The Black Keys have landed on an Aug. 8 release date for their 13th album, No Rain, No Flowers, the title track from which is out now. Among the collaborators on the self-produced Easy Eye Sound/Warner project are songwriters Rick Nowels and Daniel Tashian, plus veteran hip-hop producer/keyboardist Scott Storch.
Black Keys guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach previously told SPIN that he and bandmate Patrick Carney used to obsessively watch YouTube videos of Storch “playing all his parts from his productions on piano. He showed up and he was so excited to be in the studio because it’s filled with keyboards here. He said he’d never really recorded with real instruments before — like harpsichords, vibes, tack pianos and stuff. So, he was like a kid in a candy shop. We hit it off and we had a lot of fun.”
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The album’s first single, “The Night Before,” emerged as Carney, Auerbach and Tashian played drums, guitar and bass in a circle at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio. “It came together so quickly that we overlooked it,” said Auerbach. “When we were playing the songs we had for people, it was the very last one we played to the record label. As soon as we played it, everyone unanimously said that should be the first single.”
No Rain, No Flowers amounts to some positive fallout surrounding the release of 2024’s Ohio Players and the abrupt cancelation of its supporting tour, during which Auerbach and Carney traded barbs with former manager Irving Azoff. “We put a lot of time into [that] album, and then it came out and some bullshit happened and we had to pivot,” said Carney. “Som we pivoted to where we feel most comfortable, which is back in the studio — make more music and just do it again.”
The Black Keys will be on the road in North America beginning May 23 in Durant, Ok., and have dates on the books through Sept. 20 at Atlanta’s Shaky Knees festival. “The fact we didn’t get to tour last year, we hated it,” Carney admitted. “It sucks for us, sucks for the fans. Also, the circumstances were bullshit. But at the end of the day, we did get to make another album. And it’s something that we’re proud of, and that will be a document that will exist long after we’re gone.”
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