Leave Regular Radio Behind
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Dan Auerbach And Patrick Carney Bring Brotherly Love Back To The Black Keys

The Black Keys
Alysse Gafkjen
/
Courtesy of the artist
The Black Keys

When I spoke to Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney about their new album, Let's Rock!, as The Black Keys, they joked around about themselves a lot. They told me about sliding down firepoles, wearing pastels and writing lyrics by Ouija board. But they were dead serious about one thing — the aversion to travel they both developed after years and years of exhausting tours. The week before we spoke, Dan was supposed to leave Nashville for a weekend of fun in New York. He told me, "I boarded a plane and then walked off of it ... 'cause I didn't want to leave home."

Since The Black Keys' 2001 debut, the band cranked out albums consistently every year or two, and so it's easy to understand why Dan and Patrick would have needed to take a hiatus after touring their 2014 album, Turn Blue. It's also easy to understand why a five-year gap between albums had some fans worried about the possibility of new music and about Dan and Patrick's relationship. But as the guys explain, they just needed to get out of each other's hair for a bit before returning to the brotherly chemistry that has defined The Black Keys' career. Hear our conversation and their live performances of new songs and some older favorites in the player.

Copyright 2021 XPN. To see more, visit XPN.

Talia Schlanger hosts World Cafe, which is distributed by NPR and produced by WXPN, the public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. She got her start in broadcasting at the CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster. She hosted CBC Radio 2 Weekend Mornings on radio and was the on-camera host for two seasons of the television series CBC Music: Backstage, as well as several prime-time music TV specials for CBC, including the Quietest Concert Ever: On Fundy's Ocean Floor. Schlanger also guest hosted various flagship shows on CBC Radio One, including As It Happens, Day 6 and Because News. Schlanger also won a Canadian Screen Award as a producer for CBC Music Presents: The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions, a cross-country rock 'n' roll road trip.
World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).