Black Keys on Canceled Tour, Azoff Feud, New Album

By their own admission, 2024 was a rough year for the Black Keys. After releasing their 12th studio album, Ohio Players, the band was looking forward to a North American arena tour following successful shows in Europe. Instead, they canceled the entire tour, reportedly due to low ticket sales, and subsequently fired their management — which included industry heavyweight Irving Azoff — and PR team. Two weeks later, in a since-deleted tweet aimed at Azoff, drummer Patrick Carney wrote, “We got fucked. I’ll let you all know how so it doesn’t happen to you.” (In another deleted tweet, Carney sarcastically wrote of Azoff, “So great to know you are always looking out for the artist.”)

Short of a few shows — more on the group’s “America Loves Crypto” gig in their hometown of Akron, Ohio later — the band went relatively quiet, establishing a semi-frequent Nashville residency for their all-vinyl “Record Hang” dance parties but not speaking publicly on the fracas that both fans and the music industry watched closely.

Last July, the duo did what they usually do when faced with adversity: They hit the studio, spending the better part of last summer and fall writing and recording more than 15 songs for their upcoming album, No Rain, No Flowers. (The group is still deciding how many tracks will make the final cut and will release the album later this year.) On first single “The Night Before” (written with Daniel Tashian, who co-wrote and co-produced Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour), the group leans into its upbeat pop-rock side. “It was very organically [done] in the studio together,” singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach tells Rolling Stone. “The three of us just came up with it together on the spot.”

Earlier this week, the duo announced their long-awaited rescheduled tour dates, swapping arenas for smaller amphitheaters and theaters. “The whole music industry obviously has changed over the last 15 years,” Carney says. “We’re still trying to figure out how it works and feels authentic.”

In their first interview since the tour cancellation and management split, Carney and Auerbach spoke to Rolling Stone from the group’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville for both a post-mortem of the past year and optimistic look ahead.

Can you talk a little about the significance of the album title No Rain, No Flowers?
Dan Auerbach: Well, we wrote the Black Keys on Canceled Tour, Azoff Feud, New Album song with [Grammy-winning songwriter] Rick Nowels, and it was just an expression that I’d heard, and we turned it into this tune that seemed to sum up how we envisioned ourselves getting over the situation that we’d just been through.

Patrick Carney: Rick likes to start with a title, and that was the title Dan had written down in his phone. You got to take it on the chin sometimes to move forward, and that’s kind of what the last year was for us.

How would you sum up the past year for you guys?
Carney: Pretty enlightening and eye-opening. Dan and I have a pretty good grasp on the music industry, but to be exposed firsthand to how things have changed, it was pretty shocking to understand what’s actually going on. I think trying to avoid getting jaded and totally flustered, we took the opportunity to reassess how we’re doing things and to make a record that’s mostly on this positive tinge.

What specifically was shocking to you?
Carney: To generalize: to see how consolidated the industry has gotten and how connected things have become. It’s mind-blowing. And there’s just a lot of shared interests across the business side of this. When you’re an artist trying to interface with that and trying to receive helpful and constructive strategy and business input, you realize that that whole world is more deeply connected than I had ever really thought.

Dan, how would you categorize the past year?
Auerbach: A lot of ups and downs, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of 2 a.m. phone calls, a lot of worry and stress, a lot of heartache, but also an incredible amount of creativity. I feel really excited about the music we’ve been making. It feels like the creative juices are flowing in a really positive way, and I’m kind of loving it.

Let’s get into some details. Two weeks after the tour was canceled, a rep for Azoff Management said the split was “an amicable parting.” Is that how you would characterize it?
Carney: [Pauses.] I mean, we fired their ass. Shit happens. We spent a lot of time making Ohio Players and turned it in in October 2023 and had all this time to plan how we were going to tour. Things got off to this weird start where I was waiting for these European dates to pop up because our plan was to go to Europe first. We ended up getting nine shows sent to us [on] a three-week tour. There’s absolutely no way to make money [from] that.

We kept having to move shit around for a Manchester show because there was a venue that our management company co-owned and wanted us to play, and it wasn’t ready. After going to Europe 30 times in our career for tours, this was the most poorly orchestrated tour we had been on. The shows were incredible, but [it] just became the first sign that maybe there was some poor organization happening.

When did the relationship with Irving Azoff sour?
Carney: The ultimate answer to this is that it’s a broader thing. I don’t even want to mention that guy’s name. I want to look at this from a bigger perspective. The essential thing that we learned here was how many management companies are directly connected to a company that runs every single aspect of promotion in this country. This whole industry is so intertwined from ticketing to promotion to the management company. But essentially as artists — and this is the thing that we care the most about — it’s almost impossible to talk about this…. You’re dealing with management companies that co-own festivals with this other company. You’re at the [whims] of these people who have other interests.

So when you’re called into a manager’s office and he suggests something to you, I was naive enough to think that that was on the up-and-up. And more and more, it’s just not. So it’s a hard thing because I don’t think Dan and I want to sit here and look like whining bitches. But we got a little bamboozled here.

Patrick, last year you tweeted: “We got fucked. I’ll let you all know how so it doesn’t happen to you. Stay tuned.” How do you feel you got “bamboozled”?
Carney: Well, I had to delete it, so I didn’t get sued.

Who threatened to sue you?
Carney: No one threatened, but it was a big no-no to even talk about what’s going on here. There’s a concentration of connectivity that eliminates competition. [For] a capitalist society to function, there has to be competition. And if everything’s connected and all the interests are shared on one side, there’s no way to compete. Our tour, we had about 10 [arena] shows that were not doing great. They were just in rooms that they shouldn’t have been in.

So in any situation like this tour, we might’ve had to take one on the chin and find new venues to play in certain cities, but instead we were advised to cancel the whole tour. We were told … there were other venues being booked, and it was all going to get into more intimate rooms, and it would be great. But that wasn’t accurate. That didn’t exist.

It’s all very fucked up, and the bottom line is that we can’t even really talk about it because we won’t be able to work.

Dan, did you know Patrick was going to tweet that?
Auerbach: No, I woke up to that one.

How did you feel when you saw it?
Auerbach: I understood the intensity of it.

Anything else?
Auerbach: No.

“A lot of ups and downs, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of 2 a.m. phone calls, a lot of worry and stress, a lot of heartache, but also an incredible amount of creativity.”

Dan Auerbach

Did you two ever personally consider scaling down the tour rather than cancel, or are you claiming that wasn’t even an option?
Carney: No, it was told to me by someone that we ended up parting ways with that the dates were being rebooked into rooms that were scaled down. So we could cancel this tour and we would re-announce dates in a couple days in these better rooms. But the plan wasn’t there because there were no holds on rooms. It was bullshit. I don’t want to use the term “lie” because I don’t want to get fucking sued, but what was presented didn’t exist.

There’s certain cities where we know we can [sell] … but you want to look to your management to make these decisions. We spend so much time making the music [and] figuring out promotional shit. This is what you lean into for management, and you hope that there’s decisions that are made on the up-and-up so that they help everybody. That’s just harder and harder to come by.

Now I’m curious about your thoughts on the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Live Nation, claiming the company is a monopoly. (Live Nation vehemently denied the claim when the lawsuit was filed.)
Carney: When [the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger closed in 2010], Obama said, “This is so close to a monopoly. You need to watch this.” And the reason why it was allowed to go through — because it was a monopoly — the argument was artists aren’t signed into long contracts. The artists can always just opt to go to someone else … But at this point, if you don’t work with a certain company, where are you going to work?

The thing that most people don’t understand is that when you control ticketing, promotion, and all this stuff, and then you get into owning the venues and then having shared interests with management, it just becomes harder and harder [for artists] to do business. This isn’t something that’s unique to the music business. All across this country, things are getting so intertwined [and] so consolidated that it’s harder to compete in general.

It was widely reported that ticket sales for the tour were weak, with The New York Times saying last year, “Some tours like the Black Keys may simply be a matter of the band overestimating demand.” Is that a fair statement?
Carney: I don’t know, but all I know is this: After the tour was canned, I went through my email, and I had one email from Ticketmaster about the tour on the day it was announced and nothing else in my inbox for six weeks. When I finally went through the numbers after the tour was canceled, we had sold nearly $10 million worth of tickets, and we had four months till the first show. We just had to take one on the fucking face.

After the tour was announced, more than a few fans complained about high ticket prices, and it’s the artist that typically sets those prices. Nosebleed seats were reportedly going for $100 at some venues.
Carney: We weren’t even asked about the ticket prices on the last tour. We didn’t set them. On this [next] tour, we realized that we have to be more involved in this. The last thing Dan and I want to do is gouge a fan on a ticket.

But in retrospect, would you have tried to lower the ticket price?
Carney: Yeah. This is this ongoing thing where it’s like when we did the El Camino arena tour [in 2012-13], the average upper bowl ticket was $40 or something. And then after scalping and stuff, those tickets were $65, so scalpers were making more money off those tickets than we were. Which I think is disheartening because the fans are paying it and it’s not getting to the band.… The cost of going on tour now versus 2012 is 3.5 [times higher]. Our ticket prices haven’t gone up that much.

You fired your management and PR team after the tour was canceled, but not the agency that actually booked the tour. Why is that?
Carney: [Pauses.] Because I think a lot of these deals are done between management and another bigger company.

“We’ve picked out rooms that seem like the fans will enjoy the most, that we’ll enjoy the most, and we’ll just see what the fuck happens. Hopefully, people show up.”

Patrick Carney

You did play a few live shows last year, including a show called “America Loves Crypto,” whose goal was to “rally the 5 million crypto owners that might just decide the 2024 election.” How did that gig come together?
Carney: It was very simple: We had lost all of our income for the year. We had retainers for people that we were working with. We got offered a lot of money to play a show, and we saw that the Black Pumas had done the same event and we were like, “Book it.” It’s that simple, bro.

I was going to ask if you guys consider yourselves crypto enthusiasts.
Carney: We’re Crisco enthusiasts.

You did get a fair share of criticism, though. The top comment on your own fan Reddit is, “LMAO. It’s a PAC that has endorsed all the worst candidates from both parties. What the hell are they even doing?” Did you talk about the optics of doing this gig?
Carney: Of course we saw all the shit coming in, but it was like, “What are you going to do?” We were told it was a bipartisan thing. It was what it is. It was very small. It was in our hometown, so we got to go home and see our folks. I’ve definitely seen my name in bad light in the press before, so it wasn’t anything fucking new … If us playing a concert for 300 people is going to sway the whole state’s vote, then we have bigger fucking problems, bro.

Given the past year, does your mindset change going into the next tour?
Carney: The most important thing for us right now is to just put on good shows that the fans enjoy. We’ve been looking to bands whose records maybe don’t chart well, but they connect with their fans in a deep way. We’ve been on this creative streak where we’ve released four albums in five years. We might just be saturating the fucking market, but it’s like while it’s happening, you just have to do it.

We’re both in our mid-forties. We’ve been doing this for 20 years. We have a greater appreciation now for what we have together than ever before. And over the last year, we’ve seen people we care about get sick. Life isn’t a guaranteed thing. So if you have this thing that’s working, why not just fucking move on it?

It’s important for people to know we got a little bit complacent with the business shit because we’ve been so busy with the creative shit, and so we just got reminded that we have to pay attention to both things.

When you look back on the five-year period between 2014’s Turn Blue and 2019’s Let’s Rock, when you guys weren’t really speaking, do you think it cost you any momentum or potential success?
Carney: I looked at it like this, dude. Back then, we were literally printing money, and we were miserable. Now we’re just making tons of songs, and we’re in a much better place. The gigs were coming in, and we weren’t able to make music as often as we wanted, and that’s where the break came from … We just wanted to make some music, and so that’s where we’ve been trying to navigate that road since. We’ve picked out rooms that seem like the fans will enjoy the most, that we’ll enjoy the most, and we’ll just see what the fuck happens. Hopefully, people show up.

Patrick was always the more business-minded end of the group. Dan, did the events of the past year make you want to become more involved in the business side?
Auerbach: We just have to focus on what we do best, and each of us have talents in certain areas. We just put trust in each other, and that’s the most important thing right now, and that’s what we’ve been doing. It’s funny because it’s probably a direct result of all this trauma that we just went through the last year, but we’ve been hanging out together more than ever. We’ve been getting obsessed with music and collecting records, and hanging out more is making the music better and the business better. 

What exactly do you mean by “trauma”?
Auerbach: Going through all the work to put this whole thing together to be able to present it to our fans, and then going out and supporting it on the road and playing shows for our fans, and then to have all of that taken away and mess up the connection that we had to our fans for so many years right when we felt like we were really in a great place. Like we said with those shows in Europe, even though the business side of the tour was so bad, the actual shows were amazing, and we expected the same when we went back to the States.

We’d been opening up our sets, doing covers, and we had plans for doing more of that too. And to just have all that completely pulled out from under us, it was not something we’d ever experienced before in 20-plus years of doing it. So yeah, it was traumatic. But I guess we’re feeling more thankful than ever that we’re able to go out on the road and play shows and be able to see our fans again.

It sounds like mentally, you guys are in a better place than you were six or nine months ago.
Carney: Yeah. We’re competitive, and we like to work. And when it seems like the rules have been changed to the point where the game isn’t winnable, that’s when we start getting fucking flustered. We’ve been looking to people who play a different game. They don’t get caught up in that bullshit. Their version of winning is more about how they connect with their fans. That’s the inspiration.

Almost all of the records I grew up loving, like Television’s Marquee Moon or the Clash’s London Calling, were commercial failures, but these are the most important records to me. I look at it more like, “How crazy is it that we got to experience this part of our career where we just made two double-platinum records back to back in an era where people didn’t buy CDs?” We caught the tail end of that. I’m hoping that everything that we’ve been doing resonates. But if it doesn’t, we’re just going to make another album.

How do you define success in 2025 versus the Brothers/El Camino era?
Carney: At that point, we had never even had a song on the radio. We had been a band for eight or nine years. It felt like a long time back then because a lot of my favorite bands never even lasted that long. And when all these opportunities started coming in, we never got to enjoy that because we were just grinding so hard to take advantage of everything that was being offered to us. It was like the reward for good work is more work, and we just kept getting more work, and it ended up leading to us just completely burning out.

I look at all this stuff happening for a reason. What happened last year was a solid punch in the face to wake us up to understand how we have to go about doing this if we want to have a long career. And taking a little heat for playing a crypto show and all this other shit, there’s a lot more factors that go into this whole thing. Our version of success now is being able to make the music we want to make, having people hear it, and being able to play shows that the fans attend. It’s that simple.

If you could do 2024 all over again, is there anything you would do differently?
Carney: No. I prefer to not look at life through that lens ever. Shit happens. We got to move forward.