When it comes to annoying concert behaviours, you won’t find The Black Keys’ drummer Patrick Carney among the legions of musicians who hate cellphones.

It’s quite the opposite, actually.

While some of Carney’s musical contemporaries rail against fans who want to shoot grainy handheld video of shows instead of being in the moment, the Keys’ most outspoken member is fine with people who just want to kick back and film clips from the Akron, Ohio, duo’s upcoming tour in support of this year’s Turn Blue.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he tells QMI Agency down the line from Nashville.

“What was it that happened recently? Peter Frampton threw a cellphone? I mean, maybe he didn’t know what a cellphone was? Maybe he was confused on what it was? … What we are used to more than the cellphones is what happened to us during the four years we were playing clubs. It was people with their arms crossed standing at the back looking like the ultimate scenester record store clerk. That’s way more uncomfortable.

“At least the people filming seem to be enjoying it.”

Although they are filling arenas now, Carney and vocalist-guitarist Dan Auerbach weren’t overnight sensations.

Following 2002’s The Big Come Up until 2010’s breakout disc Brothers, it was a slow climb from the clubs to theatres. By the time 2011’s El Camino dropped, the Keys were playing arenas and amphitheatres.

“It was weird, because it was super gradual,” Carney recalls. “In Toronto, our first show was opening for Sleater-Kinney at the Opera House, then we played Lee’s Palace. We were in 4,500-seat rooms and we slowly moved up to 1,000-seat ones.

“When Brothers came out, we did two nights at (Toronto’s) Kool Haus, so that was around 3,000. But when we jumped from that to the arenas and amphitheatres it was strange.

“It was odd to be playing these big venues that I never thought we’d be playing.”

Along with the bigger shows came Grammy wins and Twitter wars with Beliebers after an off-hand comment he made to TMZ (“Grammys are for like music, not for money ... and he’s making a lot of money. He should be happy”) following the 2013 ceremony about Bieber’s lack of nominations.

Earlier this year, he even caught flak for dissing Michael Jackson’s posthumously released Xscape album. And, months later, he still doesn’t care that he rankled Bieber or the King of Pop’s legions of fans. In fact, he’s still pretty cheesed about the whole fracas.

“With regards to the Bieber thing, it was the most frightening day of our career and also one of the most exhilarating,” Carney says.

“We knew a lot of people had no idea what our music sounded like and then afterwards we celebrated for a little bit and then I have a TMZ camera asking me about Justin Bieber.

“The last thing I would ever expect to happen was a camera in my face, followed by a camera in my face asking me about someone who I know nothing about.

“I was aware that he was having an issue for not being nominated for a Grammy, but the reality is that was our seventh record. We’d been around for a long time, but I think we felt we didn’t even deserve to be there.

“I put it all in context of the Clash and other bands that were never nominated or won Grammys who deserved them probably more than anybody else.

“Feeling entitled to anything is really his issue. There are a lot of bands more talented than ours who aren’t successful at all, for various reasons.

“Dan and I are super lucky. He has a career and millions of fans and he’s making lots of money, so the idea of wanting more than that is quite ridiculous, so I don’t feel bad about what I said.”

the black keys drummer should be slapped around haha — Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) February 12, 2013

And in terms of MJ, it’s not the fans that should be mad with Carney’s Xscape comments — it’s Michael himself.

“Why do you think Michael Jackson left those songs untouched for 30 years in the vault? Why are they coming out now? If someone pillaged the songs Dan and I chose not to release; if someone started putting those out, I would hope that my family and Dan’s family would stop that. There’s a reason why those tracks weren’t released.”

With Turn Blue — the band’s eighth studio record — Carney and Auerbach didn’t try to recreate El Camino’s straight-up rock sounds, recording 30-plus songs during sessions. Instead they infused the 11 tracks with bits of bluesy psychedelia.

“El Camino was a big departure from what we had normally done,” he says. “Turn Blue is bringing it back to what most of the Black Keys’ records have sounded like, but with some of the melodic elements of El Camino added to that.”

With the Keys set for a fall tour that will see them once again playing arenas throughout much of North America (including seven Canadian stops), Carney says the challenge becomes incorporating rare tunes from the band’s discography, the chart-topping tracks that made them famous and cuts off Turn Blue.

“We’ve released something like 105 songs as the Black Keys,” he says. “We’ve been focusing mostly on the last four records, but we’ll touch on all our albums. Right now we’re picking out songs from our back catalogue that we want to play.”

And in the midst of the four-month trek, which will then head overseas in 2015, Carney and Auerbach will try and find time to write new songs for their next LP.

“At some point we have to find time to record, but we can normally work pretty quickly,” he chuckles. “This last record took a little longer. But Dan and I can look around, find a two-week block and make an album.”

The Keys are one of the few bands that came of age during an era where MySpace and YouTube became normal paths to success, so of course he’s asked for tips on how to make it all the time. But there’s no crystal ball, he says.

“I know that the thing that happens is people can discover music really quickly now.

“You can put a single out and within a month be selling out 300-seat rooms if people like the song. That’s something that wouldn’t really have happened prior to the Internet.

“But I also think music has become a more disposable thing … I think it would be hard if we were starting a band now, but at the same time there are bands that are coming up now that have grown up with that whole online mentality.

“Dan and I grew up reading fanzines and mail-ordering records when our first album came out … But there’s a way to get by it, we got by for a long time without selling records.”

So after years in the back of a van, followed by a meteoric rise to the top and packed arenas, are the Akron pair happy? Have their rock ’n’ roll dreams come true?

“When we first started selling out 300-seat rooms, at that point I thought that we’d made it,” Carney says.

“I felt like my dreams had come true at that point. So this is all slightly surreal. That’s why when I say something about Justin Bieber, I can’t believe anyone would care, especially Justin Bieber.”

Twitter: @markhdaniell

mark.daniell@sunmedia.ca

---

FROM THE MOUTH OF CARNEY

Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney doesn’t mince words, whether he’s picking fights, or prognosticating the future of rock. Here’s some of his best quotes.

On the future of rock music…

I think rock ’n’ roll will stick around, but I really don’t know. Jazz is still around, it’s just no one listens to it. Maybe that will be rock ’n’ roll in 20 years… If I could answer that I’d be really rich.

On the Keys’ honorary Canadian status…

We grew up in Akron, which is basically 50 miles from Canada, so we’re basically Canadian.

On whether he has ever downloaded anything illegally…

I buy way more digital albums than physical albums, but if I really like something I will definitely get an actual copy… In my whole life, I think I’ve only illegally downloaded like five songs and that was because I couldn’t find them. They were out of print.

On not letting fame go to his head…

It’s all about perspective and not starting to think everything you do is good. When that happens, you start to fall off the map.

-Mark Daniell, QMI Agency

The Black Keys' Canadian tour dates:

Sept. 16, Air Canada Centre, Toronto

Sept. 17, Canadian Tire Centre, Ottawa

Sept. 18, Bell Centre, Montreal

Oct. 25, MTS Centre, Winnipeg

Oct. 27, Scotiabank Saddledome, Calgary

Oct. 28, Rexall Place, Edmonton

Oct. 30, Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver