#1815 - The Black Keys

Dan Auerbach (0:13)

What's up, gentlemen?

Joe Rogan (0:14)

What's up?

Patrick Carney (0:14)

Good to see you.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

Great to see you guys. First of all, before we even get started, your fucking new album is fantastic.

Patrick Carney (0:19)

Thank you, thank you.

Joe Rogan (0:20)

I listened to it at the gym this morning. In fact, right before I got here, it was fucking good, man. It's classic Black Keys. It's so good. You guys consistently make just fucking banging music.

It's so good.

It's so consistent. How the fuck are you guys so consistent?

Patrick Carney (0:39)

You know, we learned to play together, you know, 20, 23 years ago.

I like literally started playing drums with him because before that I was playing guitar. And I guess we just learned how to play together. We have this kind of dynamic. And I think we also have the very similar taste. It's all kind of very, it's very, I believe in fate after meeting, after this existence we have. Because if it weren't for us growing up a few houses down from each other, we would have never met. And we've become, you know, like, literally like brothers. We have this, we're like, our first record came out 20 years ago this week.

And we've been doing this thing. And it's kind of feels like a dream, you know, when I think back about all the shit we've been through. And but as far as the consistency, it's like we've always been on the same pace. We just wanted to, we were like fascinated with albums. We wanted to make records.

And we were like, you know, two dorks living around the corner from each other who have these things called four tracks, you know, like a little cassette.

And you could record four different sounds.

Dan Auerbach (1:45)

I didn't have one. The first time I saw one was at Pat's.

Patrick Carney (1:48)

I had, yeah, I had one.

Dan Auerbach (1:49)

He blew my mind, man. It was so cool.

Patrick Carney (1:51)

You could like record guitar, vocal.

Joe Rogan (1:52)

What year is this about?

Patrick Carney (1:53)

Just about 97

And then we would like fuck around on our four track. And I would take it over to his house, his parents' house, and we'd like set microphones up in the bathroom and to get different sounds.

Dan Auerbach (2:05)

He just sat on the toilet, put the drums in front of him, use the toilet as the seat.

Patrick Carney (2:10)

And we would just have fun. And then, you know, like around 2000 and it was 2001, it was like right around 9-11. I had bought this digital 12-track recorder and it was a big deal because it cost like $1000. And I went into debt and I ran into Dan right around then. We were both like 21 And I told him about it and he's like, you should come record my band. He had a bar band. And so I told him to come over and the other dudes just never showed up. And so I was there with this recorder and he's like, you should just play the drums, which I didn't really play.

And so we set up the mics and he showed me the songs and we recorded them real quick.

And then I spent a couple of days mixing it, gave him the CDR and he's like, dude, we should start a band.

And we had this friend, our parents had met this guy, like Dan's dad's like a folk art dealer, antiques dealer. And he had discovered this artist in Akron named Alfred McMoore, who was schizophrenic and other things. And his dad used to buy him these scrolls of 50 foot long, 5 foot wide paper. And this guy would do these crazy crayon and pencil drawings on them. Dan's father would sell them for a couple hundred bucks and give the money to this dude.

And he would keep a scroll or two for himself here and there. But this guy, my dad then was a newspaper journalist and would write stories about this guy. So this guy, Alfred McMoore, used to call our parents' houses all the time. And we would come home from school and we'd have these messages like, this is Alfred McMoore. If you don't bring me some pipe tobacco or some Diet Coke, you're D flat. You're a black key. We'd have hundreds of these messages sometimes. And it was like a complete inside joke. So when Dan's like, we should name the band, we should start a band. I was like, we're The Black Keys. It was like within a second, we named the band, we sent this thing off, and we got this record deal. And then we got this record deal with a small little label.