Today’s recommendation comes from Akron, OH, by this drummer guitarist duo who started back in 2001 and hit it big in 2006 after their third album, with Dan Auerbach on vocals and guitars and Patrick Carney on drums they are The Black Keys.
The Black Keys started taking shape when they were very young, growing up in the same town they were introduced to each other by their elder brothers who were friends. Patrick talks about the evolution of the band in the following words
“Yeah, our brothers were like best friends and they knew that both of us played music but we just have never played together, so they encouraged us to get together and jam, I guess this is probably when, may be when Dan was a senior, I was a junior and we got together a few times, we went away to school and then we came back to Akron and we were both going to University of Akron and that’s you know that was probably when we were like 19 or 20 and that’s when we both kinda started playing together more. When we first started playing like we could barely play our instruments I think, I mean I definitely couldn’t play the drums but, yeah may be yeah so we’ve been doing it since maybe like 1997 but it wasn’t until fall of 2001 that we decided to start the band, try to make a record."
The Black Keys make hook heavy songs with a tinge of blues and classic rock, over the years even after their massive success and name recognition they try really hard to stick to their indie roots and fan base, with that in view its funny they were called out by Steven Colbert of The Comedy Central show The Colbert Report for a competition with Vampire Weekend to decide which band has sold out for commercial success, it was all in jest however Patrick explained the episode in the following words
"A lot of people see a Nissan ad and they see a finished product in a record store or on iTunes and that's the face of the band. What they don't see is that we made [Brothers] in a cinderblock building in the middle of nowhere in Alabama, with five microphones and a guitar amp and a drum set. I don't know what that means, exactly, but I do know we didn't spend a lot of money making this record, and it's an honest way of approaching making music. And once the music is out there, when you're selling a record and selling music and people are going to do whatever they want with it, it's kind of hard to resist certain opportunities, especially in the record market now."
The song I’m recommending, Lonely Boy comes from their latest album El Camino. It starts with this raw edgy riff, takes it's elements from the music of yesteryear and picks up this anthemic feel in the chorus with smartly interlaced keyboards and guitars. The song tells the story of a lonely man madly in love but getting no attention from his lover, I think the song is a treat for the ears. The video of this song is also pretty interesting apparently they wanted a video where several different people would dance and lip sync on the song, but when they saw this one guy they thought this is it and he became the star of the video and has become quite famous so much so that Ellen DeGeneres invited him to her show, anyhow I think the video is a distraction so here’s the song without the video first
If you like this song you can get it from the link below
If you’d like to know more about them here’s the link to their Wikipedia page
Here's the video of the song
Here they are live at Lotto Arena in Antwerp, Belgium
Still wanna know more about them, here’s the link to their Official Website
Enjoy!!!
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