Yes sir, we can boogie forever
Ahead of the release of the The Black Keys’ 11th studio album, frontman Dan Auerbach tells David Skipwith their music is ‘baked into their DNA’.
Dan Auerbach can’t imagine a life beyond rock’n’roll. The Black Keys frontman, together with drummer Patrick Carney, has been writing and performing garage blues for more than two decades, and promises they’ll keep rocking for as long as possible.
‘‘The music that we do, it’s not a fad. It’s baked into our DNA,’’ Auerbach explains down the line from his home in Nashville, Tennessee.
‘‘It’s something that is so second nature to us that I feel like we can do it forever.’’
After 10 albums – the past five of which have gone top 10 or better – The Black Keys are back and on form once more with their 11th studio record Dropout Boogie due out on May 13.
The first single and album opener, Wild Child, sets the tone with a trademark hook, catchy riff and sing-along chorus that gets stuck in your head, with the album bursting with raw energy captured through a number of stripped-down first takes.
‘‘We’re in a better place than we’ve been in a long time,’’ says Auerbach, after The Black Keys took a break for several years in 2015, before reuniting in 2019 and releasing their ninth album, Let’s Rock, and last year’s country blues covers record, Delta Kream.
The two childhood friends from Akron, Ohio quickly fell back into a familiar songwriting groove and emerged from recording – at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville – with a new appreciation of their creative bond.
‘‘I don’t know exactly what it is, but it feels great. When Pat and I get together and play music we’re just on the same wavelength,’’ said Auerbach.
‘‘It’s weird but every time Pat and I get in the studio, it’s just like we’re right back down in that basement, like when we were kids. It’s pretty instant.
‘‘It’s been like that ever since we were 16. The older we get, the more we realise how special it is, these gifts that we were given. We definitely don’t take it for granted.’’
As they have done throughout their whole career, the pair formed ideas for the 10 tracks from scratch in the studio, before taking a new approach in welcoming collaborators – ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, singer Greg Cartwright, and producer and songwriter Angelo Petraglia – to join them.
While The Black Keys have previously co-written songs with producer and friend Danger Mouse, this is their first album featuring multiple new contributors all working together. Both Cartwright and Petraglia, who Auerbach has worked with before on other projects, can be heard on Wild Child.
They had also previously jammed with Gibbons – who is now 72 – more than a decade ago in Los Angeles, when ZZ Top was recording with famed producer Rick Rubin. This time they mapped out four song ideas with the track Good Love making the final cut.
‘‘I heard Billy was in town, and I texted him and asked him to stop by. He showed up, and we just played music for a couple of hours. He brought a bottle of red wine, and I handed him a guitar and off we went. When the bottle was empty, he took off.’’
Dropout Boogie’s release will come one day before the 20th anniversary of The Black Keys’ first album, The Big Come Up.
With both band members now 42, the guitarist and singer laughs when asked if he has any nostalgia for the band’s early days of relentless touring – zigzagging across the United States in a van, which often doubled as a bedroom because ‘‘hotels we could afford were so nasty we didn’t want to stay in them’’.
‘‘If we had to do that again, I couldn’t do it. I’m really proud of what we did and what we’ve accomplished. It’s been a crazy journey. It’s like winning the lottery. It’s so improbable, being able to do this and have it pay the bills.’’
The new album’s title also goes back to the group’s formative years – taken from one of their shared favourite songs from avant-garde rocker Captain Beefheart’s 1967 album, Safe as Milk.
‘‘That was one of the first records we bonded over. We had just dropped out of college to play music and were driving around the country listening to Safe as Milk. We loved Dropout Boogie and it felt appropriate.’’
Having first been turned on to bluegrass as a child growing up in a musical family, Auerbach is adamant he wants to keep creating and performing new music forever.
‘‘Absolutely. I learned to play music from my uncles. I still play with them, and they are in their 70s. But here’s the thing, man, when I was 17 I saw Link Wray. He had to be helped onto the stage, and then he tore the place apart with his set. That was really eyeopening for me.
‘‘And seeing Iggy and The Stooges with all the original members, watching them just absolutely rip it up. Great music is timeless.’’
‘‘Every time Pat and I get in the studio, it’s just like we’re right back down in that basement, like when we were kids.’’ Dan Auerbach