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The Black Keys: Factory Line Blues
The Black Keys are the poster boys for Do It Yourself rock. As a rugged, raw, down and dirty blues rock duo from the rubber capital of the world, Akron, Ohio, childhood friends Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach eschew the popular methodology in music, resisting the temptations of big name producers and pressures from the industry, instead opting to keep their music and its production independent in the true essence of the word. Their first two critically lauded albums, 2002's The Big Come Up and last year's Thickfreakness, were both recorded on secondhand equipment by Carney and Auerbach in a basement home studio, without the help of any studio technicians or even a third ear. And with the duo's third album, Rubber Factory, released last week on Fat Possum Records, The Black Keys have continued this tradition, recording the entire album on their own, but this time moving into a cavernous, old rubber factory. Recorded over the first half of 2004, Rubber Factory picks up where Thickfreakness left off - a manic, rowdy salute to the white boy blues that creates more sound with two people than many bands with four members can only dream of. Auerbach's guttural vocals and incessant guitar are continually pushed by Carney's feverish drumming, and the result is sure to again land The Black Keys amongst many of this year's best of lists. Over the next two months, The Black Keys will be taking their raucous live show on tour, spending the first month traversing the United States before crossing the Atlantic to the UK and Europe for the second. Glide recently had a chance to chat with Carney from his home in Akron on the eve before the band's most ambitious world tour to date, to discuss the Rubber Factory, the state of the band and their upcoming tour. How did writing and producing Rubber Factory differ from The Big Come Up and Thickfreakness? Being your third full length album, did you and Dan feel like seasoned veterans? Yeah, a bit. You know we did all the production ourselves, and I think that it's our best record yet. I think everything about it is better than the previous two. We took more time on it. We wanted you to be able to hear all the instruments being played, every guitar part and every drum a little bit clearer. To be honest, we wanted it to have more dynamic than the last two. Was there any pressure from the record label to bring in an outside producer for these sessions? Our label, Fat Possum, definitely did not want us to record our next record ourselves. It was only after like months of us telling them that we're not going anywhere to do it, that they became okay with it. So it was just the two of us in the recording sessions, and we were in about 1/100th of an old rubber factory. It was huge. We basically had access to the whole top floor, and we just moved our stuff in there, inhaled a bunch of asbestos, and made all the songs up in the studio. ¡¡ What was the dynamic like between you and Dan in the studio? Well, Dan writes the lyrics and the guitar, and I write the drums, and we put them both together. Songs work out in different ways, whether he might have a guitar part or lyrics or whether I have the drum part. But in the end it's ultimately about putting the best record out. Spending all that time together recording and touring as a duo, do you ever grow sick of each other? When you spend a few weeks in a van together, you tend to get annoyed with certain things that people do. And I probably have more things that are annoying that I do than he does, but we don't really get sick of each other Have you ever thought of expanding beyond a duo? I don't think we’d ever really consider it. We tried playing with a third person before, but it was just too complicated, and that was just logistically. We didn't like having to deal with somebody else's schedule. It was just a pain in the ass. Fat Possum is a relatively new blues label, but you're releasing albums alongside artists like Solomon Burke and RL Burnside. Do you find it a bit weird being two white boys from Akron, Ohio, on a Southern Mississippi blues label? We've been on the label almost two years, and I don't think it's weird at all. Especially knowing those guys so well and knowing what they're trying to do over there. So how exactly did Fat Possum discover The Black Keys? They came and saw us in July or August of 2002, and we signed in December. But they actually gave us the record contract in August; it just took awhile for us to sign. At that point The Big Come Up was out, and we signed the record deal and then turned Thickfreakness in the next week. David Cross directs your first music video for ?0 am Automatic.? Did he approach you for the project? How was it working with such an accomplished comedian? It was awesome. No, actually I approached him at the Sasquatch Festival in Seattle. He was really, really funny, and he worked really hard on it. We pretty much shot the whole video in five hours. He had it all figured out. Akron isn't really considered a blues rock haven, and in a lot of ways it's overshadowed by Cleveland, the rock and roll capital of the world. Have you felt it's been challenging living in Akron and trying to earn a living in rock? I don't think it's a challenge at all. I think it makes it easier in a lot of ways, to do anything in a small town. I think when you aren't in what is considered an epicenter of music, it's easier to do things. And the people in Akron have been really supportive of what's going on. In a lot of ways I find it's one the top two coolest cities I've ever been to. There have been a handful of artists that started in Akron. Devo, Chrissie Hynde, Joe Walsh. Have you met any of Akron's past rock n roll legends? I've met Jerry Casale from Devo, but it wasn't through The Black Keys. I met Mark Mothersbaugh too, but that was when I was in high school. I went to his parent's house and stalked him. But no, we haven't really encountered too many people. What are your musical influences? I think that my influences are probably things I got into in high school, like Captain Beefheart or Devo or that kind of stuff. In middle school I was listening to a lot of classic rock, and I've gone through phases of listening to everything for the most part. The only thing I've never really gotten into is jazz. The Black Keys have become a bit of media darlings here in the states and in Europe, appearing in countless music magazines and even being nominated for last year's Shortlist Prize. How have you two dealt with the accolades and critical acclaim? Has it changed the way you approach writing music? It's pretty cool that we got such good reviews and such, but then again it makes you a bit nervous about this record. I think we've pretty much already accepted that it was probably a fluke that we got so much good press, so for this one, we're kind of anticipating the press to not be as great. Even though we think the record's better. Was there ever a time when you realized that this blues-rock duo is bigger than the two of you ever expected? In the fall of 2002 I think we reached the point that I thought it was bigger than I ever thought it was going to get to. It's been insane, and neither of us expected it to be 1/100th of what it is right now. How do you stay grounded amongst all the hype? You know, I live about seven blocks from where I grew up, and I spend almost everyday with friends that I've known since first grade. There's no way, I could ever really get away with being anything but myself. I've always been pretty much the same. I don't read an Entertainment Weekly review or something to make me feel better about myself. I don't really need to read the press to feed my ego or anything. I try to stay away from it, and I think Dan does too. I think a lot of bands that we know do that. You're about to start your most ambitious tour to date, over two months and eight countries. What can we expect from the live show? It's going to be good…we start at Bumbershoot in Seattle, and we'll be ending at the Astoria in London. At this point now we've got 34 songs we play from. The last tour we were pretty much working off 15 songs. So it's going to be a lot different every night. Our main concern at this point is that our equipment doesn't fall apart on tour. One last question. Being from Akron, which do you prefer, Swenson's or Skyway? Oh, Swenson's. I think Skyway is a cheap imitation of Swenson's. But above both of them I prefer Hamburger Station.
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