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" Not long ago, Pat Carney spent nearly fourteen contiguous hours in his Ohio basement with his best friend, Dan Auerbach, playing eleven songs into a busted 8-track recorder. &amp;quot;It sounded really fucking weird,&amp;quot; Carney says. &amp;quot;But this record sounds weirder \u2014 better, but weirder than any record we&amp;#039;ve made.&amp;quot; Carney says this from a makeshift backstage next to a yellow convertible on a platform before a secret show Saturday at the Classic Car Club of Manhattan, says it of Brothers \u2014 the new record from our most straightforward duo, the one with the most straightforward album cover in the history of album covers: The Black Keys, America&amp;#039;s great garage-rock band, were back rocking in a garage, only this time it was a fancy garage. The album is a little weird, and so is the bespectacled Carney, who breaks more drumsticks per song than anyone this side of a Bonham, and the bebearded Auerbach, whose blues riff are as serious as ever despite the added instrumental layering on Brothers. They joke about being on the new Twilight soundtrack (&amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re thinking about making a whole album about teenage vampires dating each other,&amp;quot; Carney says), but they are on the new Twilight soundtrack. Sure, the Black Keys also just collaborated with Mos Def, Pharoahe Monch, and the RZA, but the Black Keys, seven years departed from that basement and just one record beyond Danger Mouse, might be even bigger than they ever wanted. After Tuesday&amp;#039;s album release (last month&amp;#039;s leak &amp;quot;kinda sucked,&amp;quot; Auerbach says) comes the Garden with Pearl Jam, Letterman, Europe, the Flaming Lips, and, eventually, a month opening for the Kings of Leon. &amp;quot;They look like fucking models, but they&amp;#039;re also really smart guys,&amp;quot; Auerbach says of those last of the tourmates. &amp;quot;They had a goal and they went for it, you know? I mean, it&amp;#039;s a craft writing a song for the radio. It&amp;#039;s a particular thing \u2014 you have to focus to try and make that happen. Every major label is pushing all of their bands to be as big as the Kings of Leon, and not all the bands get to do that.&amp;quot; Warner, for one, pushed one of the least-funny combinations of a plastic doll and a hot tub in the history of music videos upon the band almost as soon as they had gotten used to promoting a joint venture after a year of side projects. The result is an awkward bit of closed captioning, though Carney says &amp;quot;they tried to fucking change that on us, too.&amp;quot;      Still, how many men do you see writing such a distortedly simple single for a major label, and winning? How many times do you come across a song that&amp;#039;s as nearly perfect as &amp;quot;Tighten Up&amp;quot; is? How many ways do the Black Keys have to tell you they don&amp;#039;t care about wealth or Twilight or LeBron James (&amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s Cleveland \u2014 they&amp;#039;ve been doing that to us since we were little kids&amp;quot;), as long as they get to play in a garage every once in a while? &amp;quot;Some people will say that our new record&amp;#039;s too clean,&amp;quot; Auerbach says, and then leans in closer to the car. &amp;quot;Everybody has a different point of view, and pretty much everybody&amp;#039;s an idiot. I think everybody&amp;#039;s an idiot. Pat thinks everybody&amp;#039;s an idiot. You think everybody&amp;#039;s an idiot. Okay? That&amp;#039;s how it is. Welcome to fucking reality.&amp;quot; PRE-SUMMER MUSIC PREVIEW: Live Shows You Must See and New Albums You Can Dance To PLUS: Black Keys + RZA + Mila Kunis = This &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a7490/black-keys-interview-051710/>