Black Keys.

THE BLACK KEYS take many cues from Northern Mississippi hill country blues, but they're a rock band with a sound of their own. I saw them at a small club in the obscurity of a Monday night, but got the sense that the obscurity phase would soon be over--they're already embarking on a tour with Beck for the summer and will probably be headlining the Warfield or the Fillmore after that. Dan Auerbach is a natural talent, like Bradley Nowell or Kurt Cobain, the kind of guy who can fill up a room with just a guitar and a voice. I realize that this is a serious comparison but I'm willing to put it on the line. I was swept away by the youthful promise of rocking-the-fuck-ou.--Eben Sterling

Didn't you have a relationship with some of the artists on Fat Possum records prior to getting signed?

Dan: I'd been down to Mississippi and I'd searched out a few of those guys. I went down a few times trying to find a guy named Junior Kimbrough and also T-Model Ford. I went down and met up with T-Model and hung out--we played all day and all night and stayed over at his trailer home. We hit it off; it was a lot of fun.

Did he play the Peavey Razor (a quirky pawn shop guitar) when he was hanging around at home?

Fuck yeah he does! That's his baby. "Black Manny."

I've never really seen one of those off the wall at a pawn shop before.

I know. I just spoke to this guy who was at a wedding where T-Model played. They told T-Model's girlfriend Stella to press him a shirt and clean him up nice and neat. So he goes there with a nice ironed AC/DC shirt

That's a good look for him. Do you think it was presumptuous of you to just show up at these guys' doors? Did you call them first or did you just look them up on the Internet and start driving south?

They didn't even have phones. I just drove to the city where they were from and asked some people if they knew them.

What was their reaction when you showed up?

They were really happy. T-Model was ecstatic and wanted me to stay down longer and play. He was like, "What are you doing next Friday?"

Was it surprising that these people you only knew through records were approachable?

Well you know, these guys aren't contrived in anyway and they'll tell you if they don't want you around. I kind of had a feeling, since Junior Kimbrough owned a nightclub, that I could at least see him play and meet him too. And T-Model, you get the feeling that he loves attention.

The famous Chicago blues stalwart Buddy Guy put out a record of Northern Mississippi-style blues; do you see that as an indication of the music's impact?

Yeah man, it sells doesn't it? That guy James Mathis was in charge of that; the guy from the Squirrel Nut Zippers put that whole thing together. He's a big fan of that kind of music. But, you know, this skit's just about dead. Junior Kimbrough died, RL Burnside doesn't tour anymore because of his health. There was a little moment there that Fat Possum had this stable of artists who you could actually go see, but now it's pretty much done. Buddy Guy does not play that kind of music. If you go and see him, it's not what he does. He's still wankin' it out. I mean, it was a good thing for RL Burnside. I'm sure it helped sell RL's albums.

You've mentioned listening to hip-hop while growing up. Did hip-hop kill the blues?

No, the fuckin' blues killed the blues. Hip-hop is almost dead anyway. But the blues got comfortable and it didn't go anywhere. The musicians felt like they didn't have to do anything else. They let people tamper with their sound and produce albums and turn them into garbage. There's a lot of flicking garbage. I hate the word "blues." I mean, I hate when people say, "You guys are real bluesy." There is so much blues music that I can't stand. It's scarred that word for me.

Is there any blues music that you do like?

Oh yeah, a ton of it. But it's like Joe Hill Louis, Doctor Ross, not, contemporary shit. I don't know of any really contemporary stuff that I like.

Do you think that the droning style of Northern Mississippi blues is more accessible to today's listeners because, like hip-hop, it's based around a groove rather than a chord structure?

Yeah, that's it. That's why that music is half as refreshing as it is, because it's just a clean palette for those guys to create on top of and it's not that fuckin 12-bar blues with the two phrases and the catch phrase. All of a sudden the blues got another chance to be refreshing and personal.

You recorded Thickfreakness live in 14 hours?

It's all live. We recorded it in the basement in Akron, Ohio. Ninety-nine percent of it was done in 14 hours one day, and then we did some over-dubs the next. We started Monday, and with all the mixing and shit we were done by Thursday.

Do think that the live element is essential as opposed to constructing an album one instrument at a time?

It's completely essential to making music that has a free-flowing, spontaneous feel. And you know the songs are always different every time we play them. It's real important to capture that. We don't ever want to over-think anything and that was the idea with the album: We'll just fucking do it and that's it Just put it out there.