The Black Keys: The Fresh Air Interview.

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..DATE:
20110131
..PGRM:
Fresh Air
..TIME:
12:00-13:00 PM
..NIEL:
N/A
..NTWK:
NPR
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The Fresh Air Interview: The Black Keys

TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

The Grammy Awards ceremony is February 13th. My guests are the members
of The Black Keys. The band is nominated for four Grammys for its latest
album, "Brothers," including Best Alternative Rock Album and Best Rock
Song. "Brothers" was Rolling Stone's number two album of the year and
iTunes Album of the Year.

The Black Keys performed on the season opener of "Saturday Night Live."
A lot of their listeners were introduced to their music through TV
commercials. Their songs have been used on ads for Cadillac, Victoria
Secret, Zales and Sony Ericsson phones. Their song "Chop and Change" was
used on the soundtrack of "Twilight Saga: Eclipse." Their song "I'll Be
Your Man" is the theme on the HBO series "Hung."

Patrick Carney is The Black Keys' drummer. Dan Auerbach is the lead
singer and guitarist. They both play other instruments as well. Before
we meet them, here's "Tighten Up," the one nominated for Best Rock Song.
It was also used in a Subaru commercial.

(Soundbite of song, "Tighten Up")

Mr. DAN AUERBACH (Musician, The Black Keys): (Singing) I wanted love, I
needed love most of all, most of all. Someone said true love was dead,
and I'm bound to fall, bound to fall for you. Oh, what can I do? Yeah.

Take my badge, but my heart remains loving you, baby child. Tighten up
on your reigns, you're running wild, running wild, it's true.

GROSS: That's "Tighten Up," from The Black Keys' new album "Brothers."
Patrick Carney, Dan Auerbach, welcome to FRESH AIR. I really like the
album. Thank you so much for coming.

So, you know, a lot of your songs have really good hooks, and in the
song we just heard, "Tighten Up," there's that great, like, four-beat
drum break that's really catchy. Do you both like hooks a lot in music?

Mr. PATRICK CARNEY (Musician, The Black Keys): Yeah, we like really
repetitive hooks, usually.

GROSS: Because?

Mr. CARNEY: I don't know. I mean, that's what Dan and I grew up
listening to is just kind of - I guess Dan grew up listening to, you
know, blues, and I grew up listening to, like, classic rock, but we both
kind of bonded mostly over, like, Wu Tang samples. They have, like,
hooks of Stax Records and, you know, old soul records.

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah, the, you know, really simple kind of hooks that
become hypnotic, you know, when you start to do the simple thing over
and over again, and then it just gets ingrained in your mind and draws
you in. That's the kind of thing we've always been into.

GROSS: So which did you hear, your original soul and Stax Record tracks
that The RZA and other people sampled, or did you hear the samples
first, and did that send you back to the tracks?

Mr. AUERBACH: We both heard the soul first, I think. You know, Pat -
both my dad and Pat's dad played us all the Stax records and all of that
good stuff. And I think just subconsciously when we heard productions
that RZA did, it just - we immediately were drawn to it. And we didn't
really know until later that - well, I think some of the reason why was
because he was sampling some of those old, great soul records that we'd
grown up listening to, you know.

GROSS: Now, your newest album, "Brothers," is nominated for a Grammy in
the - it's nominated for four Grammys, but one of them is the
Alternative Rock category. And Stephen Colbert had you on for a really
funny sketch, where you and Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend was on, and
the premise was that since Stephen Colbert had won a Grammy, he was
eligible to be a Grammy voter.

So he was trying to figure out who to vote for, and he was having a hard
time deciding who to vote for in the Alternative Rock category. So he
said: Remember, this is the alternative category. So the only way to
determine which alternative band has the more edgy, non-commercial
appeal is to find out which one has their songs in more commercials.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: And then you and Vampire Weekend had to do a sell-out-off and see
which band's music was used on more commercials or, as he put it later,
who had whored themselves more.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: So it was a really funny sketch. So name some of the commercials
that your records have been used on, the song and the commercial it
matches with.

Mr. CARNEY: Let's see. "Tighten Up" was on a Subaru commercial. I think
it was also used in a Molson beer ad in Canada. "Next Girl" off this
record is in a Cadillac commercial, and so is "Howlin' For You." I don't
know. We've done a bunch. We've probably done 25 pretty big TV ads, I
guess. And in addition to that, we've done lots of movies, as well.

GROSS: How did that start that your music started getting used in
commercials?

Mr. CARNEY: Well, the first offer we ever had to have a song in a
commercial was from an English mayonnaise company, and they offered us a
lot of money.

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah, it was a lot of money.

Mr. CARNEY: It was crazy money, especially at the time. It was insane.
And we were advised...

Mr. AUERBACH: We were touring, but, you know, you've got to keep in mind
that we were touring in a minivan, just the two of us, at that point,
driving back and forth across America and touring the same way in
Europe, you know, just a little minivan.

And we got this offer for more money than, you know, both of our parents
make a year, combined. And yeah, we got this offer.

Mr. CARNEY: And we were advised by our, like, old manager that it wasn't
enough money, and we risk the, you know, there's a likelihood that by
taking that ad, we could alienate all of our fan base in England –
which, at the time, was maybe 5,000 people - and ruin our career and
come off as, you know, a sellout corporate rock band.

And we're hearing this, seriously, while we're driving around in a 1994
Plymouth Grand Voyager that smells like pee, which is another story in
itself.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CARNEY: And, you know, going home to our, you know, modest
apartments. And we were scared. We were 23 years old. We didn't know
what to do. So we passed on it.

And, you know, more offers came in, and they were passed on. And, you
know, at a certain point, we just were, like, why don't we do one and
see what happens, you know, because it was getting really difficult to
just let - you know, it was more money than we were making on a whole
year of touring for, like, one ad, at the time.

GROSS: So what's the one you first said yes to?

Mr. CARNEY: It was a Nissan ad, I believe.

GROSS: And the song was?

Mr. CARNEY: The song was "Set You Free."

GROSS: So what do you think all these people who wanted to use your
music in their ads heard in your music that seemed right to them?

Mr. CARNEY: Well, I mean, we did - you know, we basically have a
backwards subliminal track that we just name brands.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CARNEY: It's fixed very low.

Mr. AUERBACH: We have no idea. We have no idea. People have asked us
that before, and we really don't know. All we know is that it's helped
us immensely. You know, before "Tighten Up," we'd never had a real song
on the radio. We'd never had a song regularly played on rock radio. And
we just, we didn't have that support, and getting these songs in
commercials was almost like having your song in a radio.

I think we had "I'll Be Your Man" on - it was on an HBO show, it's a
theme song for "Hung," and that was off our very first record, and all
of a sudden, people, when we went out on the road, would light up when
they heard that song. And it was the craziest feeling, you know, like
that record was how many years ago, and all of a sudden, people are
starting to react to this song because they heard it on TV.

And we figured it must be what it's like to have your song on the radio,
and, you know, so we're still sort of picky, but we do think that it's
just - we only benefit from it.

GROSS: There's something that seems sad to me that radio is in such
shape that to get heard, you have to have your song in a commercial
because it's not going to get played on the radio. It's sad.

Mr. CARNEY: Well, you know, I mean, it's been that way for a long time.
That's one of the reasons why we kind of agreed to start doing these
ads, is some of my favorite bands were kind of, you know, were doing
this. And, like, Modest Mouse did a Nissan ad, and The Shins did a
McDonald's ad, and I didn't lose any respect for those bands.

And I think, you know, I understood why they were doing it, and this is
before we even really started the band.

GROSS: So let's hear one of the songs on the new album that's also been
used in a commercial. This is "Next Girl," and I think this is in a
Subaru commercial, right?

Mr. CARNEY: Cadillac, I think.

GROSS: Cadillac, okay, and I think they use just the music in this, not
the...

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah, there's no vocals.

GROSS: Not the vocals. But - so before we hear it, what's the difference
between the mood that you were creating in your minds when you wrote and
performed the song and the mood of the commercial?

Mr. CARNEY: I think we both wanted to murder people when we were making
the song, to be honest.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CARNEY: This is the first track we recorded for "Brothers," and it's
weird that they're using it to sell cars, but it's good, I guess, in
some way – I suppose.

I don't know why people pick certain things, but, you know, it's -
whatever.

GROSS: Well, it's a song that's very angry at an ex-girlfriend. So - you
wrote the song together?

Mr. CARNEY: Dan wrote the lyrics, and we wrote the music together.

GROSS: So Dan, what was on your mind when you wrote the lyrics?

Mr. AUERBACH: Well, the chorus is my next girl will be nothing like my
ex-girl. I made mistakes back then. I'll never do it again. And that
pretty much sums up the tune.

GROSS: Okay, and I guess I shouldn't bring up Patrick's acrimonious
separation shortly before the song was written.

Mr. AUERBACH: You know, I didn't write it - I wrote it before his
breakup, and it wasn't about his breakup, but it did just happen to be
the first song we recorded for the session, and he had just broken up,
and it was just sort of - you know, it was a good cleansing moment for
Pat, you know. It got him into the mood to get into the session for the
rest of the week.

GROSS: Okay, well, I'll just think about expensive cars when I hear
this.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah, I mean, that's really what we were thinking about.

GROSS: Absolutely. So this is "Next Girl." This is The Black Keys from
their latest album "Brothers."

(Soundbite of song, "Next Girl")

THE BLACK KEYS: (Singing) Well, the look of the cake, it ain't always
the taste. My ex-girl, she had such a beautiful face. I wanted love but
not for myself but for the girl so she could love herself.

Oh, my next girl will be nothing like my ex-girl. I made mistakes back
then. I'll never do it again. With my next girl, she'll be nothing like
my ex girl. It was a painful dance. Now I got a second chance,

GROSS: That's The Black Keys from their latest album, "Brothers," which
is nominated for four Grammys.

So did any of your fans accuse you of being sellouts when you started
doing, giving companies permission to use your songs in their
commercials?

Mr. CARNEY: We've been accused by a lot of 17-year-old boys of being
sellouts lately on Facebook I've noticed. But, you know, I mean, you get
that, especially in - you know, I mean, a lot of people, they see a
Nissan ad, they see a finished product in a record store on iTunes.

They see our promo pictures, and, like, you know, that's the face of the
band. What they don't see is, you know, that we made that record in a
cinderblock building in the middle of nowhere in Alabama with five
microphones and a guitar amp and a drum set.

And I don't know how less of a sellout - you know, I don't know what
that means, exactly, but I do know we didn't spend a lot of money making
this record, and we - it's an honest way of approaching making music.

And, you know, once the music is out there, you know, when you're
selling, you know, selling a record, and you're selling music, and
people are going to do whatever they want with it, and it's kind of -
you know, it's kind of hard to sometimes resist certain opportunities,
especially in the market now, the record market.

GROSS: My guests are Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys.
We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guests are the members of the band The Black Keys, singer and
guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney. Their album
"Brothers" is nominated for four Grammys.

Well, I have a very probing question for you. You had mentioned earlier
that you were earlier spending a lot of time driving around in your
minivan doing concerts, and the minivan was really old, and it smelled
like pee. And you said there is a story behind that. So let's hear it.

Mr. CARNEY: Oh, you want that story?

GROSS: Yeah, I want to hear the pee story.

Mr. AUERBACH: That's from Seattle, right?

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah, that's - our first tour ever, we kind of got this,
like, mercenary booking agent to book a tour as a favor to...

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah, by the end of the tour, the booking agent was in
hiding.

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah, seriously.

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah, okay, go ahead with the story.

Mr. CARNEY: So he booked us this tour as a favor to this guy,
Patrick(ph), that put out our first record. And, you know, my dad helped
me buy this $4,000 minivan, and we got in the van with my brother,
Michael(ph), and we drove around the country playing a three-week tour.

So part of the deal was we had no money. So we couldn't afford hotels or
anything, and we didn't know anybody, really. So we couldn't stay on
floors. So we were basically living in this car.

So I think it was about the seventh show of the tour, we played Seattle,
Washington, and, I mean, there's a lot of other interesting stories to
this tour. This tour is a nightmare on a lot of levels.

But we play Seattle, and it's the first show we've ever played where
more than, like, 25 people show up at. There's like 150 people at this
show. And we are, like, really excited and...

Mr. AUERBACH: It was amazing, a place called Chop Suey, right?

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah, we were really excited. I remember we got an envelope
with, like, $500 in it, and, you know, that was, like, so much money. It
was going to pay for gas for the rest of the tour.

So anyway, my brother and Dan got invited to go to this party, and there
was nowhere to park the van. So I decided I would, like, sleep, be the -
sleep in the van and guard the van.

Mr. AUERBACH: And guard the money.

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah, outside of this bar that we just played. And there's
another bar next to it called the Manhole(ph), I believe. So anyway, I'm
holding the money, I'm, like, sleeping. I wake up, and it's like 2:30 in
the morning, and I have to pee so bad.

And I look out the window, and there are, like, 30 guys in Santa Claus
outfits.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CARNEY: I'm so terrified. I have no idea what was going on. So I try
to pee in this cup, and it doesn't really work out that well. I get it
all over the van, and I just - and I try calling Dan on our cell phone,
and he didn't pick up. I had no idea what to do. So I just fell back
asleep.

And the next day, I told him about this, and they - I think they thought
I was on PCP, and then we realized that it was July 25th the previous
day. So it was, like, some - what was happening was it was Christmas in
July at a gay bar.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CARNEY: So that's what was going on.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: OK, hence the odor in the car.

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah.

Mr. AUERBACH: Oh yeah, and that's what the car smelled.

Mr. CARNEY: I mean, this story is - this basically, this is an epic.
This is, like, "The Odyssey" of rock bands. The next day, we end up in
Portland, Oregon, and we played a show to - we've never played show to
less people ever. No one showed...

Mr. AUERBACH: It was disgusting.

Mr. CARNEY: No one shows up except for a drunk couple shows up halfway
through the show. But the opening band warns us, like, do not go into
the parking lot, don't talk to anybody here. It's really dangerous.
There's lots of drugs around here.

We're like: Okay, cool. Fifteen minutes after they tell us that, we
catch them buying, like, meth in the parking lot, and they get ripped
off, and three members of this band jump out of the car and start
chasing down a meth dealer. So yeah, every single...

Mr. AUERBACH: It was sort of like that in every city.

Mr. CARNEY: Every single city.

GROSS: Oh, gosh, that sounds - it sounds like not the life you aspire to
when you want to be in a rock band.

Mr. CARNEY: It was so much fun, to be honest. That tour was so much fun,
because...

Mr. AUERBACH: We stayed in a hostel in Vancouver, and the guy staying in
the room next to us had a giant ball of hashish in his hand that he
spent all day and night smoking.

Mr. CARNEY: We saw him in the morning, and it was softball-size, and we
saw him after the show at midnight, and it was like ping-pong-ball-
sized.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CARNEY: And we were in Vancouver. It's kind of - you know, I don't
really touch the stuff, but that night, I did, and I seriously just
sweat completely through the sleeping bag, almost crying, trying to
convince my brother and Dan that we were going to get murdered by this
guy.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CARNEY: And if you picture the room, have you ever seen the movie
"Take the Money and Run"?

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. CARNEY: Like, Woody Allen's apartment with the water stains and,
like, the sink hanging off the wall, that was the room we stayed in, and
they were just - there were, like, all these guys staying in there just
to smoke weed. It was $10 a day to sleep there, and everyone was just
hanging out just so they could get so high that, like, they thought the
TV was talking to them.

GROSS: Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys will be back in
the second half of the show. Their album "Brothers" is nominated for
four Grammys. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with the band The Black
Keys. Their album "Brothers" is nominated for four Grammys including
Best Alternative Rock Album and Best Rock Song. It was Rolling Stones
number two Album of the Year. Songs of The Black Keys have been used in
several TV ads and their song "I'm Your Man" is the theme of the HBO
series "Hung." Dan Auerbach is the leader and guitarist, Patrick Carney
is the drummer. On this track, "I'm Not The One," Auerbach also plays
organ and Carney also plays Mellotron.

(Soundbite of song, "I'm Not The One")

Mr. AUERBACH: (Singing) I've been tried and I've been tested. I was born
tired. I never got rested. Harder than marble stone. I'm better off,
better off left alone. 'Cause I'm not the one. No not the one. You
wanted it all, but I give you, give you none. So I'm not the one.

GROSS: That's The Black Keys from their latest album "Brothers," and my
guests are the members of the band, Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach.

I really like the lyric, I've been tried and I've been tested. I was
born tired and I never got rested.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: I like the idea of being born tired. Great line. And speaking of
tired, you know, you were talking about that crazy tour that you were on
years ago and you recently canceled her tour of Australia, saying that
you were just too exhausted, that you've been doing too much touring.
That must've been a really hard to see unless you'd sold absolutely no
tickets, which I doubt. It's really hard to cancel a show.

Mr. CARNEY: My uncle said that the reward for good work is more work,
and then it keeps piling on. And basically what happened is our tour was
supposed to stop in mid-November. And early October, our management
company asked us to add a bunch of shows, to Disney's Christmas shows
for radio stations in the U.S. because our "Tighten Up" was doing so
well. And, you know, being the first time we've ever been played on the
radio we felt like it was necessary for us to go do that. And then
during that process adding two and a half weeks of touring, we also got
offered "SNL" and we got offered "The Colbert Report" and "Letterman."

So there's what was supposed to be a three-week break for us to like
catch up and see our family and to get situated in Nashville, which we
just moved to, it turned into a just a solid six weeks of work. And the
day before we were supposed to leave for Australia we got snowed into
New York City and we basically realized that we were probably going to
have a nervous breakdown if we didn't get to go home and like see our
own, you know, things for a minute.

GROSS: Sometimes you have to reach a point where you feel like you're
about to get so sick that you have to say no or you're already so sick
that you have to say, no I can't do it. Did you allow it to reach that
point where you physically just couldn't go through with it?

Mr. AUERBACH: Well, we've gotten to that point before so canceling this
tour was just us knowing that it was going to get like that, you know?

GROSS: Right.

Mr. AUERBACH: And in the ling run everyone benefits from us canceling
and rescheduling, you know, because if we go down there, the show
suffers, everybody's mood suffers, everything kind of suffers, you know,
and it's best to be rested and good to go when you go on tour.

GROSS: So on your website, on the band's website, The Black Keys
website, you have your videos. And I guess I'm wondering who are the
videos for now? MTV whole shows of videos. I don't know if anybody does
it on TV? Is it a website phenomenon now?

Mr. AUERBACH: I don't know. We have no idea.

Mr. CARNEY: We don't know.

GROSS: Okay.

Mr. AUERBACH: We really have no clue.

Mr. CARNEY: It's actually...

Mr. AUERBACH: We asked our manager the same thing every time we make a
video.

GROSS: Like why bother?

Mr. AUERBACH: What are these really for?

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. AUERBACH: But they still play videos in Austria and in, you know,
the UK and, you know, the Internet. We, yeah, we don't know.

GROSS: So...

Mr. CARNEY: I think maybe the main point of the videos it's like kind of
like a, you know, we're just doing it to help support filmmakers get the
break.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah, that's pretty much it.

GROSS: So one of the videos, the one for "Next Girl," has a
disclaimer...

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah.

GROSS: ...rolling at a crawl beneath, you know, at the bottom the screen
and the crawl basically says this is not the official video. It's an
attempt by the record label to attract attention to the band. The label
thinks it's hilarious. The Black Keys hate this. It's demeaning to the
song. And you want to describe the video?

Mr. CARNEY: Well, that tag at the bottom is something that Dan wrote
because that is exactly how we felt about that video.

(Soundbite of clearing throat)

Mr. AUERBACH: They needed a video and they wanted a video and the guy at
Warner Brothers hired his friend to do this quick video, and they used a
dinosaur puppet with a bunch of girls in bikinis beside a pool, and the
puppet is lip-synching, the words, you know, me singing and they sent us
like, here you go. Can we...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. AUERBACH: Can we get your approval on this? And we were like
absolutely not. It's first of all, it's not funny. It's stupid, you
know, and it's obviously demeaning to, you know, our music that we love
and...

GROSS: It's a powerful song and...

Mr. AUERBACH: So, I...

GROSS: It's such a kind of like angry song about a girl who's...

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah. Absolutely.

GROSS: ...been really bad to you and you're never going to let it happen
again.

Mr. AUERBACH: Absolutely.

GROSS: It's a moody song and you have this like dinosaur puppet leering
at these girls in bikinis who are riding around in sexy poses and it's
just silly.

Mr. AUERBACH: I know.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. AUERBACH: It was so weird that the major labels is not thoughtful to
that, you know, because they usually are. But so we, I just said can I,
you know, can I put a little tag at the bottom? You know, that's the
only way I'll let that happen. And they're like okay. Let see what you
want to put down there. And I wrote that, all that stuff, you know, and
it was just completely dissing the entire video. I figured they'd say
okay, we'll come up with a different idea. And then they did it. And
they put it on the bottom and they let it slide. So I thought that was
like the only way that video was passable at all.

GROSS: That's funny. So they did so...

Mr. CARNEY: And we know the guy who did the video. He's a really nice
guy.

Mr. AUERBACH: He's a really nice guy.

GROSS: So what about in Australia? When they played on TV does it have
your disclaimer on it?

Mr. CARNEY: No.

Mr. AUERBACH: That's permanent on every – everywhere.

GROSS: Oh really?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah.

GROSS: My guests Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys.

We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guests are the members of band The Black Keys. Singer and
guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney. Their album
"Brothers" is nominated for four Grammys.

Let's hear another song from your latest album. And I want to play
"Howlin" for you. And this is a very blues-based song. And I'm wondering
if you were influenced in this by Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters?

Mr. AUERBACH: Gary Glitter.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. AUERBACH: Seriously.

Mr. CARNEY: Seriously.

GROSS: Seriously? Really?

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah.

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah. This is "Rock 'n Roll Part Eight."

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah. I mean...

GROSS: Okay. Make the connection for me.

Mr. AUERBACH: Play the drums.

(Soundbite of Mr. Carney making drums sounds)

Mr. AUERBACH: I mean, I mean that's sort of what we - that's what turned
us on in the beginning and then we just built a song around it.

(Soundbite of clearing throat)

Mr. AUERBACH: I had the verses and I had this really kind of thin
tremolo guitar sound that I wanted to use and we put this again, this is
one of those songs you just put together really quickly and it turned
out really fun.

GROSS: So this is "Howlin" for you from The Black Keys latest album
which is called "Brothers."

(Soundbite of song, "Howlin' For You")

Mr. AUERBACH: (Singing) All right. Yeah. Well, I must admit. I. I can't
explain any of these thoughts racing through my brain. It's true. Baby
I'm howlin' for you.

All right. There's something wrong with this plot. The actors here have
not got a clue. Baby I'm howlin' for you.

Da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da,
da. Da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da.

Mockingbird, can't you see. The little girl's got a hold on me like
glue. Baby I'm howlin' for you.

GROSS: That's "Howlin' For You," from The Black Keys latest album
"Brothers." And the album is nominated for four Grammys. And my guests
are the members of the band Dan Auerbach, who sings and plays guitar and
Patrick Carney, who is the drummer and they co-write the songs.

Now, this latest album was produced at the Muscle Shoals Studio in
Alabama. Was it the history of that studio that made you want to go
there to record?

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah. I wanted to go to an old studio. I had a few that
were on the list and one of them was Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis.
There was Robin Hood Bryan's studio in Tyler, Texas. And I guess we sort
of got talked out of those ones and talked into going to Muscle Shoals
Sound. It was an experience for sure. I mean I'm into the old studios
but it wasn't like we were trying to make a throwback record.

GROSS: So do you feel like you got a special sound from being at Muscle
Shoals?

Mr. AUERBACH: No. Absolutely not. I don't think we did.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Really?

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah. Because when we got there, it's the same building,
but all of the treatment had been ripped out. There was none of the same
equipment. It didn't resemble anything. He didn't have any of those same
microphones. Nothing. So it was pretty much just like a location
recording. We brought our own equipment and that was it.

Mr. CARNEY: It's like, you know, when you see an old Wendy's it's a
Chinese restaurant now?

GROSS: Mm-hmm. Yup.

Mr. CARNEY: Or an old? Yeah, it's that.

Mr. AUERBACH: It's pretty much what it was like.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. AUERBACH: And that was it, you know, and we've kind of realized We
can make it happen wherever we go. I mean it was, it might've been
inspirational the first time we walked through the doors but then it
wasn't pretty much immediately.

GROSS: You have your own studio now but you started recording in your
own basement.

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah. We started recording in my basement.

GROSS: Oh, Patrick in your basement?

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah. I had this like this fascination with four track
recorders when I was in high school. And that's how, that's how, that's
kind of how the band started, was Dan was just starting to play guitar
and I was just starting to kind of get into like this four track
recorder I had bought. And he knew that I had a drum set which I
couldn't play. And our brothers like kind of encouraged to get together
and jam.

So he used to come over to my basement and we would like just record I
don't know even what you would call it but just jams on a four track and
that was like in high school. That was in the mid-90s. And we didn't
play for years, just occasionally here and there. And then one day in
like August 2001, I had bought this like little digital recorder and Dan
was going to do some recording with this other band he was playing with
and he came over and the rest of the band didn't show up. And we decided
to just record some stuff anyway. And that turned into – that day we
made a six song demo basically and we sent it around a couple weeks
later and got our first record deal. That's...

GROSS: What was on the demo? Was it originals?

Mr. CARNEY: It was a...

Mr. AUERBACH: It was rip-offs of old blues songs. Really basically just
taking like, you know, stuff that I was listening to trying to figure
out on guitar. Just sort of aping that stuff and adding lyrics and
nonsensical things. And then us being completely obsessed with RZA, we
were throwing samples on. It was kind of a mish-mush. It didn't make a
lot of sense but we got a record deal from it, which was crazy.

GROSS: So when you formed the band how did you decide to name it The
Black Keys?

Mr. CARNEY: That's the name comes from this guy named Alfred McMoore was
a schizophrenic artist, who Dan's dad had met and had been helping him
sell some of these scrolls that he made. He would make like five foot
wide by 50-foot-long scrolls with pen and - or of pencil and crayon. And
they were, like, really bizarre, continuous drawings of, like, cross-
dressing policewomen, or police officers that were, like, pumping gas
into a motorcycle that, you know, the gas pump was like a really ornate
street light. And then there'd be, like, a casket, and then Jesus would
be playing the electric guitar. And they would flow into each other and
it was, you know, extremely genius-type stuff.

And my dad works for the local paper in Akron, the Akron Beacon Journal.
So Dan's father told my dad about Alfred, and my dad wrote a story about
Alfred. So both of our fathers were in contact with this guy, and he
would call both of our home phones when we were in high school,
sometimes 30 times a day, and leave messages.

And the message would be like I need a Diet Coke and pipe tobacco. If
you don't bring me this, I'll be really upset. I'll be really upset. And
then he'll call back a second later and leave another message, you know,
like, Jim Carney, you're a black key. You're a black key. You should
have brought your D flat. You should have brought me the pipe tobacco.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CARNEY: So every day, we would get home from school, we didn't
really – I didn't really know who he was. I would just get, playing the
answering machine, and it would be 50 messages of insanity.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah.

Mr. CARNEY: And then my dad took me to meet him, and...

Mr. AUERBACH: It all makes sense.

Mr. CARNEY: It all makes sense. But so Dan and I had - we both had this
kind of inside joke of being called black keys by Alfred McMoore. So
that's where the name comes from.

GROSS: Okay. Well, I thought we could end with - since I know you both
like the RZA a lot and he's been really influential in your musical
thinking, I thought I'd play something that you collaborated with him
on. And you have an album called "Blakroc," which is a collaboration
between The Black Keys and several rappers. And this is a collaboration
with you and RZA. Would you talk about this track and what you think you
brought out in each other?

Mr. CARNEY: Well, he showed up at the studio. We were recording in the
Lower East Side of Manhattan, and he showed up, and it was – I mean, I
couldn't even speak to him, I was so nervous. And...

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah. It was weird.

Mr. CARNEY: He was, like - first thing he did was pick up the electric
guitar and started doing the weirdest thing, which is the basis of the
song. He started doing the weirdest thing I'd ever heard and...

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah, we were listening to it, like, oh, man. What is he
doing?

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah.

Mr. CARNEY: We had no idea.

Mr. CARNEY: But it was pure genius.

Mr. AUERBACH: It was pure genius. He comes in, and he talks to the
engineer, and he's like, yeah, that little part right there. And they
splice it out, and he loops it. And all of a sudden, it's like a
masterpiece.

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. AUERBACH: And we were dumbfounded, you know? And it's sort of why
he's who he is. He's just absolutely amazing.

GROSS: And did...

Mr. CARNEY: He's so fun to talk to, too.

Mr. AUERBACH: And he's a - yeah. He's the nicest guy.

Mr. CARNEY: I was too enamored by RZA, and also enamored by the fact
that he was wearing all Wu Wear clothes...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CARNEY: ...which I thought was super awesome.

GROSS: Well...

Mr. AUERBACH: Yeah, head to toe.

Mr. CARNEY: Head to toe.

GROSS: ...let me know when you have your own clothing line.

Mr. CARNEY: Yeah.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. AUERBACH: Hats, boots.

Mr. CARNEY: Everything.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: All right. So my guests have been the members of The Black Keys,
and their latest album, "Brothers," is nominated for four Grammys. And
The Black Keys are Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney. But what we're about
to hear is their collaboration with the RZA from the album "Blakroc."

So here we go. Thank you both so much, and good luck.

Mr. CARNEY: Thank you.

Mr. AUERBACH: Thank you for having us. Thank you.

(Soundbite of song, "Tellin' Me Things")

THE RZA: (Rapping) She just keep tellin' me things, things I don't want
to hear. She just keep tellin' me things, things I don't want to hear.
She just keep tellin' me things, things I don't want to hear. She just
keep tellin' me things, things I don't want to hear.

She told me that she love me, oh, man, yo. She just keep tellin' me
things, things I don't want to hear.

GROSS: That's the track from the album "Blakroc," featuring The Black
Keys and the RZA.

You can hear three tracks The Black Keys' latest albums "Brothers" on
our website: freshair.npr.org.

Coming up, Milo Miles reviews a retrospective collection featuring La
Lupe. In the '60s, she was called the Queen of the Latin Soul.

This is FRESH AIR.
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La Lupe: A Performer Ruled By Instinct, Ecstasy

TERRY GROSS, host:

Few singers have had as swift a rise and steep a descent as La Lupe, the
Queen of Latin Soul in the '60s. At her peak, she was a regular at the
Palladium Club and played Madison Square Garden. By the late '80s, she
was on welfare with no fixed address.

Music critic Milo Miles says a new, two-CD anthology is the first clear
look at the entire range and power of the volatile La Lupe.

(Soundbite of song, "America")

LA LUPE (Singer): (Singing in Spanish)

MILO MILES: The story of Guadalupe Victoria Yoli Raymond, known as La
Lupe, is a poignant tale of a performer ruled by instinct and ecstasy.
First, she was the right talent at the right place at the right time,
and then all too soon, she wasn't: a sensation who was cast aside by the
music industry and is now all but forgotten.

La Lupe has never been given as thorough and carefully selected a
retrospective as "Puro Teatro." And if there's any cultural justice, it
should redeem her completely. She was much more than a wild woman. She
was a whole gang of them at once.

At first, she kept catching lucky breaks. Born in either 1936 or 1939 in
southern Cuba, La Lupe won a singing contest and soon was performing
with popular regional bands. She made two LPs under her own name in 1960
and '61. But Fidel Castro wasn't into a female singer who cackled and
shouted, jiggled and twitched, tore at her clothes and hair and
sometimes threw shoes at her band. So she had to go, and eventually she
wound up in New York.

Some of La Lupe's eccentricity comes across by comparing the two
versions of "Fever" on the anthology "Puro Teatro." The second, 1968,
English-language version is the only one I knew. It's fun and forceful,
though straightforward and a bit careful.

(Soundbite of song, "Fever")

(Soundbite of laughter)

LA LUPE: (Spanish spoken) (Singing) Never know how much I love you.
Never know how much I care. And when you put your arms around me, I get
the fever that's so hard to bear. You give me fever when you kiss me,
fever when you hold me tight. Fever in the morning. Fever all through
the night. Everybody got the fever...

MILES: The first version, from her 1960 Cuban debut album, is well,
strange, and all about the singer. It's now my favorite "Fever," after
Little Willie John's original.

(Soundbite of song, "Fever")

LA LUPE: (Singing in Spanish)

MILES: In the mid-'60s, La Lupe caught another big break when one of the
Mambo Kings, Tito Puente himself, decided her vocals were not screaming,
but a way to catch the rising wave of soul shouts going on at the time.
Puente also coached La Lupe into a still-fiery, but more sophisticated
way to deliver boleros, or ballads, as in "Que Te Pedi," her first and
biggest hit with Puente.

(Soundbite of song, "Que Te Pedi")

LA LUPE: (Singing in Spanish)

MILES: Sadly, La Lupe was not designed to be the chick-singer, change-
of-pace for a big band. Ego conflicts and her increasing temper tantrums
in 1968 led Puente to exchange La Lupe for the more conventionally
professional and reliable Celia Cruz. With the firm support of Tico
Records' Morris Levy, La Lupe went solo.

And a revelation of "Puro Teatro" is how many styles she could make her
own. Early in her career, she turned in several very convincing examples
of Latin teen-idol tunes. And for a long time, I assumed her career ran
into trouble partly because she couldn't find a way to go disco. But
there's plenty of evidence on "Puro Teatro" she could light up modern
funk.

(Soundbite of song, "Eres Malo y Te Amo")

LA LUPE: (Singing in Spanish)

MILES: The hard truth is, La Lupe could not manage herself and could not
hire anyone to do it for her. She fell out of favor at Tico Records
after Levy sold the label. After 1978, she was dumped and never recorded
regularly again. Plus, the fates decided she would now catch as many bad
breaks as she had fortunate ones earlier. Struggling to support two
children, she tussled with depression and drug addiction, injured her
back in a fall and had to walk with a cane, and finally had a fire in
her apartment and was left homeless. She died in 1992, almost as
impoverished as when she was born.

But her legacy is not a sad song. She left us treasures that we should
savor, and that place her among the '60s Queens of Tough: Janis Joplin,
Tina Turner and La Lupe.

GROSS: Music critic Milo Miles reviewed La Lupe, "Puro Teatro." You can
hear two tracks from the CD on our website, freshair.npr.org, where you
can also download podcasts of our show.
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