After working fastidiously for over a decade, The Black Keys have cemented themselves a worldclass band backed by their recent studio efforts of Brothers, El Camino and 2014’s more psychedelic Turn Blue the garage-blues two-piece are one of the most sought after live acts in the world.
With the announcement that The Black Keys were to headline this 2015’s epic Byron Bay Bluesfest, and the brand new Rolling Green Festival, the band also revealed a massive national tour which will see them smash apart shows around the country, and in the lead-up to their arrival we were had a chat with drummer Patrick Carney, who spoke to us about his dislocated shoulder, his love for Aussie music, his production work with up-and-coming artists as well as taking us through his hilariously bizarre Instagram account.
We caught up with Carney who is holed-up at his home in Nashville, the percussionist a little frustrated that the group’s entire European tour had to be cancelled after dislocating his shoulder, “we’re supposed to be on tour in Europe at the moment but I fucked my shoulder up at the beginning of January, I dislocated and shattered the top of it my bone is still broken” before assuring that he’ll definitely be making it down under, “it’s supposed to be healed up in about two more weeks.”
With The Black Keys headlining Bluesfest, an event they’ve played before, he spoke highly of our great land girt by sea, “We haven’t been over there since November 2012, we’re excited, it’s always fun to play Bluefest, I think we’ve been to Australia in like April more times than any other month and it’s always beautiful there, we’re having a brutal winter in Nashville which is unusual so we’re both excited to get the fuck out of here in a couple of weeks.”
Carney reflected on the time the band spent on our shores, “The first show we ever played in Australia was in Perth earlier September in 2003, we were so jet lagged we couldn’t set up our own gear, I actually fell off my drum seat, I fell straight backwards.”
The Black Keys and Australia have had a pretty tight relationship since the band’s humble beginnings, Carney gravely appreciative of our support, “It was the first place we were ever able to go where could sell 1000 tickets at a theatre, it is a place that we toured a hell of a lot in the first seven, eight years, since Brothers came out we’ve only been back one time.”
The band will embark on a huge national tour at the beginning of April that will see them play both stadiums and outdoor festivals, and will be joined by the rising alt-grunge rockers, BAD//DREEMS, a band the two-piece are rather fond of, “our promoter down there sent us a list of some bands we thought we’d be into and those dudes rock out” before reminiscing on a time when a different Aussie group once opened for the garage-bluesman, “he turned us onto Tame Impala, we had them kind of open a show for us in Perth in 2008.
“I think that those guys may have been working on their first album, when they came backstage at that point they seemed like they were starving they took all of our food” he said, laughing, “we had to ask for more food – they were hungry, maybe they were just really high, they were super young, all like 20. It reminded me of us when we first started out, basically impoverished which luckily those guys aren’t anymore because they’re a great band.”
From one rising band to another, Carney akin to his bandmate Dan Auerbach, helped produced the super-hyped piano ballad up-and-coming singer-songwriter, Tobias Jesso Jr, the incredible talent behind the tune ‘Hollywood’.
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“I actually recorded 12 songs with him, but I think only two are going on the record, it’s like the first and fifth songs I did. I became aware of Tobias just over a year ago. His label bought him a ticket to Nashville and he came and stayed with me for nine days and we did a bunch of recording.
“I’ve never seen him perform live but I’ve watched him perform on the piano just for me and it’s fucking insane. Very sophisticated song writing, there’s a couple of his songs were basically thirteen different chords, but it works, he’s an insane musician, I can picture him having a huge year this year, I hope he does, he deserves it” he said.
For any Black Keys or Patrick Carney fan, you’ve more than likely seen his outrageously absurd Instagram account that he frequently posts hilarious things on, we had to ask the drummer what the catalyst was for such bizarre pictures.
The first, long obsession, Bruce Jenner.
“See the food ones started off in looking at my Instagram and seeing a lot of my friends posting pictures of their fucking dinner, I know a lot of people bitch about it’s got to the point where you go to restaurants where there are signs that say don’t take photos of your dinner for no reason, I guess because people think it’s obnoxious, Initially I wanted to try and make people think that those were photos of the food I was eating.”
“There’s this one that’s not even jello, it’s just like a can, it’s just from hours of watching movies that I can’t pay attention to so I’m just searching for disgusting canned food.”
Laughing, he continued, “This one I searched ‘tooth canned food’ and it’s like a canned fish and there’s this full visible jaw coming out of the top of the can, somebody opened it and there’s this jaw of a fish, it’s just fucking disgusting.”
Despite telling us “I’m looking for my next muse, I haven’t found it yet, it shouldn’t take long but I’ll find it” we think he’s found it in NBC’s Brian Williams.
Snapping back to reality, the legendary Black Keys will be hitting Aussie shores very soon, with the first leg of their epic tour taking place on April 2 in Brisbane, the band promising to deliver a massive setlist littered with hits from their illustrious career.
THE BLACK KEYS AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2015
Thursday, 2nd April 2015
Riverstage, Brisbane
Tickets: Oztix | Ticketmaster
w/Band of Skulls & Bad//Dreems
Friday, 3rd April 2015
Bluesfest, Byron Bay NSW
Tickets: Bluesfest
Sunday, 5th April 2015
Rolling Green, Rochford Wines, Yarra Valley VIC
Tickets: Rolling Green
Tuesday, 7th April 2015
Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne VIC
Tickets: Ticketek
w/Bad//Dreems
Friday, 10th April 2015
Qantas Credit Union Arena, Sydney NSW
Tickets: Ticketek
w/Bad//Dreems
Saturday, 11th April 2015
Rolling Green, Bimbadgen Winery, Hunter Valley NSW
Tickets: Rolling Green
Tuesday, 14th April 2015
Red Hill Auditorium, Perth WA
Tickets: Oztix
w/Band of Skulls
Thursday, 16th April 2015
Entertainment Centre Theatre, Adelaide SA
Tickets: Ticketek
w/Band of Skulls
