Interview: The Black Keys' Patrick Carney

According to the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute, music is an effective balm to navigate grief, be it by providing a safe space to feel the emotions of loss, enabling one to express big emotions or even just to connect with other people.

Music served those purposes for Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys, who were both navigating the illness and subsequent passing of the former’s father. Chuck Auerbach initially suffered a stroke in fall 2024 only to be diagnosed with esophageal cancer and eventually succumb to it in March 2025. According to Carney, plugging in and jamming out were key to his best friend getting through this significant loss. Along the way, this healing exercise yielded “Peaches!,” the duo’s 14th studio album.

“The original start for what became this album kicked off with two songs we cut during a session we recorded about two years ago when Kenny Kimbrough, Junior Kimbrough’s son, was in town,” Carney recalled in an early April interview. “Eric [Deaton] and Kenny [Brown] were also in town. We were kind of constantly working at this point, so we decided to cut some tunes. The bulk of this record came together about two weeks before Dan’s father passed. We were supposed to be on tour in Latin America and canceled that because of what was going on with Chuck. Dan likes to work, so I thought a healthy thing to do would be to get something he could sink his teeth into that he wouldn’t have to think about too much.”

The resulting 10-song collection took four days to record and consisted of material reflecting Auerbach’s and Carney’s record-collecting habit, which had evolved into an ongoing series of Record Hang DJ-set dance parties.

“Dan had a list of songs that he was interested in attempting and about a third of them, none of us had ever heard before,” Carney said. “It was just a fun thing where we cut these songs and it became clear that there was an album here that was actually pretty inspired. Looking back, it was all stuff kind of reminiscent of how the band started.”

Included among the songs given The Black Keys’ down and dirty treatment are Ike Turner’s chugging shuffle “You Got To Lose”, the gritty horn-kissed “Where There’s Smokey, There’s Fire” (by Willie Griffin, Smokey Robinson’s replacement in the Miracles) and a pub-rock earworm originally recorded by Brits Dr. Feelgood (the psychedelic stomper “She Does It Right”). As Carney rightfully pointed out, “Peaches!” points back to the band’s early efforts, much of which were supported by Auerbach’s late father.

“When the band started, dad’s father Chuck was a pretty integral part of it as far as supporting us,” Carney said. “He’d basically tell us that we had to pay our dues before we could pay our rent kind of thing. That’s where we were at and as we were working on this (new album). We kind of knew it was going to be a sister piece to ‘Delta Kream,’ so we wanted to try and use another [William] Eggleston photograph for the cover. We found “Peaches,” loved that photograph and it all came into place.”

A big part of the spirit and sound of “Peaches!” was provided by Jimbo Mathus of Squirrel Nuts Zipper fame. And while Carney was admittedly aware of Mathus’ reputation by virtue of his work with the Zippers and the Mississippi native’s affiliation with the Black Keys early label Fat Possum Records, meeting the 58-year-old multi-instrumentalist in person struck a familiar chord for the Ohio-born drummer.

“The first time I met Jimbo was during these sessions about a year ago,” Carney said. “The thing that instantly struck me about Jimbo, and I didn’t say this to Dan until about six months later, was how Jimbo really reminds me of my Uncle Ralph [Carney]. My Uncle Ralph was a musician who played with Tom Waits and was a huge influence on me. But man, I think there’s something about the way Jimbo is and the way he plays that’s very Ralph. It’s very fluid, but serving what’s supposed to be there with a whole different energy.”

Carney added, “We were doing a little promo thing in New York and the interviewer mentioned my Uncle Ralph and Jimbo didn’t know we were related. He said, ‘[Damn], I didn’t know you were related to Ralph Carney.’ I said I didn’t think he knew who Ralph was and he said, ‘Of course I knew who Ralph was.’ I said it was funny because he’s the only person I ever met who reminds me of him.”

Amid all the healing and introspection that came via the “Peaches!” project was also a reassessment of the current Black Keys approach to touring. It became readily apparent to the duo that they needed to change things up.

“We’d just gotten a big taste of touring and how that felt and looked in 2025,” Carney said. “We kind of realized last summer that we didn’t want to do it the same way and that this album was the perfect opportunity to do a new model of touring. It kind of boils down to the fact that every show we’ve played since 2014 has had a seated audience. After playing a couple of various shows around, we realized shows we were playing with a GA [general admission] floor were so much better. We went to our agent and said we wanted to do a tour bit without any seated floors. And if they were seated, it has to be minimal. We made this record and now we’re trying to keep it so that the most expensive tickets are not (the people) who we’re looking at all night.”

Being a heritage act, a designation the band’s drummer said he has “…a hard time wrapping my head around, but I suppose that’s true,” The Black Keys have a deep canon to draw from, making for a good problem in choosing songs for set lists. But given the vibe the band is coming out of from making “Peaches!,” Carney says he and Auerbach are more than up to meeting the challenge.

“I think the main thing is how we’re approaching things musically, which is similar to the new record,” Carney said. “It’s about sounding unrehearsed and everything you’re hearing is first, second and third takes. I think we’re going to be just a little bit more nimble. We’re bringing Jimbo out on guitar, but mainly keyboards. He’s kind of like a chicken picker in terms of how he plays, so we’re not searching for perfection. I think that’s kind of our strong suit and that’s going to be represented. I think it’ll be fun to hear songs like ‘Gold On the Ceiling,’ “Lonely Boy’ and ‘Howlin’ For You’ with everything there, but maybe swing it a bit harder.”