Black Keys takes pride in keeping it rough

Associated Press

MANCHESTER, Tenn.

The Black Keys should take their show on the road.

Yes, the Akron blues-rock duo of singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney already tour almost constantly. But the two — Carney, lanky and bespectacled, and Auerbach, bearded and rocker-looking — have something of a comic duo about them.

They have a natural patter — crude and hysterical — that’s been honed by spending nearly half their lives playing music together. At a recent interview at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, the conversation turned to why the Keys, nearly 10 years on, have for the first time begun playing shows with a bassist (Nick Movshon) and a keyboardist (Leon Michels).

Auerbach: “It’s great because they’re like-minded.”

Carney: “They’ve very tasteful musicians.”

Auerbach (sarcastically): “’Cause we’re super tasteful.”

Carney: “It’s like emerald essence.”

Auerbach: “It’s like four ... diamonds with lightning bolts coming out of them.”

Carney (after a beat): “It’s almost tasteless.”

Curiously, on stage, Auerbach and Carney are all business. Instead of bantering, their shows are an onslaught of sweaty Delta blues riffs, heavy pounding and textured grooves.

They’ve built a faithful following and are still earning new fans: Their sixth album, “Brothers,” debuted No. 3 on the Billboard Top 200 chart.

It’s a remarkable degree of success for a duo that began nearly a decade ago playing in Carney’s basement, and which still prides itself on keeping things rough — leaving an imprecise drum beat or a wrong note in a guitar solo in a recording.

“We’re unperfectionists,” says Carney.

Carney, 30, and Auerbach, 31, grew up near each other in Akron. Like the city’s most famous export, LeBron James, they’re contemplating an exit from Ohio. Auerbach, who’s married and has a daughter, is thinking about moving to Nashville, and Carney, though he still owns a house in Akron, has moved to New York.

Their 2002 debut, “The Big Come Up,” recorded on an eight-track in Carney’s basement, sounded little like two scrawny white kids from Ohio. Auerbach’s fuzzy riffs on songs like “Breaks” were straight out of Mississippi.

“They were the only ones that could do a Junior Kimbrough cover that wasn’t a train wreck,” says Matthew Johnson, the president of Fat Possum Records, the originally blues-focused label that brought Delta blues players such as Kimbrough to national audiences. “Dan got the sound.”