Visiting blues duo the Black Keys talk to Scott Kara about fleshing out their bare-bones sound
KEY POINTS:
When the Black Keys went into the recording studio with a bloke called Brian "Dangermouse" Burton, there were a few nerves. Until then, the laid-back yet hard-rockin' Akron, Ohio, blues duo had done four straighforward "guitar, drum, rock records", the best being 2003's Thickfreakness, and here they were teaming up with one of the world's most in-demand music producers to record their latest album, Attack & Release.
But, reckons drummer Patrick Carney, within a couple of hours he and his bandmate Dan Auerbach (vocals/guitar) knew it would be okay.
"We got on really well. The first song we recorded, on the very first day, was I Got Mine and the middle breakdown, with bizarre background voices, that was all Dangermouse. We were positive we had made the right decision," he says.
Getting together with Dangermouse - half of the brains behind hip-pop upstarts Gnarls Barkley and producer of the Gorillaz' Demon Days - was a big move for the Black Keys, who play the Powerstation in Auckland on June 28.
Dangermouse was a fan of the Black Keys' music but Carney and Auerbach knew him best through Dangerdoom, a collaboration between Dangermouse and New York rapper MF Doom, and the album The Mouse and the Mask. And, of course, they also knew of The Grey Album, Dangermouse's first claim to fame where he remixed the Beatles White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album together.
"So we didn't know his stuff that well. But we both respected him," he says.
Both Black Keys lads are fans of Wu Tang Clan and Carney says the Dangerdoom material is similar in its stripped-back simplicity.
"What I like about the Dangerdoom stuff was that it was clean but it still had the bass, drums, and the strings all incorporated into it. But nothing was over the top. And the thing I always liked about Brian was, and it seemed to us even before we worked with him, and it was true, that he has good taste in sound and it's something he doesn't even consider that much. He just doesn't even consider [using] a bad sound," says Carney.
After their last album, Magic Potion, they knew it was time to change their minimal blues punk rock sound, yet Carney doesn't see Attack & Release as a change in direction. He says in recent years he'd been playing instruments like bass, synthesiser, piano and organ more than his drums and guitar so it was about time they started using them on records.
"We are extra proud of being able to incorporate instruments [on Attack & Release] that we wouldn't really use to define the band. So it's just a natural progression as far as Dan and I being aware that it's okay to open up the band and the sound and we just didn't ever want to get to the point where we were pigeon-holed as being one thing.
"In a rock band it's easy to get hung up on, `oh, things can only sound like one thing.' But Dan and I were at a place where we were both opening up our minds a little bit to incorporating sounds that we enjoy from other sorts of music into our own sound and Brian definitely helped us get there."
This unlikely union between the Black Keys and Dangermouse might never had come to be if it had not been for the late great soul blues man, Ike Turner. He had planned to make an album with Dangermouse and use the Black Keys as his band, but died in December last year.
"Without Ike, this record wouldn't have been made. I think we would have made a different-sounding record, but it would definitely not be the same thing because there would be no Brian involved. [Ike] was the catalyst for the record and that's strange because Dan and I never even got a chance to meet him."
While they didn't get to learn anything from one of music's masters they learned a lot from Dangermouse.
"The most important thing was not settling for just anything ... For instance, Psychotic Girl; we had two vastly different versions of that song and when we went into the studio to record it he taught us how to deconstruct the song back to its most simple elements. And," he continues, almost gushing, "the attention he paid to something like tempo was new to us. We know slow, medium and fast, but Brian has it all figured out."
However, if their last show at the Kings Arms is anything to go by, when they play at the Powerstation next week there be only one speed: flat out.
LOWDOWN
Who: The Black KeysWhat:Mid-west blues punk rock
Lineup: Dan Auerbach (guitar/vocals); Patrick Carney (drums)
Latest album: Attack & Release, out
Past albums: The Big Come Up (2002); Thickfreakness (2003); Rubber Factory (2004); Magic Potion (2006)
Where & when: Powerstation, Auckland, June 28
