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So was selling out arenas and amphitheatres always the goal for you and Dan?

The goal always was to sell out a 200-seat venue. After that happened it was, ‘Maybe we can sell out a 300-seat place.’ When we got to arenas, it became, ‘We better just try and put on a good show’ (laughs).

You were so young when you started out. Did you have an idea of what you would have done with your life if music didn’t work out?

There was no plan B. I guess I would have started a landscaping company or something. But I don’t know what I would have done. I think one of the things that really helped Dan and I was we got rid of our life preservers early on. We both dropped out of school together and made basically an unspoken pact to make this thing work. The crazy thing is, in 2008, 2009, we felt very successful. We both had houses in Akron that were paid off and we had some money in the bank. It was insane. But I just was looking at my Facebook page and they had one of those, ‘On this day’ reminders, and it showed a picture of me with a $3,000 guitar that I had wanted. I posted about how I had wanted that guitar since I was in eighth grade and in 2011 I decided I deserved this $3,000, 1966 Fender Jaguar. Then, the following year, we sold out an entire arena tour and I know I was not anticipating that.

When did you know you had a magical thing with Dan?

I knew it was something special the first time we played. We had jammed lots in high school, but when we finally made our first demo it was a spur of the moment thing in September of 2001 right before 9/11. I was supposed to record Dan’s bar band. He showed up, but his bandmates didn’t. It was just him and I, and he said, ‘Why don’t you just play drums and we’ll just record these songs I have.’ I hadn’t played drums in years, but I had ideas of how to make it sound cool. In four hours, we recorded six songs. Then I went and mixed them the following week. I remember listening back to those sessions and thinking, ‘Holy s—. We could be a real band.’ We did all that in four hours. I made a copy of the CD and I gave it to Dan. Twenty minutes after he listened to it, he said to me, ‘We gotta start a band.’ I said, ‘We should call ourselves The Black Keys.’ And that was it. It was instant.