Legendary Alt-rockers The Black Keys sat down with the Klein/Ally Show from Audacy’s KROQ for an exclusive interview at Los Angeles' BeachLife Festival, talking about everything from new records to the most annoying festival fans.
LISTEN NOW: The Black Keys with Klein & Ally at Beach Life 2023
The Black Keys are in full swing for their 2022 Dropout Boogie album tour, which begins its U.K. leg in just a month. “We’ve been out here, we’ve been working a lot,” drummer Patrick Carney said when asked about the tour. “We were in the studio all week recording so we’ve been busy boys,” he joked, revealing that they’re putting the “finishing touches” on their next record.
While touring, writing and recording at the same time may seem excessive, The Black Keys were very nonchalant about music being both their jobs and passions. “Making a record and releasing a record is very fun,” Carney said. “After we made the last one, we kind of just went right back into the studio, cause we had six months 'till it came out. We just started working.”
And while nothing seems to phase their work-focused grind, the rock duo is still learning and evolving even after eleven studio albums. Specifically, their single “Wild Child” was an introduction to having songwriting collaborations, which the band of over twelve years, had never experienced before. “You know, what 'Wild Child' did for us is open up the possibility of collaborating with outside writers,” lead guitarist and vocalist Dan Auerbach explained. “We’ve never really done that before, and we tried it with that [song]. We invited our good friend Greg Cartwright from The Oblivians, who is a great songwriter. He was in the Reigning Sound, and he helped us write that song.”
“So this record, we’ve been inviting more people into our world, and it’s been fruitful,” he concluded. While we aren’t privy to every collaboration on the new album, with NME reporting features from Noel Gallagher and Greg Krustin, they did confirm that lo-fi rock musician and producer Beck was involved in the record since day one. “We called Beck up and we had them fly to Nashville, and started collaborating with Beck. And that was like, last April?” Patrick recounted. “And since then we’ve just been working on what I think is definitely our best record.”
Listen above for the full Klein/Ally Show interview, and hear more from BeachLife 2023 on the free Audacy app.
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