Apr 10 2008
The Black Keys and Danger Mouse

Danger Mouse and The Black Keys Bang Heads Together for “Attack and Release”

It’s amazing where a little publicity can get you these days. In 2004, Danger Mouse remixed Jay-Z’s “Black Album” with samples from the Beatles “White Album” and called it “The Grey Album.” Bang. Instant name recognition.  Waving copyright infringement papers, EMI chased the album all over net - and the true barometer of success - “The Grey Album” spawned endless imitators: The Purple album, The Doo Doo Brown album, Bloody Burgundy, Lemony Yellow, Crushed Orange.. you get the idea.

Cee-Lo listened to Danger Mouse’s music and discovered someone he could creatively mesh with - we got Gnarls Barkley. Before his death, the legendary Ike Turner asked Danger Mouse to produce his new album. Danger recruited The Black Keys, one of his favorite rock groups, to assist with the musical backing. Ideas were batted back and forth, but after Ike Turner passed, the project was kicked to the curb.

Danger Mouse and The Black Keys had such a great time working on the Ike Turner project, they decided to shift that energy to The Black Keys new album “Attack and Release.” With four acclaimed albums under their belt, Danger Mouse was the first outside creative voice they’ve listened to.

The Black Keys Attack and Release flyer - Flickr pic

Who are The Black Keys? I love this bio-clip.

Two young men, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, Akron natives and college dropouts the both of them, are working for a local property owner, the type of guy who owns a variety of low-rent apartment buildings around town in various states of semi-repair and full-blown disrepair.

In short, the boys mow lawns for a slumlord. Between them, they’ve got a truck, two lawnmowers and a weed-whacker and, like everybody else, a hustle and a dream: in addition to working together, the guys play in a duo called The Black Keys (named in honor of a schizophrenic Akron artist, who called the boys “black keys”, his phrase for people who weren’t quite right).

Though they’ve known each other since they were kids, they’ve only been playing together as a unit for a year.

They’d drifted apart in high school, but each was deeply involved in music: Patrick’s tastes leaned toward Devo, noise rock, and hip-hop, while Dan, who had grown up playing old folk songs at family reunions, gravitated towards electric Mississippi blues.

Flash to the present.. This week in a Billboard interview, The Black Key’s drummer Patrick Carney talked about the meeting of minds with Danger Mouse, “We learned a lot from him, especially detaching yourself from whatever preconceived ideas you had about what you were doing,” Carney says over coffee in an Akron cafe. “Once Brian got onboard, there were absolutely no rules.”

Danger Mouse.. “With any band I’m really a big fan of, I’m always a little skeptical about being involved with them any way musically, as opposed to just listening and waiting for their next record. But they are one of my favorite current bands…  I wasn’t prepared for how well we’d get along. We were instant friends.
We’ll be doing this for a long time, and the music will just be the fun thing we do when we hang out together.”

Here is The Black Keys new video “Strange Times”..

Can’t say if it’s in MTV’s rotation or not.. but it’s the type of video they used to play when music was the first priority.

 


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