World Cafe : World Cafe Phrases and Music Podcast : NPR

Simply over a 12 months in the past, issues had been wanting type of tough in The Black Keys‘ universe. They’d put out a brand new album referred to as Ohio Gamers, and the band was imagined to take it out on an enviornment tour.

However that tour by no means occurred. It was abruptly cancelled, and shortly after, the band break up from their administration. You may have forgiven Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney for taking a break at that time, however as an alternative, they went into the studio and recorded one other album, referred to as No Rain, No Flowers.

That album comes out Friday, however at present, Auerbach and Carney be part of us for a primary hearken to a few of the songs on the document on this session that was recorded in entrance of a stay viewers in Philly this previous spring. They speak about making the album, getting by means of laborious instances collectively and much extra developing.

On the title observe, “No Rain, No Flowers”

Auerbach: “I made a document a very long time in the past with Lana Del Rey referred to as Ultraviolence, and he or she’d written a lot of the songs with a man named Rick Nowels … We had been speaking concerning the new album and who to possibly collaborate with, and his title got here up … So we booked a session over on the studio and we wrote [“No Rain, No Flowers”] that first day.

“All people’s obtained their very own model relating to songwriting … He likes to begin with a lyric, the title. That is what he seems to be for first. I mentioned I had this concept, ‘no rain, no flowers.’ He mentioned, I like it. He mentioned, ‘How would you sing it?’ He simply had me sing it out in house … He began messing across the keyboard, and he discovered what key I used to be in. Then, we had been off.”

On their canceled tour

Carney: “Primarily, the folks we had been working with in our administration had a plan for touring. All the pieces gave the impression to be superb. We went off to Europe to do like a three-week tour …

“Then we got here again to the U.S., and we get a textual content to come back to a gathering at our supervisor’s home. He is simply mainly, like, there is a new plan for the tour. A few of these exhibits aren’t doing so good, so we’re gonna transfer it to smaller venues in 5,000-(capability) rooms.

“We had been type of checked out on that stage as a result of we simply labored our ass off on this document, turned it in, and we had been stoked on the brink of get to work … So, we cancelled the tour, refunded the tickets, and I used to be like, ‘So, what’s up with the brand new dates?’ And there have been no different dates.”

Auerbach: “However we took the expertise, and — in fact, we had been annoyed and indignant. We put all that work into the document, and we did not get to go share it with the followers. It actually sucks. However what we did was we went proper again within the studio and we began to work, and we took that ache and the anger and the frustration, and we centered it in direction of the music and we made a brand new album.”

On working with hip-hop and R&B producer Scott Storch

Auerbach: “We have been obsessive about Scott Storch since highschool, since seeing movies of him enjoying his hits on piano. We have all the time wished to get within the studio with him.

“He is additionally simply this type of larger-than-life character too. We don’t know what he is like, however he simply seems to be ridiculous in a good way. So we invited him, and he was the whole lot that we thought he could be and extra.

“He was used to being in classes the place he’d be within the management room with the digital piano, after which he walked within the studio with all these acoustic pianos and synthesizers and harpsichords, and we simply mainly let him run wild with all of those keyboards. It was unbelievable, and ‘Babygirl’ is him enjoying the piano. You possibly can hear him, bodily, whereas he is enjoying — he is grunting — and we simply left it within the observe. It is like percussion.”