- 6 months ago
The Black Keys join us high above New York City at the Hard Rock Hotel for a few beers and some unfiltered conversation about their new album, ‘No Rain, No Flowers,’ and more.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00oh my god let's have beers with the band the band being the black keys hi guys how are you doing
00:08what's up oh my god may i uh you got beers should we cheers as we started yeah i am an anti cheers
00:15man you are yes i don't like cheersing we do these things germaphone no it's we do these things that
00:22are so old-fashioned right we still shake hands we shake hands because we think that you're gonna
00:27hold a gun against me right so like a sword maybe a sword yeah we cheers because back in the old days
00:34you had to slam beers together to see if you were poisoning each other yeah i don't think we need
00:38to do that anymore i think you're not gonna poison me you think we should just sit and stare at our
00:42phones yeah maybe a lot of people agree with that uh a band vital to the uh by the way every bartender
00:50holds a microphone so when i open my own dive bar this is how it's gonna be i'm just gonna hold a
00:54microphone behind the thing like i'm still on radio coming through the speakers all around the
00:57bar yes this is my radio station coming with my bar well it's kind of you're kind of like a strip
01:02club dj slash bartender table four table four table four i can see that being really successful in like
01:08portland or something it's not bad uh there is a great bar in portland i love dive bars so hence
01:13hence why we are drinking today because uh i love dive bars there's a bar that does records and beer
01:19in portland and it's literally called records and beer it's on the nose perfect all right so
01:25um if you're the black keys what is the drink that represents the most the black keys is it beer is it
01:31a cocktail tab sure um the cocktail tap beer you're going light beer you're going an ipa you know i think
01:41maybe dan's drink he's been doing lately it's pretty good what's your mix what is it tequila old
01:47fashion oh yeah i love that tequila old fashion play with the mezcal old fashion i don't fuck with
01:53mezcal i don't like that smoky flavor kind of tastes like a band-aid yeah i got the last time i got sick
01:59from drinking it was uh mezcal it also keeps me up all night long like you gotta worry about that
02:06cholesterol and the heart it's getting that age shouldn't it um so if you're in 2025 you look
02:13back at 2004 i first saw you guys at bonnaroo 2004 tiny little tent did you what did you think
02:19the black keys were going to be come 2025 when you're standing at a tiny stage in 2004 i mean that
02:26day what we were thinking is how soon can we get out of here because we were playing friday at like
02:30three in the afternoon yeah we left and we had like 10 weekend passes we scalped them and then we
02:39drove to louisville went to uh godfather's two godfather's two a strip club and spent all the
02:44money that we'd scalped yeah epic night that was our early success story early success story that's
02:50a good move good financial move by the way blow it out louisville we've you know we've always been
02:55on this great business with it affected an industry uh so if you would have said to 2004 black keys
03:05what would you say to those kids i don't know we we were uh we were up for the grind and we still
03:10are yeah well you do i mean this you popped a baby out of nowhere i mean this thing was a totally
03:16unexpected child isn't it we've made a lot of a lot of music recently yeah yeah we've done like uh i
03:23think this is our fourth or fifth album in six years inspiration's just billowing huh it's on a roll
03:32yeah when you see so much change like you guys have i mean i think that you're part of the spine
03:38of rock and roll right if you've seen so much change in these 20 some odd years whether it be
03:43in the industry or nashville i mean even at home you've seen the city change you've watched all of
03:48this crazy is the black keys model even possible in 2025 the black keys in 2004 you think they could
03:56have done what you guys did in 2025 after 21 years well you know back then there was no social media
04:02we weren't getting played on the radio maybe there'd be some yeah we're just kind of existing in a little
04:10void and uh it kind of feels that way now too why well a lot of the magazines are gone
04:20yeah social media is like accessible i don't know we're just out here trying to have fun make music
04:28we like and you did that with the new album no flowers no rain uh it's sort of i mean it's i can't
04:35say it's a new sound but you you're new trying new techniques i read you got a whole new technique
04:41that you learned well i mean you know i think every record we make we try to do something new i don't
04:46we try not to do the same thing over and over again and for this record we we called a couple
04:52people that we'd always been curious about working with um and you know it ended up being the first
04:57time we'd ever written with anyone who played piano um we worked with scott storge for the first time
05:03um you know i think that's part of what makes it fun is to kind of have to be a little different
05:09every time how did it feel doing something like this in your own studio i mean you've done it before but
05:14you're learning new techniques in your own home we've always worked i mean really with the exception
05:21of maybe two albums we've always worked in our own space and for the last you know 15 years we've used
05:28dan's studio in nashville as like the it's like a clubhouse yeah we've done everything there except
05:34for part of um you know part of uh well he finished it right after brothers so for everything
05:40from el camino except for some of turn blue and um some of ohio players when you guys are you know
05:46working with new people you're learning getting new techniques uh how coachable are the black keys
05:51you guys amendable to new ideas that sound way out of the way yeah i think we're probably you know
05:57we're way more open-minded now than we were when we started you know when we started we were like
06:01insecure and young and stupid and like didn't want to hear shit from anybody and like we closed
06:07ourselves off to the whole world and we made how many records and had never been on the radio
06:12before it wasn't until we let somebody in our world danger mouse that like um we started to really have
06:19get some traction you know and i i think ever ever since then we've we've been really open to working
06:25with other people we find it enjoyable it's like and we're good at it i think and both both being
06:31pretty accomplished producers you can take these techniques and the things you learn from other
06:35people and then pass them along to the kids that show up in your rooms huh yeah every time you get
06:40in the studio with somebody new you learn something you see a new technique and danger
06:45mouse always says if you if you do a good job producing a record you've just put yourself out of
06:49work because you've just created a new producer i agree with that i mean we learned so much from him
06:57and i think every time we you know his his label easy eye is pretty much dedicated to helping you know
07:01other artists get a footing and and every time we're working with another artist i think a lot
07:07of it is you know trying to help someone see their vision through and show them how we work and you
07:13know but you know that's why when we make a record it's really exciting to to you know see how other
07:19people work but you know it it comes out kind of consistent because every time we create something
07:25still based on you know like a take of us playing live or like first or second take yeah it's our
07:31filter yeah ultimately our decisions at the end so and this because this one came about so quickly
07:37i mean i i'm guessing the writing process the the creative it just if that quick i mean i don't want
07:43to sound cocky but i mean i think if we went in a studio at any point you know we spent two months
07:48in a record we can we can make the record we can make six records a year if we just stayed in the
07:54studio yeah you know it would probably get progressively worse after like the first half
08:00of the first record but we could do it yeah what was it uh who said it like you only need really
08:05two songs an album we'd be making prog rock who said that every label yeah we'd be making prog rock
08:12yeah well or just i wouldn't noise i i wouldn't be capable of it but an album with just one song
08:20it never ends it's just one long one long movement one long thing so uh speaking of easy eye uh in that
08:27studio i've had the great pleasure of being in that room one time with you and on the wall is the most
08:32incredible record collection i've ever seen in my life uh so of all the records that you have on that
08:38is crazy because they all you got them all at urban outfitter
08:40sel johnson will be so happy about that so uh of all the albums on the wall what is the one that
08:48works in every situation no matter who it is no matter what the day is what album on the wall can
08:54you put on anytime anywhere uh well you know it's one of the jj kale records um what's the one with
09:01the raccoon on the cover that one records or uh what else or the that's the one the link ray
09:10self-titled um 1970 the one where he's a side profile on the cover that one i don't want to
09:18give you one just just give this a try when you get back home billy ocean suddenly what yes i know
09:24what year were you born 81 okay i i'm telling you it's it's more bangers than you think on this
09:32thing it is so good front to back and it works there's just a level of uh you know i'm not fond
09:39of a lot of music from like the early mid 80s sure just reminds me like my parents get in divorce
09:46that's right it always it's always the parents i don't really want to hear billy ocean well that's
09:51like it just makes me sad uh all right so um the dj sets that you guys have become so uh known for
09:59and legendary um you know it reminds me of like a dive bar jukebox you know it's like all the best
10:06dive bar jukeboxes so if you find a dive bar that has that jukebox let us know hey because we've been
10:11looking for it i'm in search of it i go every day i'm going every day to try and closest thing to that
10:16was what's that the lakeside lakeside lounge lakeside lounge used to have the best fucking jukebox in
10:21new york city it was it was lights out perfect you know the jukebox has got to be physical cds or
10:27records it was cd it was a cd jukebox yeah it was so good what are the what are the four songs you're
10:34putting on when you walk in there yeah i mean rock rock yeah yeah it's got to be one of them good
10:39uh if you're if you're an 80s anti-80s man you're not including prince i respect the hell out of
10:48prince but you know i mean like certain dire straight songs certain prince songs sure but
10:55yeah typically like bruce hornsby or something like it just reminds me of that era just like
11:00all right what else you putting on we're talking 45s here yeah yeah absolutely we're going the real
11:06deal yeah train kept it rolling oof yeah that's good this is what you guys do when you're just
11:14sitting around you're just talking about songs back and forth and when you can actually play them
11:19and a dj set aren't you no we're uh it's usually secret like we'll wait till the occasionally we'll
11:26play something but usually we'll wait till the otis redding shout shout bamma lamma yeah i love that dj
11:32and i share the song you know i i will leave the um artist uh nameless but i literally just talked
11:37to a guy who did not know who otis redding was i had to introduce him to dreams to remember
11:41i felt personally so happy where was this person from uh i i think that i'll tell you in about 90
11:49seconds because yeah i was i i was simultaneously excited because i get to talk about i think the
11:55greatest song ever written is i've got dreams to remember um but yeah not knowing otis redding
12:01not even sitting on the dock of the bay couldn't believe it hmm yeah well we're lucky our parents
12:04listen to that shit yeah we grew up with that and then they broke us our hearts by separating yeah i
12:09got it some people grew up with billy ocean some people grew up i didn't grow up billy ocean i'm
12:13gonna tell you the time that this billy ocean thing came from a hang with you and you didn't even
12:17know it was after the show in nashville there was a there was a nashville bar that we all went to
12:22and billy ocean was playing on the on the loudspeaker and i look at the wife and i'm like
12:26holy shit this song is so good and then another song was good and then the next day we walked to
12:31the record store yeah which what's the record store in nashville yeah grimy's and billy ocean's
12:36right there as soon as i walk in so i was like this is it was a call-in it was yes i'm gonna
12:42reevaluate i guess i'm telling you give it give it a go uh so i i saw that you said recently the
12:49worst advice that you've ever been given and it was about you know don't put your songs in a
12:55commercial commercial what's the best advice you got
12:57the best advice we got
13:01peter relic once told us never trust a journalist
13:06never trust a what journalist oh yeah he was a journalist
13:11that's pretty good i mean that's pretty good advice hey thanks for uh having some beers with
13:21me hey thank you yeah beers with vance black keys thanks for joining me are you cutting us off i
13:27guess that's it we can keep going if you are not allowed to have any more beer
13:30get out what happens to that immediately you start what in the bush
13:35no just keep drinking i guess
13:45you
Comments