The Black Keys, a blues-rock duo from Akron, Ohio, knows how to rock, and it doesn't need much to do it. Dan Auerbach's voice and guitar and Pat Carney's drums are all the group needs to put out album after album of gritty, lower-than-lo-fi, straight-ahead blues. The duo's most recent release, Magic Potion, delivers the same rawness found on its past work, only even better. This past Saturday, the duo shot up the Electric Factory in Philadelphia. I had a chance to chat with Carney about his influences, musical style and past tours.
Q: Who are your primary musical influences? What's your musical background?
A: Let's see...Captain Beefheart, definitely. Devo. My Uncle Ralph -- he's a saxophone player. Led Zeppelin. There's so much stuff that's influenced me in some way. For my training, I really didn't have any. My dad bought me a guitar when I was 12, and I just messed around with that. Then I bought a drum set when I was 15. I'm mostly self-taught, I guess.
Q: What has been the progression for the Black Keys from your other work to your new album?
A: It's more focused than our previous stuff. We had a clear idea of what we wanted to do. It's definitely heavier. It's music we can play live. There are not a lot of overdubs.
Q: The Black Keys, for a variety of reasons, get compared to The White Stripes all the time. How do you feel about that?
A: It's expected, because we're a two-piece band with a blues influence, but we're two completely different bands. It gets annoying. How many 4-piece bands are there with pop-influences? They don't all just get compared to the Beatles. It's lazy. I hate when rock critics write, like, a band sounds like "Led Zeppelin meets the Beatles in a tornado." It's lazy, and it makes no sense. It's like, if you were talking about food, you wouldn't say, "It tasted like pizza meets a hamburger meets a milkshake in a back alley." That doesn't make sense. I guess the White Stripes and us are like the Big Mac and the Whopper. Both of them have a bun, beef, cheese, lettuce, onions. The Big Mac has "special sauce," but that's just ketchup and mayonnaise, and the Whopper has that, too. The only difference between them is the Whopper has a tomato. I guess we have the tomato.
Q: You guys had the opportunity to open for Radiohead during part of its U.S. tour this summer. What was that like?
A: It was awesome. Kind of surreal. We got to meet Radiohead -- super, super nice guys. Then we got to go to an after party with Jay-Z and Beyonce. I guess that's one of the perks -- you get to meet random celebrities.
Q: I've heard you guys have what some would call "odd" recording techniques. What can you tell me about that?
A: I don't know if it's odd or just bad. It's not really so much on this record as much as it was on the others. On one of our albums we used actual garbage for recording equipment, to the point where we were plugging a broken RadioShack microphone into a distortion pedal just to make it sound listenable. Anyone can make a record on any piece of equipment. They just have to be creative enough.
Q: I'm constantly hearing Black Keys music in commercials and movie trailers and stuff. What's it like hearing your music in all those ads?
A: As long as it's something we're OK with, we'll do it. It's been a big stigma for a long time. As long as we're not endorsing, like, pharmaceutical companies or something. I think that would be crossing the line.
Q: Why do you guys play the blues? Are you depressed?
A: I guess we have a major blues influence, but what band doesn't? I think we just play rock and roll. If you go back and listen to most rock bands, the blues influence is obvious. "Satisfaction" [by The Rolling Stones] is a straight blues riff.
