Black Keys - The Cellar with the Golden Eggs

The Black Keys are today probably America's most famous blues rock duo. Following the recent breakup of the White Stripes, they're likely the only ones left to represent at the highest commercial level that stripped-down, essential musical approach tied solely (at least from an "iconoclastic" standpoint) to a voice, an electric guitar and a drum kit.

Behind the scenes

The Black Keys' story, musically speaking, begins in 2002. We're in Akron, Ohio. Two broke, easygoing kids, friends since childhood, who after dropping out of university often work odd jobs together just to make ends meet. Until chance, or rather circumstance, leads the two friends to find themselves playing alone, unplanned, in the basement recording studio (or "what would very much like to be one") belonging to Patrick himself. The spectacular no-show pulled on Dan by the guys hired to back him up on his first attempt at recording something turns out to be the fabulous, magical turning point that delivers a dream previously only fantasized about, despite ten years of activity. Just a few months after that first home jam session, The Big Come Up was born, the first chapter of their already abundant and varied discography.

A boundless passion for guitar and the blues handed down to him by his father, Dan's blues – the old kind, the sacred kind, the kind blessed by the holy waters of the Mississippi Delta (from founding fathers like Freddie Spruell, Ishman Bracey and Son House, right up to more recent figures like Junior Kimbrough, Mississippi Fred McDowell and R.L. Burnside). A natural leaning towards post-punk in the Reynolds-ian sense of the category (from fellow Akron natives Devo to Gang Of Four), a drum kit and a mini recording studio as a hobby, Patrick's blues. A shared desire to express themselves through music and immerse themselves in a style that had already exploded in the recent past (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Greenhornes, Detroit Cobras, Bantam Rooster, Soledad Brothers, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) and which was vigorously resurfacing in those very years (White Stripes, Jet, The Von Bondies, The Kills). A lustful desire to see the inviolable seeds of their forefathers' sacred blues grafted onto frantic, out-of-tune, deflated drum rolls, overflowing "guitar thrashing", sweat and noise typical of damned rock – the harder kind, the kind with less "roll". Defiling and violating the blues with low-fidelity visuals and sound was no longer meant to be the preserve of anonymous kids locked away in dark garages. And that's exactly what happened.

Blues-rock had drawn (and continues to do so without ever really stopping) directly from the notes of that already-electrified blues conventionally and geographically tied to the Chicago scene, the blues of, among others, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy. The potential and flavors of that music were adapted and fused with the purifying, deafening energy of smoking, blaring valve amplifiers, yet still channeled into a sonic cosmos once captured in the studio (the list would be endless, so I'll just mention a few key reference points in the genre, with the necessary caveat that these names resist any single, simplistic classification: Cream, Lonnie Mack, ZZ Top, and then again Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rolling Stones). A new generation of blues "revivalists", coming well after the blues rockers just mentioned (we're talking roughly the early '90s), reached even further back, in order to somehow push things even further forward... further forward, further forward, there we go, we've arrived: we're in the garage. The Soledad Brothers and Jon Spencer with his legendary "explosive blues" band, along with the early White Stripes and the Greenhornes, are among the leading names of this garage-blues movement.

And so we discover that delta blues — made up largely of metallic slide guitars scorched by the southern sun over the fields of the American South, played with wobbling bottlenecks worn like orthopedic rings — can pair beautifully with that overbearing, unruly rock force which is the defining trait of garage in its broadest sense, both chronologically and in terms of its founding characteristics. Garage-rock is generally understood as that particular strand of rock which, around the early '60s, almost like some primordial form of reality show, lent power and shine to the sonic imperfection and "amateurism" of certain rock bands, who turned those very traits into their strength. Reproducing, in the studio and live, those direct-to-tape sounds, those echoes and reverbs, those booming drums, those plectrums incidentally scraping across amplified strings, mischievously foreshadowing the pompous roar of the riff about to materialize, those amplifier feedback squeals that suddenly go from being disruptive noise to becoming musical elements in their own right. This is the garage of rock. Anyone who has ever seen rock bands perform in such settings surely has the scene vividly in mind.

And this, most likely, is the emotional background of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney — the one that shaped the bulk of their artistic output, at least the stretch running from The Big Come Up (2002) to Attack And Release (2008). Because after that, a whole different story truly begins.

The "delta garage" period

The (mis)fortunate circumstances that led Dan and Patrick to record, with thoroughly lo-fi technology and attitude, in Patrick's basement, caught the attention of Alive Records, a young local label which, on an extremely modest budget, decided to give these willing, dust-covered kids a shot and a bit of promotion. The Big Come Up (2002) is certainly the rawest, least polished album of their career, but it's also a heartfelt tribute to the delta blues roots that the early Black Keys so clearly drew upon. It's no coincidence that the album's first two tracks, "Busted" and "Do The Rump", are reinterpretations of two masterpieces by R.L. Burnside ("Skinny Woman") and Junior Kimbrough, the latter of whom would later be honored with an entire, phenomenal EP in 2006 (Chulahoma: The Songs Of Junior Kimbrough). Compared to the originals, there's far more energy, electricity and volume here. Only the vocals still seem to faithfully echo the ebony-toned voices of old. The album also features a rough cover of the Beatles' "She Said She Said", because there was, in fact, a whiff of garage even on Revolver, and not only there, if it's true — and it is — that the Remains are commonly regarded as proto-garage pioneers, and it was the Remains, not coincidentally, who opened countless Beatles shows across the United States.

Dan's voice, across all thirteen tracks, sounds as if it were recorded in the '60s, warm and intense, utterly convincing in the role it plays. "I'll Be Your Man" is the first track on the album (and therefore in their entire discography) that's one hundred percent Black Keys. It's fresh, almost danceable, with R&B and soul textures that would resurface with greater intensity later on (especially on Brothers). It's the song saddled with the thankless task of pulling a cart that, at least in those years, struggled to gain any real following — the following this album actually deserved even then. But that's how it goes: plenty of bands make excellent music that only comes to light once the less good but more commercial stuff has already broken through. We don't know the exact number, but we know for certain that the Black Keys are among them.

The Big Come Up is, then, the lark waiting for its mirror, where three reinterpretations of blues classics (including the evergreen "Leavin Trunk"), the rock and roll of "Yearnin'", the fiery, energetic lashes of "Heavy Soul" and the blues-space-hip-hop experiments of the closing track, "240 Years Before Your Time", give us the first detonation of that brilliant device which, as we'll soon learn, explodes differently depending on the surface it's set upon.

Just a year later, Thickfreakness (2003) marked their debut for a small but significant label, Fat Possum. Although little seems to have changed from the debut, there's a noticeably greater soul influence, especially in Auerbach's vocals. One of the album's most beautiful and intense tracks is in fact a cover of Richard Berry's "Have Love Will Travel" — Berry being one of the leading figures of so-called doo-wop soul, where R&B meets and blends with soul in a light, choral way. Junior Kimbrough's spirit still looms large over their output here, sealed once again by yet another masterful reinterpretation of one of his classics, "Everywhere I Go", the kind of track you imagine keeping you company as you sit in a rocking chair swaying to its rhythm, while the warm sunset breeze dries the sweat of a full day's work in the fields. A masterpiece.

It's the title track, however, that raises the curtain and immediately makes things clear. This is a noisy blues album, slow-burning but explosive. There was already music like this around, but perhaps not quite so faithful and explicit in its references to delta blues (especially in the rhythm and vocals). While the following "Hard Row" (as well as "Hurt Like Mine") leans towards the territory of the first, self-titled White Stripes album, "Set You Free", musically speaking, is a clear nod to the "explosive orange" of Jon Spencer. Powerful and convulsive, the vocals nonetheless remain faithful to tradition, as is the case throughout the whole album. "If You See Me" also deserves a mention, because if nothing else it hints at what's to come in future releases: a gentle turn towards a more classic blues-rock, in the vein of Cream, Blind Faith or Grand Funk Railroad.

What really makes the difference on Thickfreakness, though, is Fat Possum's first serious marketing push behind the band. The two talented kids thus definitively step out of the basements of Akron and start opening for major acts (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion), running their own small tour, and getting the music press to take convincing notice of them, mostly by pointing out their strong similarities to their contemporaries the White Stripes. As long as people are talking.

"Rubber Factory" and the arrival at a classic blues-rock sound

Despite an exhausting tour that has Dan and Patrick playing on numerous important stages and cancelling several European dates because they're completely spent, the two keep working on the new album, the first not to be recorded in Patrick's basement, simply because Patrick moves house. The search for a new place to record leads the two to set up a recording studio in a disused tire factory, still in Akron. The album's name, once again released on Fat Possum, as well as its cover art, thus reveal this curious bit of backstory: Rubber Factory (2004).

Despite these origins, Rubber Factory turns out to be far fresher, faster and more rock-oriented than the two previous albums. For the first time, with real cohesion, delta blues gives way to a more classic blues-rock sound. Aside from the gorgeous opener "When The Lights Go Out", which seems to serve as a bridge to the recent delta-garage past, the record is, at least in its first half, a celebration of fast, classic riffs in the style of Cream, Jimi Hendrix (whom Auerbach often seems to emulate vocally too) and Free's "All Right Now". This burst of "joy", compared to the previous sorrowful laments of Mississippi laborers, opened the door to the band's first double-digit sales figures, appearances on mainstream TV and radio around the globe, and dozens of major commercials. This is the taste of their first real success, and (almost) everyone starts talking about it.

The tracks that mark this slight shift are “10 A.M. Automatic”, “Just Couldn’t Tie Me Down” (which sounds like it could have been played and sung by Muddy Waters himself) and “The Desperate Man”. The track that manages to live a life of its own, though, building a real following and drawing attention to the whole album, is “Girl Is On My Mind”, openly inspired by “Shot Down” by the legendary Sonics, themselves pioneers, needless to say, of garage-rock. This is the most rocking, exhilarating track on the record. A song that sticks in your ears without necessarily bringing to mind any clear, specific garage, blues, soul or country influences, even though they're all there.

Then comes “The Lenghts”, the first ballad the band had ever produced up to that point. Sweet and melancholy, a steel guitar and voice accompanied by a discreet, tiptoeing drum, it marks the album's turning point. The second half, on the other hand, has the usual roots-revival flavor, with a bit of blues, country and rock; we find two fabulous reinterpretations (calling them covers would be a huge understatement) of “Act Nice And Gentle” by the Kinks and “Grown so Ugly” by Robert Pete Williams. A melting pot of ideas and sounds, right up to the enchanting closing track whose title sounds a bit like a psychoanalytic confession, “Till I Get My Way”. A mix of R&B, soul and noise, done the way only these guys know how.

Our minivan now moves, for now only in spirit, from the Mississippi Delta to the outskirts of Chicago, even though physically it's still parked right there in Akron.

“Magic Potion” and the move to a major label

So we arrive at 2006, when the Black Keys are by now an established duo starting to receive juicy offers from major labels. Having fulfilled their contractual obligations with Fat Possum - to whom they nonetheless give the lovely Ep devoted entirely to Junior Kimbrough (Chulahoma: The Songs Of Junior Kimbrough, which features the intense, aching version of “Meet Me In The City”) - the two move to Nonesuch, part of the Warner family, the major label they still proudly call home today.

The label changes, but nothing else really seems to. The “new” direction begun with Rubber Factory carries on seamlessly into Magic Potion (2006), their first LP for Nonesuch. Plenty of classic blues-rock, but a lot less enthusiasm. Magic Potion, in fact, is probably the least exciting album of their entire career. Predictable and repetitive, it doesn't seem to take anything away from or add anything to their chameleon-like journey, settling instead into the most well-worn strain of blues-rock. The two sound tired and under pressure. Still, a mention is deserved for “Just Got To Be” and “Your Touch”, decently above the album's average, with their deafening, razor-sharp guitar riffs and their charming, effective videos. “Black Door” also tries to stem the bleeding of ideas and vitality taking place, but barely manages to.

The Black Keys take a decent step forward with Attack And Release (2008), where at the very least the two recover the sense of ease that lets them rediscover some verve, passion and imagination - qualities that on Magic Potion seemed to have run completely dry. The record indeed shows more personality and grit, and experiments in places (the bass, banjo, backing vocals and keyboards of “Psychotic Times”, or the drum machine and effects of “Remember When (Side A)”) with new sonic textures that go beyond the classic, exclusive guitar-and-drums pairing. But the track that truly warms body and soul is the magnificent “I Got Mine”. Here the sound that comes to mind is the early hard rock of Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Steppenwolf and the rest of that wonderful crowd, always with the right bluesy shading. A tribal version of Jethro Tull is the alchemy suggested by “Same Old Thing”, which with its flutes and congas turns out to be the most brazen gamble the duo has taken so far (and all things considered, it didn't turn out too badly).

The closing track, “Things Ain't Like They Used to Be”, throws everyone off a little. A slow number somewhere between the mushiest Bon Jovi ballads and the Calexico of “Hot Rail”. Perhaps it's just a hint of what's about to happen with their next few records.

Meanwhile their fame keeps growing, along with their bank balances and media exposure. Inevitably, right on cue, the first frictions between Dan and Patrick arrive, leading the Black Keys in 2009 to take a break to regroup, which brings about those classic side projects that so often serve as a pressure valve.

Auerbach puts out a decent solo album (Keep It Hid), while Carney plays drums on a fairly solid indie-pop/wave record with a new band, the Drummer, released on his own small label (Audio Eagle Records) and titled Feel Good Together. All perfectly respectable works, to be fair, but by now it's all too clear that the “golden eggs” only get laid when the two of them are together. The reunion, then, comes not long after, and in a rather unusual way, with a project that in that same year (2009) sees the Black Keys collaborating with a roster of artists from the best of the American hip-hop/rap scene.

The finished product, Blackroc, turns out wonderfully well, proving once again that change always brings the two of them fresh, positive energy. “On The Vista”, “Stay Off The Fucking Flowers” and “What You Do To Me” are the standout tracks.

“Brothers” and the funky-soul turn

2010 brings what is very probably the best record, because the most complete and heartfelt, of the Black Keys' entire career. Brothers is released, the album that cements the duo's place among the most famous and beloved bands in the States, and which, thanks above all to the gorgeous, unusual “Tighten Up”, lets them break through well beyond their usual fanbase and inevitably become a mainstream phenomenon. But this outcome shouldn't be misleading. Because Brothers is a 15-track album that overflows, brilliantly and emotionally, from every angle. It winks and dazzles, enchants and awakens. Every single time, every single track, with renewed originality and mischief. Compared to the early days of The Big Come Up and Thickfreakness, the delta blues roots have been almost entirely severed, making room for R&B, soul and funk influences that had only been hinted at timidly in past work, here rendered in the best tradition.

“Tighten Up”, as we were saying. Dan Auerbach has said that right up to the end he tried to keep it off the album, because he felt it was too far removed from their artistic direction. Hard to blame him. But just as hard to blame the man (the deus ex machina Danger Mouse) who insisted it be included anyway. Fresh and light, opened by a carefree whistle, “Tighten Up” is soul reuniting with R&B, complete with vintage-flavored keyboards sealing the embrace.

“Everlasting Light”, the album's opening track, kicks things off. A slow, steady rhythm, sung in Wonder-esque ranges, with a clap-clap that winks at gospel, just so nothing's missing. Something close to a funky 70s cop-show soundtrack lurks behind “Next Girl”, a cynical, catchy track that makes it hard to move on to the next one - so many times you just want to hear it again. For the ultimate rapture, though, you have to get to track 4, “Howlin' For You”. A rhythm reminiscent of The Knack's “My Sharona” and a hip-pop-style vocal introduce a chorus built specifically to be sung along to by fans at shows.

Then it's a relentless parade of soul and black-music sensations with a mischievous, powerful groove ("The Only One", "Ten Cent Pistol", "Too Afraid To Love You" and above all the superlative "I'm Not The One" and "Never Gonna Give You Up"), interrupted only by small, valuable nods to good old blues ("She's Long Gone") and an exotic, tribal dance ("Sinister Kid"), before reaching their emotional peak and lyrical optimum in the closing, sweet and heartrending ballad "These Days".

Our minivan is now in Alabama, at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. But the journey isn't over yet.

Arriving in Nashville, “El Camino” and the big breakthrough

Just a year later, the legendary minivan pulls into Nashville, home of country-rock. This is where the duo has now permanently relocated. Dan even set up his own recording studio, Easy Eye Sound Studio, where of course their latest, hotly-anticipated creation had to be born.

El Camino (2011) is the album that, more than any other, feels like it was "built" to sell and to work effectively in live shows. And that's exactly what happened, and what's still happening today, on an ever-growing scale, more than a year after the record's release. Compared to the previous Brothers, El Camino certainly shows a dip in artistic and creative inspiration, but it undoubtedly has a far greater ability to grab the masses instantly. The dominant influences now shift from soul-funk to rock-rockabilly, without entirely abandoning traits of their recent past, scattered here and there, as if not wanting to be too harsh on long-time fans. The third hour, so to speak, belongs to "Lonely Boy", with the amateurish, infectious dancing of the unknown Derrick T. Tuggle, and to "Gold On The Ceiling" — tracks you eventually can't bear to hear anymore, so relentlessly are they played and dropped into every social context. But at least two or three times in life they deserve to be heard and danced to, because they earn an intimate yet excessive multi-sensory release. That said, as far as we're concerned, "the road" needs to be retraced à rebours. Because the short but intense path the Black Keys had travelled up to that point delivers its most intense, passionate thrills in its earliest stages.

El Camino is in fact the classic "have-it-both-ways" album, the kind that arrives once fame has grown large and a band wants to score a commercial hit while still holding on to a degree of dignity and integrity, both towards themselves and their fans. If the album were to be judged solely on its explosive hits, like the aforementioned "Lonely Boy" or "Gold On The Ceiling", we could easily file it away in some imaginary revivalist strand of 70s pop-rock/folk, the kind that saw sweetly distorted electric guitars pouring into nightclubs to heat up the dancing of vast, dazed crowds (think Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit In The Sky", Five Man Electrical Band's "Signs", right up to the "locomotive" of Grand Funk Railroad).

El Camino is this, but it's also something more. While the leap into good-time rock seems to have come off brilliantly (besides the two tracks already mentioned, "Hell Of A Season" is also worth noting, and we're confident countless parties thrown by kids the world over, today and for years to come, will be fittingly wrapped up by "Lonely Boy"), the album's more intimate, engaged side doesn't appear to achieve quite the same result. The southern soul side, in the style of Marvin Gaye or The Temptations, is still present in tracks like "Stop Stop" and "Mind Eraser", and the more classic garage side in "Money Maker", but none of it manages to fully captivate the way Brothers did, bringing back memories of the ghosts of Magic Potion, when passion and imagination already felt like a very distant memory.

Special mention goes to "Little Black Submarines", a magnificent track where, thankfully, we find the passionate energy of the past reunited with a biting streak of nostalgia. It's the song that sets out to convey drive, energy and emotion, and it succeeds completely. A "danceable" rock number, again in the Norman Greenbaum vein, laid over a stoner groove, is then tried out, with neither particular praise nor blame, on "Run Right Back".

Few could have imagined, after hearing Brothers, that the Black Keys would go on to become one of the biggest bands in midstream rock, and that Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney would turn into seasoned music entrepreneurs. The artistic and musical shift was already evident, but what followed feels more like a pact with the devil: not only did El Camino — by far their most calculated album (whereas Brothers was more beautiful than calculated) — land them their first arena tour, it is also now regarded as their greatest critical success.

The duo knew how to nurture this surge in popularity, making fans wait a full three years for Turn Blue (2014): in between came Auerbach's divorce from his wife, his rather unlikely spat with Justin Bieber, and his production work on the new Lana Del Rey record. Finally, the new album was announced via a tweet from Mike Tyson.

A (proto) music-marketing empire that helps frame this new, eighth album from the Akron duo, with its runway-rock sound, shaped as it has been for some time now by Danger Mouse, with his bass beats onto which Auerbach's jingle-like riffs are grafted like stains and tears on a pair of jeans — the falsetto lights up the scene intermittently, with this "blue" theme reflected in the record's sullen tone (a result of the aforementioned divorce).

The songwriting, however, is pared right down: as early as "Fever", one of the flattest choruses of the Black Keys' career appears (vaguely reminiscent, too, of the song of the same name), and so Auerbach's waning inspiration is often papered over with arrangement tricks (the soul-rock of "Year In Review", the Morricone-esque, Jonathan Wilson-like intro to "Weight Of Love", the CCR-style close of "Gotta Get Away").

Everything goes according to plan, so much so that Turn Blue feels like a natural expression of what is now, paradoxically, the focal point of today's Black Keys: a band busy riding the wave, the old-time energy long since evaporated. Credit must go to the pair for a certain amused self-awareness about all this: the moment the wave breaks, they'll be ready to head straight back to their garage as if nothing had happened.

Overall, the Black Keys' music is now firmly built up with keyboards and bass, and the sacred image of the musically self-sufficient power duo is now reserved only for glossy covers and daily interviews. For now, the minivan is still parked in Nashville. But you can bet new shores will soon be explored. All we can do is wait, curiously.

That fan loyalty is a crucial part of a band's business is nothing new, but the Black Keys have perhaps been among the best at giving their audience exactly what it expects: the riffs, rhythm-first songwriting that comes almost before melody, and so on.

Titled after the last words of a man on death row, spoken just before he was put to death in the electric chair (another rather winking choice), Let's Rock (2019) carries out its task, in this sense, in the most slavish way possible. The most driving tracks are also the most recycled ("Get Yourself Together" still manages one of the worst choruses of their career), and overall there's an aged feel to it, like old-school rockers trying to prove they've still got it ("Every Little Thing" is something of a tombstone for the band, complete with a tired solo at the end of the bridge).

The album is also left looking a bit unconvincing by its overused phrases, empty "motivational" clichés like "Shine A Little Light" and "Get Yourself Together" (an album somewhat in the vein of Oasis in this respect), which nonetheless suit the record's harmless brand of rock well enough.

The lack of dynamic range is in fact directly tied to the dearth of songwriting that defines the record, forcing Auerbach and Carney to crank up the reverb and pile on endless backing vocals (in this respect too the album closely resembles the Gallagher brothers' recent work). Even the embryonic idea of a riff in "Go" soon runs aground on the album's total lack of ideas, fizzling out slowly into its basic refrain.

Perhaps the only thing worth keeping is the macabre (self-)irony of having a man about to die say: "Let's rock", to kick off their tribute to the most classic, radio-friendly "rock", as if it were a thinly veiled farewell…

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