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PEOPLE & ARTS Tuesday 17 sepTember 2019
Rested and revived, The Black Keys return after 5-year break

By KRISTIN M. HALL ger Mouse, who worked
Associated Press on their previous records
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — "El Camino" and "Brothers."
When the Black Keys last Those albums catapulted
played a festival together them from clubs and the-
in 2015, there was no grand aters to playing arenas like
plan to go an indefinite hia- Madison Square Garden
tus. They just stopped book- and festivals worldwide. But
ing shows and they went they wanted the recording
home to Nashville, Tennes- process for this record feel
see to sleep in their own like they did at the begin-
beds. ning of their career.
Now four years after their "The fun always usually
performance at Outside comes back to the two of
Lands in San Francisco, Dan us being in the studio," Car-
Auerbach and Patrick Car- ney said.
ney are more than ready The album came out in
to hit the stage again with June and the new tour
their first new record in five with Modest Mouse as their
years, "Let's Rock" and a opening band is much
new tour starting Sept. 19 in more manageable with just
Los Angeles. 33 dates in North America.
Carney, for one, has no- In this Aug. 19, 2019, photo, Patrick Carney, left, and Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys pose for a They also added some ex-
ticed a difference since portrait in Nashville, Tenn. tra guitar players on stage
the band last toured. He Associated Press to replicate Auerbach's
recently woke up at 6 a.m. layered guitars on the re-
to change a diaper for Heavily inspired by blues known blues players like work during the time off." corded albums.
his 1-year-old son that he rock and low-fi garage Leo "Bud" Welch, as well as And just as there was no "Every single record we've
shares with wife and fellow rock, Carney and Auer- working on his own solo al- plan to take a break, there ever made since the very
musician Michelle Branch bach met in high school bum and producing Cage was very little preparation beginning, I've always
and then dropped his step- in Akron, Ohio, in the '90s, The Elephant's Grammy- for their return to the studio. doubled up my guitars or
daughter off at school. tinkering around with four- winning rock album "Tell They came into Auerbach's tripled them up," said Au-
"That's a big change for track recording systems at Me I'm Pretty." Carney also studio in Nashville with no erbach. "And this is the first
me from five years ago," Carney's house. worked as a producer on songs or lyrics prepared time I've ever really heard
Carney said. "I would have In the break, they both his wife's last album, as well and no producer. that onstage."
been waking up at 11." continued to work on sep- as producing Nashville art- "We just set a date and They are easing back into
"Changing his own diaper," arate musical projects as ists such as (asterisk)repeat showed up here at Dan's touring with their Wiltern
retorted Auerbach, himself both producers and col- repeat and Turbo Fruits. studio and it was the first show, the only theater gig
a father of two. laborators. Auerbach, who "It's been really good for us," time we had recorded mu- on the arena tour, which
While their latest music vid- won has won a Grammy said Auerbach. "We really sic together in five years," tickets will be available first
eo for their single "Go," pre- for non-classical producer had fun making the new said Carney. for fan club members. Even
tends that the reason for of the year, built up his la- record when we did get They brought in engineers, after the long break, Auer-
their hiatus was because bel Easy Eye Sound with back together. And I think but no outside producer bach said he's not worried
they hated each other, several emerging acts like it was because we were like they had with Brian about whether fans will
Carney likened their rela- Yola and highlighting un- able to do all that different Burton, also known as Dan- show up again.q
tionship to being as close
as brothers.
"I love the guy, but also at Erik Larson's next book centers on Nazi blitz of London
the same time, man, some-
times I want to wring his By HILLEL ITALIE tize those events that have ally sensing the impact of
neck," Carney said. Associated Press yet to be fully "exploited." the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
Auerbach responded: "I've NEW YORK (AP) — Erik Lar- He is drawing upon ev- attacks.
never had those feelings son's next book tells a story erything from the diary of "Had I been living in the
about Pat." he knows has been heard Mary Churchill, the prime apartment I'm in now
But jokes aside, the four- before. minister's daughter, to intel- I would have seen the
time Grammy winners be- "The Splendid and the Vile: ligence reports and other smoke," he said. "I started to
hind hits like "Lonely Boy," A Saga of Churchill, Fam- materials only recently de- think about how you cope
''Howlin' For You," and ily, and Defiance During classified. during a time like that."
"Tighten Up," needed to the Blitz," which comes out "My goal was to put us Larson will juxtapose the
take a break from the road. next March, is set during there in that first year of his Nazi blitzkrieg with such par-
Their touring schedule was the Nazi bombing of Lon- prime ministry," said Larson, allel narratives as Churchill's
taking a toll on their per- don in 1940-41. Countless known for the best-selling urgent campaign for aid
sonal lives and it was up to books and movies have "The Devil in the White City," from the United States and
them to put the brakes on documented those fate- his novelistic portrait of the Britain's efforts to camou-
it. ful months and Winston 1893 World's Columbian Ex- flage Churchill's country
"No one who is working for Churchill's call to "stand position in Chicago. home from the Nazi bomb-
us . or with us is going to up to" Hitler, so that time During a recent telephone ers. This cover image released
by Crown shows "The Splen-
say, 'Yeah, don't generate would be remembered as interview, Larson said he "There was all kinds of stuff did and the Vile: A Saga of
any income for five years,'" the British empire's "finest thought of doing the new that I wondered at first if I Churchill, Family, and Defi-
said Carney. "We had to re- hour." But Larson said in a book after moving from should use," he said. "I final- ance During The Blitz," by Erik
alize we needed to take a recent interview that he felt Seattle to New York in 2015 ly just said, 'I'm into this. By Larson.
break and that's OK." there were ways to drama- and for the first time viscer- god, I like it.'"q Associated Press