The Black Keys have been kind of everywhere lately, spouting off on issues like Spotify and “selling out” in interviews done in conjunction with the release of their new album. The latest chapter of their media blitz finds the duo profiled for a Rolling Stone cover story in which Patrick Carney takes the opportunity to go after some low-hanging fruit.
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. F*ck 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 sh*t. When people start lumping us into that kind of sh*t, it’s like, ‘F*ck you,’ honestly.”
Writer Brian Hiatt later goes on to note that Carney, before an appearance on Letterman, “has to ‘see what shirts make me look less fat’ – right now, he’s got on a blue button-front from J. Crew, a brand he wears as a sort of anti-hipster statement – and clean up the apartment,” and notes that Carney’s neighbors on the aforementioned loft building include Fabrizio Moretti, Bret Easton Ellis and Tom Cruise.
Look, I’m not saying that the Black Keys are overstaying their welcome and should leave the trashing of Nickelback to people on the internet, but they’re overstaying their welcome and should really leave the trashing of Nickelback to people on the internet. And the people of Detroit, of course.
