GRAMMY award-winning rock duo The Black Keys return with new single, 'You Got To Lose', from their upcoming album Peaches! - set for release on May 1 via Easy Eye Sound/Parlophone Records.
The electrifying music video, directed by E.J. McLeavey-Fisher, centres around the band playing a surprise show at the legendary Memphis juke joint, Hernando’s Hide-A-Way, last month.
Peaches!, the band’s fourteenth studio album, is a visceral and raw ten song collection described by singer Dan Auerbach as the band’s “most natural record” since their 2002 debut, The Big Come Up. The project was born in the wake of Auerbach’s late father’s diagnosis of esophageal cancer, as he was staying in Dan’s Nashville home, in rapid decline. Patrick Carney, Dan’s Black Keys bandmate and oldest, closest friend, knew without asking “that it would be good for Dan to have something to do.” That something, of course, was to head into the studio and crank up the amps.
Listen to ‘You Got To Lose’ on F1 Tracks.
“We weren’t making a record. We were just jamming, like this is for us,” Dan Auerbach says. “Really primal, in a moment when all the nerves were raw, just kinda screaming. We were going through a lot, trying to lift our spirits. I think my dad getting sick made me not give a fuck and just wanna scream for a bit.”
In similar DIY spirit to their debut, the album was recorded with all musicians playing in the same room with very few overdubs, and is the first album mixed entirely by the band themselves since 2006’s Magic Potion. “Everything was all cut live in one with no separation, including vocals,” adds Patrick Carney. “It was a nightmare to mix but we got it sounding raw and filthy.”
The songs on Peaches! reflect Dan and Patrick’s obsessive record-collecting habit, which in recent years has escalated into an ongoing series of Record Hang DJ-set dance parties. These hangs fueled a deeper period of musical archaeology for both of them. “I’d look for 45s specifically to play at the record hangs,” Dan says, “but sometimes I’d find a song and think, ‘This might be fun for Pat and me to play live.’”
Following their appearance at Victorious Festival this summer, The Black Keys will also play two headline London shows at Eventim Apollo on Aug 31 and Brixton Academy on Sep 1.
