The Black Keys unveil 'This is Nowhere', the latest single shared from new album Ohio Players, which the duo are billing as a "party record".
‘This Is Nowhere’ is a midtempo groove overflowing with bright melodies and sparkling sounds. The Keys wrote it with Beck, and you can hear his involvement loud and clear, especially in some of Dan Auerbach’s catchy, rapid-fire lyrical outbursts. The multiple-Grammy Award-winning, Akron, OH natives’ twelfth studio album Ohio Players is out April 5 via Nonesuch/Warner Records.
Speaking on the collaborative nature of the album, Patrick Carney shares, “We had this epiphany: ‘We can call our friends to help us make music.’ It’s funny because we both write songs with other people – Dan all the time [as a solo artist and producer], me when I’m producing a record. That’s what we do.”
Listen to ‘This Is Nowhere’ by The Black Keys on the F1 Tracks Playlist on Spotify.
Auerbach adds, “No matter who we work with, it never feels like we’re sacrificing who we are. It only feels like it adds some special flavor. We just expanded that palette with people we wanted to work with. We were there to support them and their ideas, to do whatever we could to see that moment flourish. But when it came time to finish the album, it was just Pat and me.”
“We’d never worked harder to make a record,” he continues. “It’s never taken us this long to make an album. We took our time and did it right. What we wanted to accomplish with this record was make something that was fun,” Carney says. “And something that most bands 20 years into their career don’t make, which is an approachable, fun record that is also cool.”
While making Ohio Players, a title inspired by the legendary Dayton, OH funk band of the same name, The Black Keys were also DJing dance parties in cities around the world that they called “record hangs,” spinning 45s from their own eclectic and growing collections.
Formed in Akron, Ohio in 2001, The Black Keys are singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney. Last year, the duo received two Grammy nominations for their eleventh studio album Dropout Boogie. The band has won six Grammy Awards and a BRIT and headlined festivals in North America, South America, Mexico, Australia, and Europe.
Cutting their teeth playing small clubs, the band has gone on to sell out arena tours and has released eleven previous studio albums: the debut The Big Come Up (2002), followed by Thickfreakness (2003) and Rubber Factory (2004), along with their releases on Nonesuch Records: Magic Potion (2006), Attack & Release (2008), Brothers (2010), El Camino (2011), Turn Blue (2014), “Let’s Rock” (2019), Delta Kream (2021), and Dropout Boogie (2022).
