World Cafe : World Cafe Words and Music Podcast : NPR

Just over a year ago, things were looking kind of rough in The Black Keys‘ universe. They’d put out a new album called Ohio Players, and the band was supposed to take it out on an arena tour.

But that tour never happened. It was suddenly cancelled, and soon after, the band split from their management. You could have forgiven Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney for taking a break at that point, but instead, they went into the studio and recorded another album, called No Rain, No Flowers.

That album comes out Friday, but today, Auerbach and Carney join us for a first listen to some of the songs on the record in this session that was recorded in front of a live audience in Philly this past spring. They talk about making the album, getting through hard times together and lots more coming up.

On the title track, “No Rain, No Flowers”

Auerbach: “I made a record a long time ago with Lana Del Rey called Ultraviolence, and she’d written most of the songs with a guy named Rick Nowels … We were talking about the new album and who to maybe collaborate with, and his name came up … So we booked a session over at the studio and we wrote [“No Rain, No Flowers”] that first day.

“Everybody’s got their own style when it comes to songwriting … He likes to start with a lyric, the title. That’s what he looks for first. I said I had this idea, ‘no rain, no flowers.’ He said, I love it. He said, ‘How would you sing it?’ He just had me sing it out in space … He started messing around the keyboard, and he found what key I was in. Then, we were off.”

On their canceled tour

Carney: “Essentially, the people we were working with in our management had a plan for touring. Everything seemed to be fine. We went off to Europe to do like a three-week tour …

“Then we came back to the U.S., and we get a text to come to a meeting at our manager’s house. He’s just basically, like, there’s a new plan for the tour. Some of these shows aren’t doing so good, so we’re gonna move it to smaller venues in 5,000-(capacity) rooms.

“We were kind of checked out on that level because we just worked our ass off on this record, turned it in, and we were stoked getting ready to get to work … So, we cancelled the tour, refunded the tickets, and I was like, ‘So, what’s up with the new dates?’ And there were no other dates.”

Auerbach: “But we took the experience, and — of course, we were frustrated and angry. We put all that work into the record, and we didn’t get to go share it with the fans. It really sucks. But what we did was we went right back in the studio and we started to work, and we took that pain and the anger and the frustration, and we focused it towards the music and we made a new album.”

On working with hip-hop and R&B producer Scott Storch

Auerbach: “We’ve been obsessed with Scott Storch since high school, since seeing videos of him playing his hits on piano. We’ve always wanted to get in the studio with him.

“He’s also just this kind of larger-than-life character too. We have no idea what he’s like, but he just looks ridiculous in a great way. So we invited him, and he was everything that we thought he would be and more.

“He was used to being in sessions where he’d be in the control room with the digital piano, and then he walked in the studio with all these acoustic pianos and synthesizers and harpsichords, and we just basically let him run wild with all of these keyboards. It was incredible, and ‘Babygirl’ is him playing the piano. You can hear him, physically, while he’s playing — he’s grunting — and we just left it in the track. It’s like percussion.”