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The Black Keys.
As one half of The Black Keys, Patrick Carney is a blues-rock
drumming powerhouse. His simple yet overwhelming rhythms give
the band its soul, its life, behind singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach's
understated fuzz-box blues guitar and heartfelt, forceful vocals.
But when you talk to him just as Patrick Carney, he's a quite,
untoward fellow of few words. Very few words, in fact, which
makes my job somewhat difficult.
"We've just been on holiday, home in Akron, trying to adjust to having time off. We had some time off in December, but basically I haven't had a solid week off in a long time," he declares when I ask the very open-ended question of what he's been up to. I ask whether time goes quickly for him while on holiday, or whether he's so accustomed to being busy that time off just seems to drag on.
"The problem with having time off [is that] I come up with all these things to do, I never stop being busy. So the time just goes so fast."
The Black Keys are going to be busy quite soon. They're just about to record a 7-inch, for a vinyl label Carney is starting up with "a friend", before going on two tours - one around Australia (which, fortunately for us, does include Adelaide) and one across small-town country in the southern United States.
"I look forward to touring Australia, yeah. But I don't look forward to the flight," he says, adding that he and Auerbach both are not the best flyers. And whilst he has enjoyed his previous visits to our wide, brown land, "My favourite tours are the ones where we just play small towns, like in the south of the United States. But Australia will be really cool. Australia and England are always good places to go."
Being just a two-piece, I wonder what kind of crew the Black Keys bring with them on tour. I mean, when you go and see some of the world's biggest bands (A Perfect Circle being a quite apt recent example), you can witness an overwhelmingly well-populated team of professional engineers assigned to sort out the stage props and tune up the various instruments. But Carney says that, in spite of the band's formidable recent successes, they don't even take roadies.
"We have a tour manager, and a sound guy. But we carry our own instruments, we do. But the merch [merchandising] guy, that's a good job. You just have to count out shirts, it's not very hard. Then you can just start drinking." I wonder if they'd consider my application.
Another part of being a two-piece, I speculate, would be the unhindered ability to be prolific. Whereas some bands would spend years simply arranging songs, Carney and Auerbach would need do little more than hit the record button and play together. Even so, Carney assures me that they don't have any real recording plans until next year.
"I'm sure if we really wanted to, we could have another album done by the time we came to Australia. But the thing is, once you release a record, you have to tour solidly for four or five months," he says with a sigh.
Finally, I ask him about the advantages and disadvantages of playing music, as opposed to his and Auerbach's previous employ, being lawn mowers for a property owner.
"You don't have to mow lawns. Music's more rewarding. Although some lawns are very rewarding," he muses, compiling a list of advantages. But there is one particular disadvantage, which causes him to let off another, quite strident sigh.
"Having to be gone so much," he proclaims. "But that's probably the only disadvantage."
Ben Revi
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The Black Keys play at the Governor Hindmarsh on Tues 8 March.
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