ABOUT THIS ALBUM
2010 Grammy Award Winner: Best Alternative Album, Best Recording Package, Best Rock Performance ("Tighten Up"), Producer of the Year (Danger Mouse, "Tighten Up")
In the August heat of 2009, The Black Keys left a Brooklyn studioâwhere theyâd been working with an all-star posse of MCsâfor 10 days in creative isolation at the historic Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama. Their geographical trek mirrored a musical journey, from contemporary hip-hop jams to the hallowed ground of classic R&B, that has resulted in the most cohesive albumâand the deepest, steamiest groovesâof the duoâs eight-year career. These sessions yielded tunes that have the instantaneous, gotta-hear-it-again pull of a vintage 45; leadoff track âEverlasting Lightâ sounds like something Marc Bolan of T-Rex might have cut if heâd been signed to Stax. But more than just genre- and decade-hopping fun, thereâs an emotional candor and narrative quality to the songs that offer a whole new level of soulfulness to the already floorboards-shaking sound of The Black Keys.
Brothers is, in many ways, the culmination of a tumultuous period for Auerbach and Carney as they juggled personal challenges with creative opportunities. For the first time in a career of non-stop touring and recording, Auerbach and Carney embarked on projects of their own, on top of their dates for The Black Keys. Auerbach made his solo debut, Keep It Hid, and hit the road with a full band; Carney picked up the bass for his own combo, Drummer, comprising five notable Ohioan drummers, only one of whom actually sits behind the kit on their disc, Feel Good Together.
Carney, in the midst of a divorce, relocated to New York City from Akron, where Auerbach continues to reside with his young family and has built his own studio, Easy Eye Sound System, modeled after the great live rooms of the â50s and â60s. (âItâs the nicest studio Iâve been to,â quips Auerbach, âbecause it was made for me.â) The pair came to Brooklyn at the behest of rap mogul Damon Dash, a fan of The Black Keys whoâd invited them to work with rapper Jim Jones. That idea morphed into a bona fide super-session between the boys and some serious hip-hop figures that they wanted to collaborate with, including Mos Def, Raekwon, Q-Tip, and RZA. The result was the independently releasedBlakroc, a hip hop-R&B hybrid that the NME called âgenuinely organic, a common ground of moods ⊠with a slinky, groovy, maxi-fuzzed blues rock to match [the MCâs] swagger.â No sooner had they wrapped the Blakroc dates then they were on their way to Muscle Shoals to find out where their inspiration might lead.
As Carney recalls, âWe were going to Brooklyn every other weekend for a couple of months. We finished Blakroc two or three days before we started our record. Blakroc was kind of a warm up for Brothers. In the process of making the Blakroc record we got more and more accustomed to the approach of making music with more bass lines and keyboard riffs than guitar riffs. There is less guitar on this record than any of our other records. I think we were just trying to focus on the grooves rather than what we had expected from ourselves previously.â
Auerbach concurs: âWe were basically listening to soul music and hip hop for the week we were down there. That definitely had a lot to do with the way we went about crafting the songs.â
The first track they tackled was âNext Girl,â which, says Carney, âset the tone for the record, with the openness and the simplicity of the bass line.â The songâboasting a cocky, moving-on attitude and a smoldering tempo that mask the heartbreak at its coreâwasnât meant to be autobiographical, but it helped Carney move past what was ailing him that summer. As Auerbach observed, âPat was in a rough spot, but that song energized him, I think. We didnât do it on purpose, it just happened that way, but then we were off and running.â
As with countless musicians whoâd ventured to Muscle Shoals before them, The Black Keys were attracted to the legacyâand the atmosphereâof a studio where everyone from Aretha to the Stones had done time.
Ultimately, though, their music evolves out of a somewhat mysterious inner space theyâre able to access wherever they go. As Auerbach puts it, âI think that whenever you go some place that has a lot of rich history, you always kind of get a good feeling and that was definitely there for us. We got what we needed out of that room. But I sort of feel that Pat and I can do it anywhere; itâs not dependent on where we are. Weâve been playing together for so long, honestly, we donât need windows, we donât need to see a beach or a city. Itâs like when weâre working, we work for 12 or 13 hours straight and never go outside. We just get so focused.â
In addition to engineer/producer Mark Neillâs recording gear, the pair brought a lot of Auerbachâs vintage gear from Easy Eye Sound System, where theyâd earlier cut demo-style tracks for the album. So Akron was as essential to Brothers as Alabama; in fact, they liked the demos for such tracks as âUnknown Brotherâ and âBlack Mudâ enough that, says Carney, âWe ended up going back to those in January and finishing them up at Danâs place.â
While they were in Alabama, there wasnât much in the way of outside diversion between Muscle Shoals and their Marriott. After long days in the studio, theyâd return to the hotel to try to unwind. And unwind, in their fashion, they did. Carney admits, laughing, âAt some point we called our management at three in the morning and left a cryptic voice mail to, like, bring a harpsichord. I donât even know if Dan realized weâd done that. But the next day our manager showed up from Nashville with the harpsichord and we had both spaced on what had happened.â
Along with the harpsichord, they utilized a Mellotron that Auerbach had purchased, ideal for adding subtle, ghostly, synth-like textures to these tracks. Auerbach himself experimented with his vocals, emboldened by his hip-hop colleagues: âI definitely was influenced doing that Blakrocrecord, seeing everyone really go for it. Iâd never seen anyone else record that way. Someone like Mos or Raekwon, they can really get into character in front of the microphone. So I really went for it, too, and did all kinds of different shit, I used whatever range I had. I sang in a few different ways, but none that I thought wasnât natural.â He employs a surprisingly silky falsetto on the one-take vocal of âEverlasting Lightâ as well as on âThe Only Oneâ and, overall, delivers some of the most soul-baring vocal performances of his career. He narrates a tale of jealousy and revenge on âTen Cent Pistol;â draws from life on â Unknown Brother,â written for his late brother-in-law; and mixes the real and imagined over the coolly evil vibe of âSinister Kid.â As he explains, âWhether itâs a made-up story or not, it all felt very personal to me.â The pair also takes a sweet turn on a cover of Jerry Butlerâs âNever Gonna Give You Upâ before closing the set with the melancholy ballad, âThese Days.â Jokes Auerbach, âWe like to go out with a teardrop. Leave âem crying.â
Brothers is more stripped down than Attack & Release, the 2008 album they cut mostly in a vintage studio outside Cleveland with producer Danger Mouse and several guest players. Danger Mouse returned to produce âTighten Up,â but there are no additional musicians, save for Atlanta-based R&B belter Nicole Wray, a former Missy Elliot protĂ©gĂ© who contributes backing vocals to âEverlasting Light,â âNext Girl,â and âHowlinâ For You.â Yet the sound of Brothers feels like another huge step forward. The Black Keys rely on less yet ingeniously achieve more.
Grammy Awardâwinning engineer-auteur Tchad Blake mixed the album and totally got the concept. Auerbach describes him as âa genius with audio, a complete wizard, because we recorded these songs in a really minimal way. There are no more than 11 or 12 tracks on one song. All the drums are on one or two tracks, which is sort of unheard of in the modern-day recording world. Tchad does a lot of mixing where Iâm sure he gets, you know, 40 or 50 tracks on one song. So he was really excited about our record, he would call us up and just tell us how much fun it is to mix this stuff because it was so raw.â For Carney, as he told Rolling Stone, bringing in Blake at the end underscored the attitude and the aim of Brothers: âHe approaches mixing in the same way we approach making music. Respecting the past while being in the present.â
âMichael Hill
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CREDITS
MUSICIANS
Performed by The Black Keys
Backing Vocals by Nicole Wray (1, 2, 4)
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by The Black Keys and Mark Neill (1, 2, 4, 8-12, 14, 15), Danger Mouse (3), The Black Keys (5-7, 13)
Recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio (1, 2, 4, 8-12, 14); The Bunker, Brooklyn, New York (3); Easy Eye Sound System (5-7, 13); Soil of the South Studios, San Diego (15)
Engineered by Mark Neill (1, 2, 4, 8-12, 14, 15), Kennie Takahashi (3), Dan Auerbach (5-7, 13)
Mixed by Tchad Blake
Mastering by Brian Lucey at Magic Garden Mastering
All Songs Written by The Black Keys, Except âNever Gonna Give You Up,â by Jerry Butler, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff
Photography by John Peets
Art Direction & Artwork by Michael Carney
