Five long years had passed before The Black Keys finally released a new album — Let’s Rock, their sixth — in July this year. Their extended break, the longest the band has had between albums since their debut in 2002, seems to have only increased fan’s thirst for the duo; their first show in years, which took place last week, sold amount within hours.
In celebration of their triumphant return to the stage, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney met with Billboard’s Olivia Lane for an interview that shed light on why it took them so long to go back to recording and performing.
“The break we just got off of was the result of all of these opportunities [that] presented themselves to us for the first time that we never thought were possible,” explained guitarist and vocalist Carney. “Brothers was our first record that was a hit, and it’s our sixth album. It took us eight and a half years of pretty much constant work until that happened, and so when it did happen — we’d been a band for almost a decade. We just said yes to everything.”
Auerbach summarized, “We were just burned out. Been on the road a little too long, hit it a little too hard. Never said no.”
Have the guys learned their lesson? Auerbach certainly seems to think so: “I think that what we’re gonna try to do is pace ourselves. Try and do it in a normal way, instead of like a couple of maniacs just tearing around the globe. We need to slow it down a bit.”
We hope this more relaxed approach will prove itself because we certainly don’t want to wait another five years for another The Black Keys album!
