The Black Keys: Do The Romp

Patrick Carney was sitting around at home, not doing much of anything, when his phone rang. It was Dan Auerbach, his partner in The Black Keys, calling from Easy Eye Sound, his recording studio in Nashville. “Hey, are you around?” the guitarist/vocalist asked the drummer. “Want to come over and jam?”

With that casual invitation—extended shortly before the pandemic lockdowns kicked in and changed the way everyone did everything—the duo’s 10th album was born.

It wasn’t even meant to be released. Auerbach had been producing a recording for bluesman Robert Finley and had called in a couple of veteran players to help out: guitarist Kenny Brown and bassist Eric Deaton. The two musicians had worked extensively with R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, two long-gone blues titans who sit high upon the pantheon of influences that initially sparked The Black Keys. It seemed a shame to send Brown and Deaton home after the Finley sessions wrapped.

“Dan gave me a day’s heads up and I said, ‘Of course. Let’s just jam and see what happens,’” says Carney.

What happened was Delta Kream, released this spring by Nonesuch Records. In some ways, the 12-track album, which consists entirely of blues covers, was cut the way most of The Black Keys’ music has been—seat-of-the-pants, with little fuss. But, as both Auerbach and Carney are quick to point out, it is also an album of firsts. In addition to Brown and Deaton, the record also features an auxiliary percussionist, Sam Bacco, and, on three tracks, organist Ray Jacildo.

“We’ve never played with a bass player in a studio. We’ve never played with a percussion player, ever, not even onstage. And we’ve never played with Kenny before,” says Auerbach. “So when you factor in all these brand-new experiences, and then layer in these songs that we kind of knew, but didn’t know that well, it helped create [something fresh]. Every time Kenny and I would take a solo break, we were not thinking about some old version. We were just trying to have a little fun. It was so interesting because it felt new, yet, at the same time, totally comfortable, familiar.”

“We first sat down in the morning and had some coffee and bullshitted, and by Friday afternoon, a day later, they felt like close buddies,” Carney adds.

The musicians worked quickly. “We were just kinda throwing stuff around,” says Carney. “The only intention, really, was that we were going to play songs that were centric around North Mississippi.” He calls the album “the easiest we’ve ever made. First of all, we didn’t have to write the songs. But the whole record, its vibe, is playing off of each other; it wasn’t memorizing parts. It was connecting through the music and reacting. It was just enjoyable. It was either going to be good or bad or mediocre. I wouldn’t have even been pissed if what we recorded wasn’t good. I still would’ve had fun.”

The songs that comprise Delta Kream slot roughly into a category called Hill Country Blues, native to North Mississippi. Although the album’s title— drawn from a photograph of a funky, since-disappeared eatery taken by William Eggleston in the early ‘70s—infers a relationship to the more common Delta Blues, Auerbach differentiates between the two subgenres. “Hill Country is a little bit more rhythmic, a little bit more hypnotic, kind of deceptively simple,” he says. “R.L. Burnside will hang on one chord the whole song, but it doesn’t feel that way. It’s a very minimal style, really interesting. With Delta Blues, I tend to think of metal body resonator [guitars], more what Son House and Bukka White did. But then there’s Junior Kimbrough. He was his own thing—it’s hard for me to lump him into a group.”

Burnside, author of two songs on Delta Kream, and Kimbrough, who composed five—none of which appeared on The Black Keys’ 2005 Kimbrough tribute EP, Chulahoma—are ingrained in The Black Keys’ DNA. In fact, the first two tracks on the duo’s inaugural album, 2002’s The Big Come Up, are actually Burnside and Kimbrough covers. “Do the Rump,” the Kimbrough tune on that debut, is even reprised on the new set, recast as “Do the Romp,” giving the album a direct connection to The Black Keys’ roots just as their 20th anniversary approaches. The other four songs—the album’s leadoff track, John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling Kingsnake,” Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “Louise” and a tune each from Ranie Burnette and Big Joe Williams—sport the same rough-hewn, gutsy vibe as the Burnside and Kimbrough tracks. The interplay between Auerbach and Brown’s guitars ranges from nasty to nastier, Carney’s drumming deftly rides a razor[1]thin line between shambolic and rock[1]steady, Deaton’s bass serves as a welcomed anchor, and the percussion and keyboard augmentation gives the recording coloration that feels right at home, and never intrusive.

“We just sat in a circle in the studio,” says Auerbach. “We would throw out ideas, pick a song, work on it a little bit and then cut it.”

No song was given more than one or two takes—the entire album was made in two five-hour afternoon sessions. “Whatever came to mind,” says Auerbach when asked how the song list was chosen. “I would make suggestions. Kenny would make suggestions. Eric would make suggestions. Then, I’d try to remember the songs. I know them all in my mind, but my fingers don’t know ‘em ‘cause I haven’t played them in 10 years.”

***

Ten years ago, The Black Keys were in a place they’d never expected to be when they started out: They’d become enormously famous. After their first five albums only achieved modest commercial success, 2010’s Brothers unexpectedly reached No. 3 on the Billboard chart. El Camino, the following year, leapfrogged its predecessor, landing at No. 2. Then, finally, in 2014, Turn Blue made it to the top spot while also finding its way to the Top 5 in such locales as Australia, New Zealand and a handful of European countries. ‘Let’s Rock,’ which followed in 2019, returned them to the Top 5 and now Delta Kream has debuted at the No. 6 spot. For two guys who’d deliberately steered away from convention, they were as surprised as anyone when their career took the turn that it did.

“We went so slowly,” says Auerbach, recalling the early days. “Instead of signing to a major label, we signed to [the independent blues label] Fat Possum, which I think ended up saving us. I’d loved blues music since I was a kid, but blues music was always something that only existed on these old records. Then, Fat Possum came around, and all of a sudden, it was real—in-person, in the flesh. You could buy these records and go see these artists. That was a game-changer for me.”

A year apart in age, Auerbach and Carney had known each other growing up in Akron, Ohio, and while both listened to other music besides the blues—including grunge and hip-hop—they were overjoyed when they discovered that they shared a passion for those primal, ancient sounds, conjuring up visions of run-down juke joints tucked into the Mississippi hills.

“Pat understood it too,” Auerbach— who also grew up admiring acts like The Allman Brothers Band and the Grateful Dead—admits. “He was the only guy that I really knew who understood any of that stuff. He had an R.L. Burnside 45 and was into [the band] the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and he’d been introduced to Captain Beefheart when he was younger.”

For Carney, who also grew up idealizing indie-rock forefathers like Pavement, the formation of The Black Keys came at a pivotal point in his young life. “Before we started even considering playing together, it was one of the most depressing summers of my life,” he says. “I was completely broke and directionless at school and I ended up getting fired from my shitty job and getting an even shittier job. I ended up being completely and thoroughly depressed right after my 21st birthday. Then 9/11 happened and, right at my darkest moment, this band presented itself. It’s been both of our saving grace. When I listen to those first recordings that we made, I’m instantly hearing a dude who’s overjoyed to have found a partner who wants to do something together.”

The decision to go out as a guitar-and[1]drums duo, like so much else concerning The Black Keys, wasn’t the result of a planning session—it just happened. Initially, there was a third member, Gabe Fulvimar, but, “He stopped coming to practices,” Carney says. “So Dan and I had the correct notion that, if we didn’t get him out of the band, we wouldn’t be able to do this properly. I basically made him an ultimatum and he told me that he didn’t want to be in the band.” (Fulvimar has recorded under the name Gap Dream for the past decade.)

Carney and Auerbach subsequently auditioned other possible members but no one quite got what they had in mind. “Since we had already had this problem with a third person, we decided that we would just do it as a two-piece,” Carney says. “Dan and I were completely on the same page and had the same work ethic.”

At first, they kept their expectations in check. Carney continues: “Dan’s dad said, ‘So, at what level would you consider that you guys have made it?’ And I think I told him that if we ever sold 300 tickets, then that would be it. And he was like, ‘Are you serious? What about winning Grammys?’ And I was like, ‘No, man. No, no, no, no, no.’ But at one point, I realized that maybe that whole thought process was just me limiting the view of what the band could be. Why say no to something without trying it first?”

Today, The Black Keys have five Grammys to their name and another eight nominations on top of that. Their prizes have included Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for “Tighten Up” and Best Alternative Music Album for Brothers in 2011; Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song for “Lonely Boy” and Best Rock Album for El Camino in 2013; and Producer of the Year for Auerbach’s work on El Camino that same year.

Despite the honors, Carney is characteristically nonchalant. “It’s a weird thing,” he says. “I take pride in them, but also I realize that it doesn’t necessarily recognize anything great. Look, [the band] Greta Van Fleet has the same Grammy that I have for Best Rock Album, but The Clash doesn’t have a Grammy for Best Rock Album, so what does that mean?”

***

“I think that the cool thing about this band is that we started as two dudes, a classic scenario of people that were childhood friends,” Carney says. “We started with no label support, making a DIY record on our own, then went all the way up to doing the biggest shit that you could do, essentially. I mean, we’ve never played ballparks, but we’ve done Madison Square Garden. We did all that shit. I think, having done that, we proved to ourselves that it’s occasionally possible for the stars to align.”

As they’ve grown in popularity, there has naturally been some blowback from critics who’ve accused The Black Keys of losing their edge. Auerbach laughs them off. “Some of my favorite moments are when you read a comment on a video and they say, ‘Oh, my God, this is slick, watered-down blues,’ and then the next comment is, ‘Oh, my God, it’s so raw.’ That’s my favorite thing to see. Pat and I both agree that’s where you want to get to. That’s exactly where you want to be.”

For The Black Keys, success has never been measured by awards or rewards, and especially not in critical plaudits. Clichéd as it might sound, they’ve always managed to keep their focus on the music—even after they successfully crossed over into the big leagues. When Auerbach and Carney spend time apart, which has become essential to their well-being as they continue, they work on outside musical undertakings: producing other artists, maintaining solo ventures, etc. But they never lose sight of what’s most important to them. “I still love doing other projects, but there’s a different sense of reward that comes from making something with Dan,” Carney says.

Occasionally their names have popped into the gossip pages. (There was a long[1]running, rather silly kerfuffle with Jack White of that other famous two-person band, The White Stripes, and another when the Keys inducted Steve Miller into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.) But, for the most part, they’ve kept out of the celebrity spotlight. For Carney and Auerbach, gratification comes from turning out a record or a gig that feels real.

One fan they’ve kept since the early days is Kenny Brown, the guitarist with whom they finally connected for Delta Kream. He sees them as kindred spirits, true to the music. That’s more important to Auerbach and Carney than hobnobbing with A-listers.

The Black Keys have figured out some creative ways to give back to their heroes, too: The duo’s promo campaign for their new release included working with VisitMississippi to sponsor new markers for R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough on the Mississippi Blues Trail, and the group’s short support run for the project included a stop at the state’s famed Blue Front Café.

“I thought they were good the first time I saw them,” Brown says. “They were making a lot of noise for two pieces. R.L. [Burnside] and I used to do a lot of duos and trios without bass. Now, I’ve got a Black Keys channel on my phone. This album is one of the better ones I’ve ever played on. Everybody seems to really love it. I never thought that it would be on the top of the charts—never even thought about that. But it’s kind of nice that I can finally look at a Billboard chart and know something there.”

What’s next for The Black Keys? They have no idea, and they like it that way. “When you start trying to have a preconceived idea of what you’re making, I think it ruins the whole process,” Carney says.

They’ll know where they’re heading when they get there. “Not one single part of how we make a Black Keys record has changed,” Auerbach says. “Yet, we haven’t made the same record since we started. That is really amazing. It’s a blessing. We’re still always trying to entertain ourselves when we get together. I love it.”

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