The Black Keys still raw, fast and loose on ‘Dropout Boogie’

Two decades ago, two college dropouts from Akron, Ohio, recorded a rock album together and sent it to a tiny label in Los Angeles. But then came the hard part: Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney actually had to learn to play the music live.

Both in their early 20s, Auerbach had experience playing guitar in a bar band, but Carney had never played drums before they recorded “The Big Come Up,” The Black Keys’ first album, released in 2002.

At their first show March of 2002, Auerbach recalled the owners of the Beachland Tavern in Cleveland telling them they needed to fill 30 minutes. “We’re like, ‘No problem, we got that,’” Auerbach said. “We played everything twice as fast. Totally blacked out.”

“We did like 10 songs or something in 20 minutes,” Carney said.

The performance got them invited back for more shows, eventually selling out the venue. Turns out that failing at college was probably the best thing that ever happened to them.

“We realized that we weren’t really college material,” Carney said.

Instead, they built slowly but steadily off that first show, attracting bigger crowds, larger record labels and critical praise with each album.

On their 11th studio album “Dropout Boogie,” the Grammy-winning duo, now raising school-age children of their own, are reflecting on their early years when they bonded over records as varied as Junior Kimbrough, The Wu-Tang Clan and Captain Beefheart and played raw, fast and loose in local venues.

“We wouldn’t be paying for expensive private school if we hadn’t dropped 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.

Mark Humphrey / Associated Press Dan Auerbach, left, and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys in Nashville promoting their 11th studio record, “Dropout Boogie.”