The Black Keys talk Ohio Players album, working with Noel Gallagher and their favourite place to play in the UK

8 April 2024, 20:03 | Updated: 8 May 2024, 11:25

By Jenny Mensah

Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney spoke to Dan O'Connell on the Radio X Evening Show about their new album.

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The Black Keys released their 12th studio album Ohio Players last Friday (5th April) and spoke to Dan O'Connell about everything from how they managed to convince Noel Gallagher to work with them on the record to their favourite places to play in the UK.

On the fact they have now made it to their dozenth record, Patrick Carney said on the Radio X Evening Show: "It's amazing. When we started making this record, I started paying attention to the fact we've been a band for longer than 20 years and I think it put the pressure on for us to get busy on this album.

"So we put 150 studio days in, finished 29 songs to get to the 14 that we're releasing."

The Black Keys on collaborating with Noel Gallagher and their "super fan" Bobby

It's been no secret that Beck and Noel Gallagher have worked on the album, and while their early champion Beck didn't take much convincing to get in the studio with the duo, the former Oasis rocker was a little bit harder to pin down.

Luckily for the band, Carney had an unlikely and unexpected connection to the Manchester rocker.

"hen we started this album the basic concept was that we wanted to collaborate with some musical heroes," the drummer explained. "The first person we worked with was Beck and the second person we wanted to work with is Noel and it was an interesting process to get to him, but it turns out one of my neighbours in Nashville was Oasis' agent for a long time. He's my golfing buddy, so he hooked it up."

He went on: "Noel at first was a bit reluctant, but he said he was down, so we popped in the studio - the Toe rag studios in London on the second week of January last year."

The rest, as they say, is history.

Though they were pretty happy with their collaborations on the record, they did recently invite Bill Murray to play the bongos with them on stage in New York.

Asked if they'd ever see themselves in the studio with the Hollywood star, Auerbach joked: "You know, we tried, but there was a little too much friction in the studio between Pat and Bill".

The duo are preparing to visit this side of the pond very soon, playing a string of UK & Ireland shows, which will include three consecutive dates at London's O2 Academy Brixton.

Quizzed on their favourite locations to play in the UK, the Beautiful People (Stay High) rockers somewhat unexpectedly revealed Leicester and Swindon as their picks- but with good reason.

"Dude, we've been everywhere," explained Carney. "Our first big fan in the UK was Bobby from Swindon. He would come to the shows charting back at the 100 Club and you know what? I've listed him already for the Brixton shows.

"He's coming with his kids now!"

The Black Keys' 12th studio album Ohio Players is out now.

It follows the release of The Big Come Up (2002), Thickfreakness (2003), Rubber Factory (2004), Magic Potion (2006), Attack & Release (2008), Brothers (2010), El Camino (2011), Turn Blue (2014), Let's Rock (2019), Delta Kream (2021) and Dropout Boogie (2022).

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