The Black Keys on What Happened to Rock & Roll

I didn’t think it was possible to love the Black Keys any more than I already have the past 8 years since I first heard 10 am Automatic and then lashed out at someone for confusing them with the White Stripes.  Anyway, all their hard work and great records over the last decade have really paid off and this month they find themselves on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine (yes, that still kind of means something).

And they took the occasion to let loose on the state of rock music in general (which is horrifying)…

Patrick Carney is pretty sure he knows what’s ailing his chosen genre these days. “Rock & roll is dying because people became OK with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world,” he says, blowing cigarette smoke out the window of his rented East Village loft a few days ­before the band heads to L.A. “So they became OK with the idea that the biggest rock band in the world is always going to be shit – therefore you should never try to be the biggest rock band in the world. Fuck that! Rock & roll is the music I feel the most passionately about, and I don’t like to see it fucking ruined and spoon-fed down our throats in this watered-down, post-grunge crap, horrendous shit. When people start lumping us into that kind of shit, it’s like, ‘Fuck you,’ honestly.”

So yeah, I didn’t think I could love the Black Keys any more…but now I do.  And be sure to check out their new album El Camino

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Cover Story Excerpt: The Black Keys (Rolling Stone)