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ALBUM ped out of school,” Carney says with a laugh.

Two decades into their career, the pair still operate mostly like they did on those first records. On “Dropout Boogie,” they wrote songs mostly in the studio, not bringing in a lot of pre-written material. Three or four songs on the record are just first takes at recording. The rawness and the imperfections were something they learned from those influential sounds of ‘70s-era experimental rock and hill country blues. They’ve kept that creative momentum moving in recent years, as “Dropout Boogie” is their third record released in four years.

“That’s why we kept playing together when we were 16, 17, because as soon as we started playing, it was instant. It was so easy,” said Auerbach.

On the new record, they branched out with collaborators Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Greg Cartwright of the Memphis rock band Reigning Sound and songwriter and producer Angelo Petraglia.

“It opened up a whole world of possibilities of like, ‘Oh yeah, our Rolodex is pretty deep,’ ” Carney said. “We can just like call a lot of people, make a lot of music.”

Auerbach said when the frontman of ZZ Top stopped by their Easy

Eye Studio in Nashville, he didn’t even bring his own guitar, just a bottle of wine, and went to work immediately. His solo on their song, “Good Love,” is classic Texas blues-rock that ZZ Top perfected, his guitar screaming with pinched harmonics over a distorted and fat bass line.

One song came to them from a musicologist named David Evans, retired University of Memphis professor, had been sharing with Auerbach rare field

of blues artists from Mississippi. One those recordings he made was a cheerleading squad from Senatobia, Mississippi, in the ‘70s singing “Hey, hey, over there/Your team is

good/But not as as ours.”

The lines stuck in Auerbach’s head and the end of the recording session, when the album was pretty much wrapped, they decided to cover it. Singer Sierra Ferrell jumped in for harmony background vocals. After recording the song, Carney called the band’s attorney.

“I was like, ‘We have job for you,’ ” Carney said. “And she’s like, ‘What’s that?’ ‘OK, there’s this obscure recording of a cheerleading squad from the

of nowhere, Mississippi. I need you find the writing credit that we don’t get sued.’

The song was based “The Girl Can’t Help a song written by Bobby Troup and performed Little Richard. So Troup has a songwriting credit on the song, “Your Team Is Looking Good,” with The Black Keys.

Carney joked that the litigious music copyright world, it’s better be generous with credits.

“We did the opposite of Robin Thicke,” Carney said laughing. “Get money away from us. don’t want the money. We want the song.”