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Everything to Know About The Black Keys
See them perform on the Season 25 Finale of The Voice!
The Season 25 Finale of The Voice is a massive two-day event beginning Monday, May 20, and ending the following day. It features the final onstage outings from this season’s finalists, performances from the Season 25 Coaches, and a killer slate of musical guests including blues-rock duo The Black Keys.
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The multi-Grammy-winning band will perform during Tuesday’s episode, alongside Jelly Roll, Kate Hudson, and more. The band’s path to the Billboard charts and The Voice stage was a long and meandering one, coming through Nashville by way of Akron, Ohio. Here’s everything you need to know about The Black Keys.
The Black Keys Bring Ohio-Style Blues to the Season 25 Finale of The Voice
Patrick Carney (drums) and Dan Auerbach (guitar and vocals) met in grade school, but didn’t start playing together until college. Auerbach wanted to make a go of gigging, but couldn’t book shows without a demo. Carney had an 8-track recorder (required hardware for pre-internet aspiring musicians) and agreed to help record a few songs, with the understanding that Auerbach would recruit the rest of the band. When no one showed up, the two of them jammed for a bit and never really stopped.
Auerbach and Carney both had musicians for dads, and they hung out with a local artist named Alfred McMore. As the story goes, McMoore had schizophrenia and depended largely on the kindness of strangers – strangers like their dads. He would call sometimes asking for things and if no one picked up he’d leave messages saying, “...this is Alfred McMoore. I need pipe tobacco. If you don’t bring me pipe tobacco, you’re a black key, you’re a D flat,” Carney told Flood Magazine. When the duo recorded a demo and needed a name, those old voicemails came back to them and they co-opted McMoore’s colorful insult as their own.
That demo earned them a recording contract with Alive, an indie label out of Los Angeles. They recorded their first record, The Big Come Up, for Alive in Carney’s basement on an 8-track. The result was raw but good enough to earn them a new recording contract with Fat Possum Records. Legend has it, The Black Keys recorded their next album, Thickfreakness, in a single 14-hour day, again in Carney’s basement. It was released April 8, 2003, and the band spent most of the rest of the year touring with acts like Dashboard Confessional, Beck, and Sleater-Kinney. By 2006, they had moved on to Nonesuch Records, where they’ve since released the bulk of their catalog.
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In 2007, they started working with Danger Mouse, music producer and one half of soul duo Gnarls Barkley. The transition out of Carney’s basement and into a studio with a producer paid off with tracks that were more polished while retaining the band’s raw sound. A year later they released Attack & Release, which went gold in the U.S., U.K., and Canada, before releasing their breakout album, Brothers, in 2010.
Brothers went platinum, delivered the single “Tighten Up,” and earned the duo a total of three Grammys. They followed it up with El Camino, featuring the single “Lonely Boy,” in 2011, which went double platinum and earned another three Grammys. They took a break for a few years, from 2015 to 2019, but came back full speed, releasing four records in the last six years. Now, they’re bringing the internationally beloved sounds of Akron to the Season 25 finale of The Voice.
The Black Keys performed "Beautiful People (Stay High)"on The Voice Season 25 Finale
The iconic rock band performed their new single "Beautiful People (Stay High)" in the live The Voice finale for Season 25. The song is the hit single from their latest LP Ohio Players.
Catch the finale of The Voice, airing Monday, May 20, and Tuesday, May 21, at 8/7c on NBC, then streaming the next day on Peacock.
