discovery of music. That is still the basis of our friendship.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n \u2018When you\u2019re a big artist like Taylor, you\u2019re able to negotiate powerful deals,\u2019 says Patrick Carney (Press)<\/p>\n In the spirit of the Record Hangs, the 18 songs they recorded for the album run the gamut from Philly soul to Latin dance to New Order. \u201cListening back to the whole group of songs,\u201d says Carney, \u201cit was almost psychotic.\u201d The album\u2019s colourful cast \u2013 the night-crawling lothario of \u201cMan on a Mission\u201d or the hungover hedonist of \u201cThe Night Before\u201d, say \u2013 also act as homages to the character sketches of the old Motown and Creedence Clearwater Revival singles they were dropping. \u201cWe want the song to tell a story,\u201d says Auerbach, \u201cbut it\u2019s not necessarily our story.\u201d<\/p>\n The Black Keys\u2019 story has inevitably become wrapped up in music industry exploitation. In 2015, at the height of their success, they entered a four-year hiatus, exhausted by the crush and churn of the album-tour cycle. \u201cWe had climbed the mountain and what we were seeing at the top was the ability just to keep repeating the process \u2013 and that didn\u2019t seem enticing,\u201d Carney says. \u201cWe were doing that for [2014\u2019s] Turn Blue when I broke my shoulder. That moment where we had to cancel Australia and Europe halfway through was the moment where it was like \u2018Oh, it feels good to not have to be gone for a year.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s much talk now of touring becoming financially unfeasible for most bands, even at the upper levels. \u201cYeah, it\u2019s getting exceedingly expensive,\u201d Carney says. \u201cTicket prices are soaring, but the money\u2019s not necessarily trickling down into more profit or anything.\u201d He recalls early tours spent sleeping in vans and living like \u201ccockroaches\u201d to get by on fifty-dollar gig fees. \u201cBut it was definitely a different time. And us being a two-piece made it much easier. One of our first tours was just the two of us in a sedan, all of our gear.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\u2018Pat](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMGL1713.jpeg\")
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