you’re having a picnic lunch, that’s when shit gets real,” says Dan Auerbach with a laugh. The Black Keys singer and guitarist is recounting the lengthy sessions for the band’s 12th album, Ohio Players, which the duo partly recorded with Beck, acting as an unofficial third ’Key. Whenever spirits or energy levels flagged, they’d order out from Zankou Chicken, a popular LA restaurant, and then spread everything out in the control room buffet-style. “You’ve got to have patience because this stuff takes time. Food helps.”
That’s a picnic lunch 20 years in the making. The two acts have been circling each other for decades, bound by their shared love of blues, funk and soul. After touring together in 2003, the three musicians often talked about jamming, recording or just hanging out together, but their plans only finally came to fruition in 2022, when Beck stopped by Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville and the trio raced through a handful of songs in an afternoon. “When you’re working on a record and the songs are coming together, whatever the energy and the vibe, it just goes into the music,” says Beck.
Such energies are evident on the lively Ohio Players, which combines the thickfreak attack of The Black Keys with Beck’s bottles-and cans-and-just-clap-your hands aesthetic. Of the album’s 14 tracks, Beck co-wrote seven and played on several others, injecting them with lively rhythms and flourishes of funk, R&B and even country. “That’s the whole draw of music,” says Carney. “It’s an art form that’s very collaborative. It’s one of the few forms where you create something from nothing.”
In addition to being one of The Black Keys’ liveliest and fullest albums, Ohio Players is also their most populated. Joining the core duo are musicians from a range of scenes and genres: Alice Cooper, Noel Gallagher, Dan The Automator, Daptone impresario/Arcs guitarist Leon Michels and Memphis rap legends Lil Noid and Juicy J. Beck, confirms Auerbach, was “definitely the most critical collaborator here”, and the vibe they established during the album’s initial sessions carried over into every facet of Ohio Players.
To celebrate their fruitful work together, The Black Keys and Beck – let’s just call them The Beck Keys – sat for an exclusive joint interview. To be discussed: their first hook ups, the brilliance of Memphis rap, a stray Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist and more.
