Crack

Dan Auerbach is making his guitar aurally crunch the shit out of Crack’s eardrums.

Having not been exposed to guitar sounds of this nature in some time, it’s a most welcome rude awakening. Far from being an unpleasant experience, it’s wholly refreshing to have naked exposure to the full-throttle, chainsaw blues of The Black Keys.

The Colston Hall grinds and grits its teeth on every riff and distorted guitar lurch that emanates from Auerbach’s axe. This is 21st century blues soaked in whiskey and spat back out of the speakers at the audience like an emotional bomb blast.

The gig is an eye opener and the antithesis of the modern clean article that so many bands seem to portray as their image. In a similar vein to Auerbach, drummer Pat Carney’s distorted facial expressions convey an intensity to the Black Keys’ music that most bands could only dream of getting close to. Unlike the biennial drum bashing employed by Meg White, which only serves to showcase the White Stripes (the band most commonly associated with the Black Keys) as the Jack White show, the talent in The Black Keys is a much more democratic affair.

If ever a gig was comfortable on its own with little communication from the band, this was it. It’s an old cliché, but their music really does do the talking. Crack has the pleasure of sitting with them before tonight’s performance and quickly discovers the duo in a relaxed mood verging on complete boredom.

Pat explains: “Touring is pretty mind-numbing, it’s fun but you get crazy tired and bored. The fun part is maybe the show and two hours after, but a lot of the other time is pure boredom. To fill the gaps in time there is a lot of sleeping and Dan gets really obsessed with HBO series.”

“I’m watching The Sopranos right now,” Dan confirms. “I’m on Season Four. I try and watch a whole series in seven days. I’ve been watching The Wire too, that shit is fucking good. I used to watch 24 too, but the actor who plays the son of the president is the worst actor I’ve ever seen, it put me off.”

The Black Keys sit at right angles to Crack on the sofa as the soft opposite of their raw edged music. Cool without being pretentious, but clearly having experienced a multitude of band interviews before, there is no desire to massively impress and therefore a calmness to proceedings.

Looking at Crack’s repertoire of back issues, Pat asks: “Where do you get these girls from? Do you know these models? What’s going on with this girl’s eye make-up thing? It looks like there should be a few boobs in your magazine.” After reassuring him a magazine called Crack with a model on the front isn’t half as suspicious as one would naturally expect, we feel fit to continue.

Softly spoken, both members of The Black Keys are clearly in the middle of one of those boredom spells, so the conversation naturally moves onto the active subject of work. In a little over nine years they have released six albums and have slowly become the toast of American rock.

“I don’t know why other bands take so long to record an album,” Dan says, “I feel the need to be constantly working. That’s how we survive.”

Their new album, Brothers, is a much more multi-faceted affair than previous records. For example, Auerbach utilises a new found falsetto singing style far removed from the grainy drawl prevalent in the heavy set blues of early album Thickfreakness. In a similar style, the songwriting is a much more rounded, if altogether varied affair.
Retaining a sense of darkness, but with a sensibility that showcases the band as more diverse than people may have previously thought, Brothers is a victory on a number of levels and opens the band up to new audiences. Critical acclaim has been swift, and rightly so.

Brothers has an arrogant swagger about it that mirrors the relaxed frame of mind Dan and Pat are clearly in. They know it’s a very astute record from the assured opening of Every Lasting Light onward; this is not a band that needs to shout from the rooftops to impress. It seems like there is an element of effortlessness to their work that is exemplified by the front cover of Brothers. The text on the album simply states: ‘This is an album by the The Black Keys. The name of this album is Brothers.’ It’s simple and effective.

Dan explains: “Pat’s brother does all of our artwork, he’s done it on all of our records and all our releases since the first demo. We were stuck and he suggested a text based cover would be a good idea. He sent us a mock up and we loved it. He was inspired by a bunch of text based album covers and magazines from the sixties and we thought it was a great idea.”

The decision to record the album in an abandoned warehouse in their hometown of Akron, Ohio, was typical of the band. 2004’s Rubber Factory was (as the title suggests) recorded in an abandoned factory, also in Akron. So is this industrial setting the catalyst for The Black Keys creative juices to flow?

Dan doesn’t think so: “We can make it happen anywhere it doesn’t matter where we record. Though it is true we aren’t getting enough sunlight when we record. We recorded in a warehouse with no windows, so we weren’t actually getting any sunlight at all. We did a load of the songs in the warehouse, but we did a song with Dangermouse in Brooklyn. The studio environment is what I love. It gives me chance to get down to it. The recording sessions are what I look forward to the most.
“One of our very first recordings was in an upstairs bathroom. We had to cram all the stuff in there and get the drums straddling the bath. It was ridiculous.”

The refreshing nature of the Black Keys attitude to music is this: they like playing music, they like making music and they like recording music. The simplicity of this mantra has resulted in a band whose hard work has heralded an output of almost unrivalled consistency. Even if the Black Keys went on a three-week rampage, you wouldn’t hear about it and they’d probably manage to make a decent record in that time.

Rewind a couple of months. The Black Keys are shredding The John Peel Stage at Glastonbury. It’s a big performance to a packed stage. The setting is apt, as the band had a successful history with John Peel before his death in 2004.

Pat explains: “We went back to his house and did three Peel sessions during our early days: one from his house and two from Maida Vale. When we went to his house we got to see his record collection. He had them all in different sheds that looked like horse stables. It was like one shed was for 45s one was for 78s and so on. He had such knowledge of the whole place. I asked for something specific and he just hunted it down really quickly. You know you’ve got somewhere the first time you do a Peel Session. We don’t have anything like that in the States.”

The Peel Sessions were an affirmative stamp of quality for a new band. The likelihood of these sessions being an intrinsic step to turning the band onto a British audience is huge. Their performance on the stage bearing his name is fitting and something of which The Black Keys are acutely aware. It’s poignant and representative of John Peel’s taste and nose for talent that the Black Keys play here today. It’s perhaps the quality that is prevalent in this tent that causes Pat to vent his frustration with what else he discovers in the immediate vicinity of The John Peel Stage.

“The John Peel Stage at Glastonbury is kind of far away from everything, but we seem to be on the crap side of the site. I saw like 18 tents with loads of douche-bags DJ’ing a whole load of Top Ten crap like Black Eyed Peas. That made me feel really bummed out.”

In their backstage area of The Colston Hall, Crack feels obliged to inform the bewildered pair that they have the theme tune to Facejacker before the realisation sets in they are the soundtrack to a comedy show that deals with prank phone calls. “I hope it’s funny,” Dan says. “I hear it’s pretty stupid.”

When asked what the pair are listening to at the moment, Pat informs us that Dan has been listening to loads of dubstep. “I don’t even know what dubstep is,” he responds.
Pat clarifies that dubstep is: “All the sounds of house music but the beats are slowed down. It’s so digital it’s disgusting.” When informed that Bristol is somewhat of a spiritual home for dubstep, Pat replies: “It’s cool Portishead and Tricky are from here though. We’ve wanted to work with Geoff Barrow for the last few years.”
“Well tell him if he wants to roll with the big boys, give us a call,” Dan says jokingly. Crack promises him that we’ll pass on the message.

Back in the live arena and after two hours of grind, heartache, and sexy, sexy new-age blues, The Black Keys thank the audience and leave. They have transcended to the next level, as assured brothers in blues-rock mastery.



Tune: Strange Times

http://www.myspace.com/theblackkeys

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