Speaker 1: Pushkin. The Black Keys are the last rock and roll
Speaker 1: band to really matter. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but
Speaker 1: if you can think of another rock band that broke
Speaker 1: out this decade with songs you couldn't escape and big
Speaker 1: arena shows, let me know. When they first came out
Speaker 1: in early two thousands, their gritty blue sound was wild.
Speaker 1: You could have told me some of those songs were
Speaker 1: lost relics from the fifties, and I would have believed it.
Speaker 1: Their sound really did develop a lot by the time
Speaker 1: they hit big with songs like Tighten Up and Holland
Speaker 1: for You. Now, after a five year break, they have
Speaker 1: new music. They stopped by schanro Low to catch up
Speaker 1: with Rick Rubin the day after launching their tour in
Speaker 1: LA to talk about the new record, things in the
Speaker 1: music industry that pissed them off, and to play some
Speaker 1: unreleased songs. This is Broken Record Season three liner notes
Speaker 1: for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Just a quick
Speaker 1: note here. You can listen to all of the music
Speaker 1: mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you can
Speaker 1: find a link to in the show notes. For licensing reasons,
Speaker 1: each time a song it's referenced in this episode, you'll
Speaker 1: hear this sound effect all right. Enjoyed the episode. Here's
Speaker 1: Rick's conversation with the black Keys listening anything good? You know,
Speaker 1: I was in France for the whole month in July.
Speaker 1: How was it too long? But I found this radio
Speaker 1: station over there. It was like the most eclectic mix
Speaker 1: of music. I've heard it in a long time. What
Speaker 1: was this station called again, It's called Radio Nova. I
Speaker 1: listened to Radio Nova. Yeah, so there's there's like playlists,
Speaker 1: you can find stuff, but it's nationwide. It's structural, but
Speaker 1: it's nation It's like across the whole all France. And
Speaker 1: I mean you could listen to it live on tune
Speaker 1: in video. You can listen to it live on tune in.
Speaker 1: But I never heard of it. I've never been in France. Bunch,
Speaker 1: you've been France, A bunch of sures. I hear the same, Like,
Speaker 1: this is better music curation than I've heard anywhere on
Speaker 1: any streaming platform, on any radio station. I'm in France
Speaker 1: and I'm hearing all this American music for the first time,
Speaker 1: and it just boggled my mind. And I you know,
Speaker 1: Dan and I both have these shows on serious radio,
Speaker 1: and I mean I don't know why, because honestly, we
Speaker 1: don't get paid, and we were curating an hour of
Speaker 1: music a month or whatever, and I turn it on
Speaker 1: and I'm just perpetually let down by like what's played
Speaker 1: on the spectrum. Most of the spectrum is or XMU.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be like kind of cutting edge channels
Speaker 1: where they're playing new music, and I heard I keep
Speaker 1: hearing you two on the spectrum. It's like, man, fuck that.
Speaker 1: And I don't get anything I want from it, and
Speaker 1: I don't even know where to look. I haven't found
Speaker 1: one thing at Pitchfork that that made me interested in
Speaker 1: probably five years. But I still check it like every
Speaker 1: couple of days. The platform doesn't exist, or if it
Speaker 1: does exist, it hasn't got to me, you know. So
Speaker 1: that's that's a major problem. I think that. Then I
Speaker 1: talked about this all the time. How do what could
Speaker 1: we do? What could our friends all do? That would
Speaker 1: be it would help prop up stuff we're interested in
Speaker 1: because I look at stuff that sounds like there's a void,
Speaker 1: the huge, massive void. Maybe that's an opportunity for you
Speaker 1: guys to do something. It is massive? Why people like
Speaker 1: people don't you know, It's like we sit around here
Speaker 1: listen music obsessed, but we let these dipshits like dictate
Speaker 1: what the fuck is being talked about, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, there's no one that knows more about
Speaker 1: music than than probably you, you know, and Dan, I mean,
Speaker 1: and what we're not, you know, we're giving our playlist
Speaker 1: to the Spectrum or XMU and at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, like they're still just playing Radiohead songs fifteen
Speaker 1: times a day, or you two songs or whatever. It's
Speaker 1: not I had a record that was really proud of
Speaker 1: that I produced and co wrote that is you know,
Speaker 1: wasn't the Keys album Always Seeing I basically, you know,
Speaker 1: asked Spectrum like consider adding this thing to their playlist,
Speaker 1: and then the fucking they, after fifty five years of
Speaker 1: volunteer service to their ass, they're like, well, the Instagram
Speaker 1: the metrics don't really add up, but I think, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of numbers. The numbers aren't there yet, Like,
Speaker 1: fuck you, motherfucker, Like, who the fuck are you to
Speaker 1: tell me what the fuck numbers are you? You were
Speaker 1: fucking communications neighbor major from Purdue, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing there dictating this shit, man, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't like buy a fucking shirt from you, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Seriously, And this guy's dictating what we
Speaker 1: all listened to across the whole country. This guy, Chris Muckley,
Speaker 1: He's like dictates the whole fucking channel. It's like, who
Speaker 1: the fuck is this guy? Where did he come from?
Speaker 1: And why the fuck is hey listening to my ass.
Speaker 1: I've been in the back of a van for twenty years.
Speaker 1: Listen to me, motherfucker, I care about this ship, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. That's like I know what Kanye
Speaker 1: was meant when he said that ship, because like I
Speaker 1: give a fuck. Yeah, I had enough Windy to fucking care.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. I put my fucking intestines
Speaker 1: through the fucking ringer for rock and roll and roll
Speaker 1: listen to what I care about. I've always gotten the
Speaker 1: best suggestions or music to listen to from musicians, never
Speaker 1: from anyone else. It's always from artists. It's not from
Speaker 1: Instagram stats, it's not from anywhere, but art artists always.
Speaker 1: Just like I just said, what are you listening to?
Speaker 1: Chances are you're listening to something better than anyone who's
Speaker 1: telling me what to listen to Sure, I agree. Every
Speaker 1: time I've heard anything that's like change my perception, something
Speaker 1: has come from an artist, Dan, what are you angry about?
Speaker 1: Where do we start? I'm not angry, It's just it's frustrating,
Speaker 1: you know. Sure, Yeah, it's fucking frustrating. No, I feel you.
Speaker 1: It's hard to find music now, dude, I agree. How
Speaker 1: long has it been since you've toured? H five years
Speaker 1: since we tour of the US? Wow? And last night
Speaker 1: was the first show and good vibe. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a little We had some issues with some ticket issues,
Speaker 1: but other than that, we had some scalpers screwing our
Speaker 1: fans last night. Let's tell about royally fucked last night. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We intentionally did a show that was twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: ticket just for fans, and scalpers had tickets for eight
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. Wow. And they were fake. People were coming
Speaker 1: to the to the box office with fake tickets that
Speaker 1: they paid eight hundred dollars more. Wow. We kept the
Speaker 1: tickets cheap as possible, made the news like there are
Speaker 1: hundreds of people out in front of the wheel turn
Speaker 1: really upset. It was such a bummer because it our
Speaker 1: intention was to do one for the fans, do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? It just sucks when it's a
Speaker 1: it's a weird fucking time out there. Because we kept
Speaker 1: the tickets cheap. Could you do another show for all
Speaker 1: the people with the fake tickets? Fuck that, I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: fuck it. I mean, like this is the problem. I mean,
Speaker 1: we kept the tickets at twenty five dollars. It was
Speaker 1: clearly stated on the tickets that they're non transferable, and
Speaker 1: some people trying to sold them for eight hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: six hundred dollars. That's the whole that's the reason why
Speaker 1: our tickets and this concert, this tour right now, like
Speaker 1: the cheapest tickets like fifty bucks, and they go all
Speaker 1: the way up to five hundred. And the reason is
Speaker 1: because on the last tour we kept the tickets much cheaper,
Speaker 1: but they kept getting fucking scalped, and so we would
Speaker 1: go play a show, an equal amount of money that
Speaker 1: we made was made by scalpers. Scalpers are making as
Speaker 1: much money as us by fucking the fans. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of issues with the music industry. And
Speaker 1: the thing is is the person that actually has to
Speaker 1: actually gets fucked the most is the fan and the artist,
Speaker 1: you know, which is ironic because it's that's the most
Speaker 1: direct natural relationship into music business. It was. It was
Speaker 1: amazing though last night. The energy was high. And what's
Speaker 1: the show like? Now? Once upon a time it was
Speaker 1: a two piece group. Yeah, what's the show like? Now
Speaker 1: it's the two of us plus three other people. We
Speaker 1: have two guitars in a bass and for the whole show,
Speaker 1: the whole show. Yeah, and we play songs from every record,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean even when we were doing two
Speaker 1: piece records, we were always overdubbing. I would I would
Speaker 1: always over to bass and second guitars and stuff, double
Speaker 1: up guitar parts. It's cool as ship now to be
Speaker 1: able to hear those old songs with like three guitars
Speaker 1: doing one riff, it's awesome. It almost sounds more like
Speaker 1: the old records than we ever did, which is kind
Speaker 1: of fun. From the first album to now, what was
Speaker 1: the progression of the band from from your perspective, Well,
Speaker 1: you've got to understand that this is not like a
Speaker 1: normal band. This is like not a normal band, you know,
Speaker 1: because like we started playing when we were sixteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: before we were a band, you know, and we were,
Speaker 1: we learned how to play together. So so you've been
Speaker 1: playing together forever whatever this was. This is the first
Speaker 1: band I've ever been in. It's incredible. I found the
Speaker 1: other day about six months ago. Probably the first jam
Speaker 1: we ever recorded. Wow, it's on my phone. I can
Speaker 1: play it for you. Let's yeah. And we always recorded
Speaker 1: ourselves because that's what was so much fun was the
Speaker 1: recording part. That's what we were into. Pat. The first
Speaker 1: time I ever saw a four track was a Pat's house.
Speaker 1: So the beginnings of the Black Keys were recording. And
Speaker 1: we got a record deal before we ever played a show,
Speaker 1: just because we were making recordings and we sent it
Speaker 1: to some labels and they gave us a deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like the foundation of the band is really that we
Speaker 1: grew up. We grew up really four or five houses
Speaker 1: from each other. Dan's a year older than me, and
Speaker 1: our brothers were like best friends, older brother younger brothers.
Speaker 1: But at one point our brothers like, you guys should
Speaker 1: get together and jam, You guy should get together and jam.
Speaker 1: And one day Dan brought us guitar down to my
Speaker 1: house and I had this drum set because I bought
Speaker 1: like all the instruments. So you need to have a band,
Speaker 1: hoping that people come from my house so I could
Speaker 1: be in a band playing guitar. But Dan came down
Speaker 1: and just like started playing, like oh shit, Like I
Speaker 1: guess I'm playing drums because he's so good at guitar.
Speaker 1: So what year was this? That would like ninety six
Speaker 1: ninety seven, and we recorded I think this is one
Speaker 1: of those I'm gonna play this song. It's six minutes long.
Speaker 1: Play a snippet. I'm just gonna go six minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go. I'm gonna start it. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start it a minute in. You sound exactly the same.
Speaker 1: When I heard it, I was like, holy shit, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Nothing changed. It's exactly the same. Isn't that insane? That's
Speaker 1: from day one? Does it without communicating about what we
Speaker 1: were gonna do. What happened? It's like, that's literally sounded
Speaker 1: like you could have said that was us last night,
Speaker 1: and I would have believed it would be like, what
Speaker 1: is that audience? They're great, Yeah, they killed it last night.
Speaker 1: I wonder what your dad was thinking when you're like,
Speaker 1: I mean, my dad's very encouraged fucking getting out there.
Speaker 1: What the fuck were we doing? Dude, that's six minutes
Speaker 1: of us banging on prop tanks and the definitely listen
Speaker 1: to all six minutes tranced out, What the hell I
Speaker 1: rick just because I just want you to hear this
Speaker 1: one thing that we've never played this for anybody. I
Speaker 1: won't play you a second of it. Okay, this is
Speaker 1: if anything, you're getting worse. They were getting worse. There's
Speaker 1: some really weird ship on this thing. But this is
Speaker 1: our demo, right, this is the so the day that
Speaker 1: Dan I think you only ever get worse. This is
Speaker 1: the day that Dan was gonna I was gonna record
Speaker 1: his band and they never showed up, and we made
Speaker 1: this recording. This is the the first song on our
Speaker 1: demo that we sent out. The got us a record
Speaker 1: too incredible. You know what's incredible about that is this
Speaker 1: is no bullshit. We did six songs that day in
Speaker 1: an hour and a half. Yeah, and I had we
Speaker 1: had never played them together. I had never played drums
Speaker 1: in a previous year and a half. And we instantly
Speaker 1: had arrangements, instantly figured out all this shit We're gonna
Speaker 1: do drum beats. I mean, it's fucking crazy. And one
Speaker 1: I took these recordings we made, and I sat and like,
Speaker 1: make these mixes. And I remember taking the CDR over
Speaker 1: to Dan's house like a week or two weeks later,
Speaker 1: and He's called me. I left a message on my
Speaker 1: machine or something like later that day. Basically it was like,
Speaker 1: we just got to start a fucking band, Like this
Speaker 1: is fucking crazy. And I was like, yeah, we fucking do.
Speaker 1: And I called my brother as they make a cover,
Speaker 1: a record cover so we could mail this thing out,
Speaker 1: and yeah, we were ready to make a record. We
Speaker 1: named the band right then. It was incredible and we
Speaker 1: made incredible. Dan think, what should we call the band?
Speaker 1: I was like, there's a mutual friend that we had
Speaker 1: a mutual acquaintance, this outsider artist guy who used to
Speaker 1: call people black keys, Like, we gotta call it the
Speaker 1: black Keys. He's like, it's the black It was instant
Speaker 1: to boom, boom boom. Within like two weeks of doing that,
Speaker 1: we had made a demo where we made a cover
Speaker 1: we dand mailed him out to like eighteen labels, and
Speaker 1: within two weeks of that we had a record deal,
Speaker 1: the small little label in Burbank. And since that, right then,
Speaker 1: I told my dad drop out of school make this record,
Speaker 1: and my dad actually came into I was working in
Speaker 1: a restaurant. My dad came in to the restaurant with
Speaker 1: my grandfather, and my grandfather had a PhD. You mean,
Speaker 1: very educated. And I told him, as I wou'na drop
Speaker 1: out of school, My dad's you gotta oh, you shouldn't.
Speaker 1: My grandfathers like, yeah, you should do that. Give it
Speaker 1: a year or two. I was like, there you go,
Speaker 1: there we are. But yeah. So then that's the history
Speaker 1: of the band is. We made this record, the big
Speaker 1: come up in my basement. We would get together every
Speaker 1: day from like ten to three, and then I had
Speaker 1: to go to work and Dan had to go play bars.
Speaker 1: And we made this record. And then we put the
Speaker 1: record out and we learned we had to go on
Speaker 1: tour for people to hear it. And we just got
Speaker 1: in a van with my brother Mike tagged along and
Speaker 1: we we went around the country. We went out every weekend.
Speaker 1: We got all offered a Sleader Kidney tour, we offered
Speaker 1: a Beck tour, we got signed a Fat Possum. We
Speaker 1: so then around that around that first record, before we
Speaker 1: signed a Fat Possum, we kind of had we had
Speaker 1: seymour Stein coming out to our shows, and we had
Speaker 1: people kind of like really interested in this at the
Speaker 1: time of like when the White Stripes first were hit,
Speaker 1: you know, and Hives and Strokes, and we were kind
Speaker 1: of in that wave, you know, and everybody was looking
Speaker 1: for them, everyone was looking for it, and so we
Speaker 1: had we were like sitting there talking talking to Seemore stuck.
Speaker 1: Had you guys heard all that music or were you
Speaker 1: sort of just doing your own thing? Man? We had
Speaker 1: heard like do Rag all the Fat Possi some stuff.
Speaker 1: The Strokes record came out right after we made this.
Speaker 1: It came out like September after we made the demo.
Speaker 1: But no, man, we I didn't hear like the Hives
Speaker 1: or the White Stripes until fell in Love with the
Speaker 1: Girl or whatever that Hive single had in two thousand
Speaker 1: summer two thousand and two. That stuff was really going
Speaker 1: on MTV and I heard. That's what I was like, man,
Speaker 1: like this, there's a there's a wave shit happening. There's
Speaker 1: that band that kind of disappeared the Vines. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: around that time, so we were getting we were we
Speaker 1: were getting calls from seymour Stein on you know, on
Speaker 1: our waiting around the answering machine. Like this is like
Speaker 1: I remember reading the story of Divo. I think we're
Speaker 1: like living the same reality that Devo did twenty years
Speaker 1: ago in like the same city. And here here we
Speaker 1: are getting calls from seymour Stein who wanted to sign us,
Speaker 1: and he's like, we're I'm gonna send a contract your way.
Speaker 1: What's the best address we're in. He's like it's gonna
Speaker 1: be there by November one. November first came and it didn't,
Speaker 1: you know nothing, And by November I think it was
Speaker 1: like November twentieth, no contract. And I called him. He's like,
Speaker 1: I can't get anything moving, Like they're not sending it.
Speaker 1: What the fuck? And as Dan I got together, it's like,
Speaker 1: if we signed to this label, they can't even get
Speaker 1: us a contract. We're never going to make another record.
Speaker 1: We might get a couple hundred grand that we can
Speaker 1: spend on our one hundred grand or something. But it
Speaker 1: was the right move. Nothing happened with Seymark. We made
Speaker 1: the hardest decision, but it was like a no brainer
Speaker 1: for us, which is like instead of waiting around for
Speaker 1: this big check, this signed to Fat Possum for twelve
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and make a record, And so we went
Speaker 1: into my basement and we recorded a record in one day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean, honestly, Fat Possum those were our biggest
Speaker 1: Those were heros. We were trying to get on Fat
Speaker 1: Possum on the demo. Yeah, we hadn't heard of any
Speaker 1: of the Detroit bands. We didn't know of any of
Speaker 1: the I've never heard the Goriries, but we were listening
Speaker 1: to Team Model, Ford Hard, Robert Bell for r L Junior,
Speaker 1: kimbro I have to ask Latkins, you know we were
Speaker 1: going we were going to see those shows. It was
Speaker 1: it wasn't just old records and it was like real.
Speaker 1: It was Also John Spencer Explosion was a major thing. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I got a cassette tape of Orange by the John
Speaker 1: Spencer Blues Explosion, and that really helped me understand the
Speaker 1: Black Keys better when we were starting. In fact, when
Speaker 1: I listened to that, I still think Russell Simmons one
Speaker 1: of my favorite drummers. Russell Simmons is probably one of
Speaker 1: the maybe the best living drummer. Hell yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean him and Jeremiah Green from Myst Mouse are the
Speaker 1: two best drummers rock and roll drumms a statement we'll
Speaker 1: be back with more from the Black Keys. We're back
Speaker 1: with the Black Keys. So you did the first album,
Speaker 1: did the first album, and then once we decided to
Speaker 1: sign the Fat Possi and we made a second record
Speaker 1: in a day. Instantly, I was, this is pre internet,
Speaker 1: so I was. Dan came over. We recorded this thing.
Speaker 1: The next day, I would make a mix. I would
Speaker 1: burn a CD. I would ve it over to Dan's house.
Speaker 1: I would drive home and he would come, turn the
Speaker 1: guitar down and I could do it. I go back
Speaker 1: and turn the guitar back up. I have all stack
Speaker 1: of these things all on the day. I like as
Speaker 1: boo boom and I FedEx it that night. It's like
Speaker 1: boom fed and oh my brother Mike and I went
Speaker 1: to kmart and bought some Royal Crown hair palm made
Speaker 1: took a picture of my hand dipping in it. It
Speaker 1: was like all done in a day. It's like boom
Speaker 1: rucking records done. And that's how we I was our Emma.
Speaker 1: We just fucking moved like that, you know. And we
Speaker 1: made our third record in a rubber factory in Akron,
Speaker 1: just when we learned how to make records, together. We
Speaker 1: were learning how it all worked. The first In fact,
Speaker 1: the first three records, I don't think we never even
Speaker 1: had a compressor. We just didn't even know that that
Speaker 1: was a thing. And did the first three records have
Speaker 1: many overdubs? Are not? Really? They had a few overdubs? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like the first even the first record had some head
Speaker 1: overdubs bass and tambourine. Did you record vocals live or
Speaker 1: was that done after? Mostly they'd be live, right, vocals
Speaker 1: were mostly live. How did you do it with vocals
Speaker 1: and drums live or were you in a separate room.
Speaker 1: We were in the same room, same room. They just
Speaker 1: bled that that was part of the sound, I think, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the vocal mic was part of a big part of
Speaker 1: the drums out. Yeah, it was like a little bit
Speaker 1: we know. Actually when we first started, there was a
Speaker 1: third guy. When we very first started, like that that demo,
Speaker 1: you can hear there's an organ just holding like one
Speaker 1: ecord or whatever. Our friend Gabe, who we grew up with,
Speaker 1: was hanging around a lot with I was hanging out
Speaker 1: with him a lot, and he was in the band.
Speaker 1: He was on the cover of the demo even And
Speaker 1: then it came time to make the big come up.
Speaker 1: We're making that record, and he just kept missing practices
Speaker 1: and he didn't have a car, so we had to
Speaker 1: go pick him up and find him. And one day
Speaker 1: he missed. He missed like the third day in a row.
Speaker 1: He's actually on the first record on a couple of
Speaker 1: songs he best slay the third or fourth day in
Speaker 1: a row. And I called him when they dude, what
Speaker 1: the fuck you're gonna blow it? This is like a thing,
Speaker 1: this is a good opportunity. He's like, I don't want
Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck about it. And I was like,
Speaker 1: you're done, You're out fun, and I kicked him out.
Speaker 1: It was kind of up to me because he was
Speaker 1: like closer to me, but he was our friend. But
Speaker 1: I think that that if we hadn't have done that,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be sitting here today. Yeah, absolutely would not
Speaker 1: have worked. Dan would have packed up and walked away
Speaker 1: after that first tour. And yeah, but you know, I'm
Speaker 1: still in touch with Gabe and yeah, he hit a
Speaker 1: man called Gap Dream that was on Burger. During the
Speaker 1: time that you were you were working and you were
Speaker 1: playing in bars at night. What were you playing in
Speaker 1: a cover band or I was basically doing. I was
Speaker 1: playing three hour sets in coffee houses and bars, restaurants, solo, solo,
Speaker 1: as a duo, whatever they needed. I would just sort
Speaker 1: of musician, yeah, basically. Yeah, And that's what I was
Speaker 1: recording some band demos so that I could get band
Speaker 1: gigs at places like bars and can't stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So that's why I contacted Pat in the first place.
Speaker 1: We ended up. But yeah, no, that's I was playing
Speaker 1: three hour gigs four nights a week, and that was
Speaker 1: really mostly blues, blues, folk, sam cook just songs I liked.
Speaker 1: You know, most of the time people weren't even listening,
Speaker 1: you know. Sometimes would be acoustic, guitar depended. If I
Speaker 1: was playing like a brunch, I'd play acoustic. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was Dan was really good. I remember going to
Speaker 1: see him and being like, yeah, I mean, I'm lucky
Speaker 1: to be in a band with this motherfucker. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean it was a certain thing, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: but doing the doing the thing with Pat was different.
Speaker 1: Like I was making really good money as a musician, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and I was. He had like a he
Speaker 1: had like a new car. Yeah, I bought it myself,
Speaker 1: a nice minivan to gig in and but doing an
Speaker 1: original project is just different. And I was totally willing
Speaker 1: to go play bars in Cleveland for five dollars. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: that was being a musician and this was being an artist. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What we did to get this, to get it going
Speaker 1: so we could go on tour was I would actually
Speaker 1: play a couple of these like brunch gigs with him,
Speaker 1: just like barely touching the you know not. It was
Speaker 1: more like Dan just being like, yeah, I'll split this
Speaker 1: money with you so we can get this ship going.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, well you can help me
Speaker 1: mo lawns and I'll split that with you too. So
Speaker 1: he would be out there weed whacking. That's when I
Speaker 1: found out I was allergic to fresh grass clippings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were rather mowing lawns, but we had only had
Speaker 1: work in the in the hood, so most of the
Speaker 1: job was just like clearing the yard of forty ounce bottles.
Speaker 1: It was picking up forties and that was a long
Speaker 1: I mean, the guy was a slum word and I
Speaker 1: say that and like people like I don't be an asshole,
Speaker 1: Like well seriously, like all this shit just got condemned
Speaker 1: and sued by the city of Acron for not paying taxes.
Speaker 1: We looked after his places, but he did, he did.
Speaker 1: He did pay me one hundred and eighty dollars a
Speaker 1: week to mow like these postage stamp yards that were
Speaker 1: just littered with like cult forty five caps and abandoned lots.
Speaker 1: And that was the minivan that we used to do
Speaker 1: shows in, so it always smelled like gas. Yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about all of the ship that we've
Speaker 1: been through is is kind of it's fucking intense. But
Speaker 1: I do ultimately think that the long away from the
Speaker 1: South of France, well, well yeah, everyone's everyone's always everyone's
Speaker 1: like I want on vacation the summer South France, and
Speaker 1: everyone like our label presidents. Like I was, like I said,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh yeah, I think I like South
Speaker 1: of France more than huh, Tuscany. He's like, and I
Speaker 1: sound like the asshole. Yeah, but like, but to be fair,
Speaker 1: like twenty years of doing this shit, I got the
Speaker 1: fucking France for a couple of months. But I think
Speaker 1: that we I mean, I think that some of some
Speaker 1: of the simplest decisions are the things that got make
Speaker 1: it so that we were able to sit here eighteen
Speaker 1: years into this and talk to you, and one of
Speaker 1: them is kicking Gabe out of the band. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was the first decision. And don't forget I mean, I
Speaker 1: love this guy, you know what I mean, I do,
Speaker 1: But it's the fucking first great decision, second great decisions.
Speaker 1: Signed into Fat Possum, Yes, and it realized that Dan
Speaker 1: and I had an agreement, basically without an unspokenreement, that
Speaker 1: we would both put up with this ship. We basically
Speaker 1: signed up for like four years of remedial fucking rock
Speaker 1: and roll work. Right then We're like, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: to can pay our dues. But that led us to
Speaker 1: the fact that we by that we didn't hit like
Speaker 1: mainstream success till our sixth record, which I think there's
Speaker 1: the other great great accident, which is because if we
Speaker 1: would have had that ship on our second record, we
Speaker 1: would have imploded. We saw it happen like the first
Speaker 1: time we played a real, real, real gig, and we
Speaker 1: played La before this, but the first time we had
Speaker 1: a real gig here where people were going to come
Speaker 1: out just to see us was at the at the
Speaker 1: time it was called the not the Satellite, but I
Speaker 1: forget whatever it's called Satellite's It's Silver Lake. But we
Speaker 1: were our record release party for Thick Freakness and the
Speaker 1: opening band was Jet No one had ever heard of him,
Speaker 1: We never heard of him, and within within weeks they
Speaker 1: were like on the cover of Enemy. They were selling
Speaker 1: They sold millions of albums. They were headlining all the
Speaker 1: festivals that we were just doing the noon slots we
Speaker 1: were playing, like the small tent, they were headlining. And
Speaker 1: within a year of that, that was April eighth of
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, by Summer Sonic or whatever, Fuji
Speaker 1: Rock August to two thousand and four. We saw those
Speaker 1: guys one year in like three months. Those dudes were
Speaker 1: burned out. They were fucking done. We saw that happen
Speaker 1: a band go from nothing to the fucking biggest thing
Speaker 1: to then talk to them and then like fucking flamed
Speaker 1: flamed out. We're like fuck, man, We're like, fuck, we
Speaker 1: dodged that fucking ball, and we kept dodging. We then
Speaker 1: wolf Mother was opening up for us in London that
Speaker 1: that false false he thousand and four and boom, same shit.
Speaker 1: We're like fucking like, we're like basically human, like centipede,
Speaker 1: like dodging this shit like like, wh the fuck are
Speaker 1: we still doing this incredible? Yeah, it's like he was
Speaker 1: Centipede of that fucking scary German movie. I guess what
Speaker 1: I meant is we're remember like a missile command of
Speaker 1: finished motherfucker. You know, we've always we've always just done
Speaker 1: what we wanted to do. Yeah, you know what, by
Speaker 1: the sixth record, we'd made five records on our own,
Speaker 1: and we would want to recording a fucking studio for
Speaker 1: let's fill in the ditch. So the first three you
Speaker 1: said were pretty similar in the way you did it.
Speaker 1: First four, first four, and then what made five different
Speaker 1: five was that we were writing songs that we're going
Speaker 1: to be an Ike Turner comeback record, our Ike Turner
Speaker 1: record the whole the whole album. Even with the concept,
Speaker 1: your internal concept that was unspoken. No, it was spoken
Speaker 1: because Danger Mouse called us and said, I'm making a
Speaker 1: record with Ike Turner. You guys write the songs. You
Speaker 1: guys at the band, I'm going to produce. So we
Speaker 1: would go to dance. This is the first time Brian
Speaker 1: learned about songwriting royalties. Yea. So we would go to
Speaker 1: dance and make we recorded. We basically it's the last
Speaker 1: time we really made demos for an album. We basically
Speaker 1: made all these songs, and we after like two months
Speaker 1: of doing this, we finally get we got like two
Speaker 1: or three songs back. Last time or first time. I'm saying, like,
Speaker 1: we it's the last time, and it's probably the first time.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying it sounds like up till then, you
Speaker 1: didn't really do are all our records? Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: it is our first time. Yeah. Yeah, so it's the
Speaker 1: first time you recorded something that was not necessarily going
Speaker 1: to be your record. Yeah, is that right? Yes, So
Speaker 1: we took the exactly so we we we were waiting
Speaker 1: for this record to get done, and it was months
Speaker 1: and months of waiting and we're like, we can't sit
Speaker 1: around and wait for this ship. And I actually flew
Speaker 1: out to La we'd met Brian at Coachella that April
Speaker 1: of two thousand and seven, and I flew out here
Speaker 1: for like a weekend vacation in May, and I met
Speaker 1: up with Brian and without even asking, Dan was like,
Speaker 1: would you produce a record for us? Not scraped this idea?
Speaker 1: Take these songs and make a keys record. He's like,
Speaker 1: I would, I would love to do that, And I
Speaker 1: called Dan's do can we do this? You wanna do this?
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, fuck, let's do that. So Dan
Speaker 1: picked the studio. We did a record with Brian Attack
Speaker 1: and release and the whole concept it was that we
Speaker 1: were going to approach that record for the first time
Speaker 1: with total disregard of how we were going to perform
Speaker 1: the songs live. So we were gonna get to use
Speaker 1: all these keyboards that we bought, and we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to like not be afraid to make a bassline of
Speaker 1: prominent in a mix, all that kind of bullshit that
Speaker 1: we should have the fifth it's our fifth albums. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then Damn put out a solo record after that
Speaker 1: we made and then we got back in the studio
Speaker 1: and made this hip hop record which we were kind
Speaker 1: of focusing on cutting stuff like bass and drums, and
Speaker 1: it was a kind of more groove oriented, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was fun. It was for for the first time
Speaker 1: we were starting with bass and drums, and it changed,
Speaker 1: the dynamic changed it. But it was fun. It was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun and we went right from that.
Speaker 1: That was July two thousand and nine. So you would
Speaker 1: you would write a bass and drum track and then
Speaker 1: and then add guitar to it and add some melody
Speaker 1: and start see. But we did that in like June
Speaker 1: and July two thousand and nine, in all songs, does
Speaker 1: do the does the track come first and then the
Speaker 1: vocal ideas Sometimes it's simultaneous. Sometimes I've always got a
Speaker 1: vocal mic there to to try stuff. But we from
Speaker 1: working that way. We also booked We booked time at
Speaker 1: Muscle Shoals and we had an engineer from San Diego,
Speaker 1: Mark Neil, come out in August. Marks really eccentric dude
Speaker 1: from Georgia, highly intelligent, knows everything there is to know
Speaker 1: about old school recording, especially old school American recording, and
Speaker 1: he engineered all the stuff for us down there Muscle Shoals.
Speaker 1: The drums and we used his drums. He had beautiful
Speaker 1: grit strums and he only used like two or three
Speaker 1: mics on the drum kit. And what did you record
Speaker 1: at Muscle Shoals? What was it? Brothers Brothers August to
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, right after the hip hop record.
Speaker 1: We went down there and I think thinking of in
Speaker 1: terms of like these hip hop kind of groups. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were pumping out songs a day, a song a day,
Speaker 1: So you went into the studio without having material pre written, right,
Speaker 1: it wasn't anything there were We actually had a couple
Speaker 1: of songs that were we recorded a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: earlier at dance studio that those actually those versions all
Speaker 1: made the record, Like she's long gone, the ones from
Speaker 1: dance studio, the ones that were we did a dance studio.
Speaker 1: We just kept those recordings. We were just basically in
Speaker 1: the same headspace. We just we were like literally like
Speaker 1: it was a weird thing because we took the six
Speaker 1: months off for the first time in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I mean, I was like, but
Speaker 1: that was after like ten years, after like six or seven,
Speaker 1: eight years. But I was like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: this means dance making a solo record, and I need
Speaker 1: to be worried, like and then finally I was like, no,
Speaker 1: he just needs to do his own thing. And then
Speaker 1: it's like when we got back together, it was like
Speaker 1: we were we were better than we were before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I am I did fast forward to right now
Speaker 1: for a second, Like I feel like the last Night
Speaker 1: show was probably better than any show we've played a
Speaker 1: long time ago. I'm like, the break works, but we
Speaker 1: made Brothers in like in like ten days, we fucking
Speaker 1: end up this record. I'm like, and you know, songs
Speaker 1: like ten Cent Pistol or Sinister Kid. These things are
Speaker 1: like heavy fucking groups, unlike anything we'd done before. And
Speaker 1: are you still operating with the idea of of doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if you can play it live? Did it shift
Speaker 1: on the fifth album to just be that's the new
Speaker 1: standard on that touring? That fifth album was where it
Speaker 1: got a little hairy. Were like, some of these songs
Speaker 1: just didn't really work, Like that's a two piece, So
Speaker 1: when did you add When do you start adding people?
Speaker 1: On the Brothers tour, the first time we ever played
Speaker 1: was a four pieces at Madison Square Garden opening for
Speaker 1: Pearl Jam. We'd never played. We didn't do any warm up,
Speaker 1: like right out in front of twenty thousand people, you know, like,
Speaker 1: how want do you remember how how the show was?
Speaker 1: It was fine? I remember you know what I remember?
Speaker 1: I remember that. I remember the whole fucking place shaking backstage.
Speaker 1: Remember that when the crowd started to go crazy for
Speaker 1: Pearl Jam. It was the same day our record came out.
Speaker 1: That's what I remember. Brothers came out and we played
Speaker 1: Mass and Square Garden and then it was like a
Speaker 1: week later, we go to dinner at Cafe Jaton with
Speaker 1: the label and like, you know, very New York City
Speaker 1: thing to do, and there is nothing like your first
Speaker 1: show at Madison Square Garden. Now that's a real thrilling feeling.
Speaker 1: We'll be there with Pearl Jam. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: it was all overshadows for me because of this dinner
Speaker 1: we had a week later which was like our label
Speaker 1: president was like, you sold seventy three thousand records and
Speaker 1: I was like, what the fuck are you serious? I
Speaker 1: mean we were our previous records had sold like twenty
Speaker 1: and here's seventy three thousand. I was like what does
Speaker 1: that mean? Like, I don't know if people like it.
Speaker 1: And then the next week I just sold like fifty
Speaker 1: more and we're like fuck. About a month or two
Speaker 1: months later, it was still selling like twelve thousand copies
Speaker 1: a week. I was like, well, we have like a
Speaker 1: fucking hit record. We have like a fucking actual hit record.
Speaker 1: We had no radio play at this point, and then
Speaker 1: the songs are playing at radio and it was like, fuck,
Speaker 1: you know what the fuck just happened. This is what
Speaker 1: this album six, I like, this is it. We're like,
Speaker 1: we have a we have a fucking gold record, we
Speaker 1: have a fucking platinum record, We're playing the SNL, We're
Speaker 1: headlining fucking Coachella, Like all this shit just kind of
Speaker 1: started rolling, and that for me, it's just like a
Speaker 1: Schmere twenty ten to the time we play Outside Lands
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen. Yeah, we that we play that show
Speaker 1: and we just on break. Wow four years wow till
Speaker 1: last night. Wow we got we got back in the
Speaker 1: studio year eight year build up, eight years sort of yeah,
Speaker 1: working your way up. I meant a solid five year run.
Speaker 1: How many albums So Brothers After Brothers, Brothers, Alchemino, Turn Blue,
Speaker 1: so three albums and big tours. Each one of those
Speaker 1: records sold in the US. Well Brothers and Alchemino over
Speaker 1: two million in the US. I mean we sold like
Speaker 1: seven million records worldwide on those records. And then once again,
Speaker 1: without really even talking to each other, we just went
Speaker 1: on a break. There was no big plan. It was
Speaker 1: just short. It was it was just it was like
Speaker 1: Danny did a break, yeah, and I was like cool,
Speaker 1: you know, and we did it and then you know,
Speaker 1: there's points in that time where I was getting frustrated,
Speaker 1: like just like because it just didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 1: But you were producing other produ you were both producing,
Speaker 1: both busy. Yeah, it was more like we finally had
Speaker 1: this talk. It was like as I understood, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Dannis needs to do what he's gotta do. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all good, and this band is special enough that like
Speaker 1: we can't be doing it if it sucks, like for
Speaker 1: one of us, Like if it can't be doing if
Speaker 1: it's stressful and it's not fun. So the whole year
Speaker 1: we went back in the studio a year ago to
Speaker 1: start this record, and the whole part of the time
Speaker 1: we've been talking it's like, how do we do this?
Speaker 1: Do this band? So it's fun and so so we
Speaker 1: don't have to do ninety five shows a year and
Speaker 1: play the Spike TV Video Game Awards and all this
Speaker 1: dumb shit that people ask you to do. It's like,
Speaker 1: that doesn't that's a that's a waste of my day.
Speaker 1: Someone's willing to flush my day, and not just that day,
Speaker 1: like the day getting there, the day going home, just
Speaker 1: flushed a whole fucking week down. It's to play Spike
Speaker 1: TV Video Game Awards, you know what I mean, It's like,
Speaker 1: that's not what we're doing. So actually that's why we
Speaker 1: figured out a plan that I think has been working,
Speaker 1: which is like, don't even look at sound scan, don't
Speaker 1: fucking bundle anything. Play shows that are fun, make records
Speaker 1: are fun. And the only pressing our old friends out
Speaker 1: to play with us we've known for twenty years. It's
Speaker 1: beautiful and we're the only press we're really doing is
Speaker 1: like we did We're doing your podcast, we did the
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan podcast, we did a couple of interviews, and
Speaker 1: that that's fucking its album cycle for us. Yeah, it's perfect,
Speaker 1: sounds really healthy, and it sounds like it'll be fun
Speaker 1: to make music. You'll probably make more of it, and
Speaker 1: you'll do it for a longer time. That's the idea,
Speaker 1: and enjoy life. I think that the other step, the
Speaker 1: other step to it, is like figuring out that thing
Speaker 1: that we started this conversation with, which is how we
Speaker 1: could use our agency in the business to highlight other artists,
Speaker 1: which we've been trying to do for years. But I
Speaker 1: mean Dan and I, between the two of us, have
Speaker 1: worked on something like sixty albums. Wow, and no one
Speaker 1: knows that. Yeah, you know, I was like, that's I
Speaker 1: talk at our manager, like, that's a bit of a
Speaker 1: problem for us, Like when the person standing in the
Speaker 1: front of the show last night doesn't know one tenth
Speaker 1: of the music that Dan and I've made over the
Speaker 1: last eighteen years. And there's some good shit in there.
Speaker 1: But it applies to all of our friends in the
Speaker 1: music business who make records, and no one fucking knows.
Speaker 1: It's hard because it's hard to discover it. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I think that we're going to try to rather than spend,
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred and fifty days on the road,
Speaker 1: try to spend like, you know, fifty days on the
Speaker 1: road and spend one hundred days. I'm figuring out how
Speaker 1: to fix that. That's great, Yeah, beautiful. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Rick talks the Black Keys about some of their new songs.
Speaker 1: We're back with more of Rick's conversation with the Black Keys. Beautiful.
Speaker 1: Let's listen to a couple of songs on the new album.
Speaker 1: Do you want to make sure play play, play some
Speaker 1: and then we'll talk about them. So tell me the process,
Speaker 1: how that one come about? That one came about? We
Speaker 1: Pat wrote a drum machine over and it. It did
Speaker 1: a little you could kind of manipulate the drum machine,
Speaker 1: and but it also had a little kind of baseline
Speaker 1: that it did, like a little rhythm bass, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And it had a little foot control
Speaker 1: that would change major or minor. No, it was you
Speaker 1: could tell what it was. Yeah, And then I was
Speaker 1: playing bass with it. I mean I was changing major
Speaker 1: minor and Pat was manipulating the drum machine. Yeah, we both.
Speaker 1: I found this drum machine on Reverb. This is like
Speaker 1: a website. It's like kind of like eBay for musical
Speaker 1: instruments that it's kind of amazing. And I found this
Speaker 1: drum machine that I bought because it looks so ridiculous,
Speaker 1: called like an auto orchestra, and I was like, that's
Speaker 1: just the kind of thing that a song comes out of.
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's just the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: it will make a great song. So I brought it
Speaker 1: over to Dan's studio and I was like, fuck, Dan
Speaker 1: has the same fucking drum machine. I've never seen another one.
Speaker 1: I think the only other guy crazy enough to buy
Speaker 1: this ship is Dan. But only he didn't. He was
Speaker 1: missing the crucial component, which is this keyboard thing. So
Speaker 1: we hooked it up and that song kind of came
Speaker 1: out within like an hour, like the music, and that's
Speaker 1: the only song that has any sort of syn synthetic
Speaker 1: uh sound. You know. Everything else's organic, real bass, real guitar.
Speaker 1: There's no keyboards on the record except for that little pad.
Speaker 1: And then when did the vocal idea come that? That
Speaker 1: was all afterwards. I mean, it was just that started track.
Speaker 1: You built it, you know what. I played it from
Speaker 1: the start to the bottom without it an edit. I've
Speaker 1: just made We just made it. Yeah, it just popped
Speaker 1: right out. I had the intro and then the this
Speaker 1: is this feels like verse, it feels like second verse.
Speaker 1: Here's my turnaround and I'm just thinking and playing and
Speaker 1: it's this is a live take. And then I just
Speaker 1: started to layer the instruments on it and it just
Speaker 1: kind of popped in there. So cool. You don't play
Speaker 1: one of the live more live tracks, this is one.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play this one this because it's one of
Speaker 1: my favorites. It's one of my favorites on the record.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if anybody else even likes it.
Speaker 1: It's just here we go under it's called under the gun.
Speaker 1: How did that one happen? Guitar and drums, guitar and
Speaker 1: drums and vocal and just through jamming. Yeah, it just arrived.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we had this turn. Dan has played the
Speaker 1: this kind of kinksy reminded me of the King said
Speaker 1: do do Do Do Do? But actually I think, I
Speaker 1: don't know, reminds me a few different things. But it
Speaker 1: just was to me, it was it kind of complicated
Speaker 1: the song because it was to me it was such
Speaker 1: a hook that we at one point we had it
Speaker 1: like fifteen times in the song and then we kind
Speaker 1: of cut it back. I still don't I don't know.
Speaker 1: I love it. I think it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's like it's it's the second to last song
Speaker 1: on the record, and you can just go to prove
Speaker 1: that most people don't listen to the whole albums. That
Speaker 1: was the first song that probably would have been to me,
Speaker 1: it would have been a single. Cool. I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: I play I said it to our our person that
Speaker 1: does radio. I think that checked it out might be
Speaker 1: a good single. No, no response like good. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, what the fuck do we know?
Speaker 1: Thanks to Dan and Patrick with the Black Keys for
Speaker 1: spending time with us at Broken Record. The new album
Speaker 1: Let's Rock is out now. You can check out more
Speaker 1: of the new record by visiting Broken Record podcast dot
Speaker 1: com and subscribeing to our playlist for the episode. You
Speaker 1: can also sign up for our behind the scenes newsletter
Speaker 1: while you're there. Broken Record is produced with help from
Speaker 1: Jason Gambrell and me LaBelle. Our theme music is by
Speaker 1: the great Kenny Beats. Stay tuned for next week's episode
Speaker 1: with Leonard Cohen's son Adam as he talks about his
Speaker 1: late father's new abum. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.