Black Keys Q&A: Patrick Carney on the Nickelback Feud, Anxiety & a Live Album

When Patrick Carney calls Spinner, he's understandably tired. The Black Keys are just about to wrap the first leg of their first-ever arena tour, and he's only been to his Nashville home, and seen his Irish wolfhound Charlotte, for four days in over two months. In spite of that, the drummer is ecstatic over how well the Keys' tour behind El Camino is going, and was more than happy to chat about adjusting to the big stages, his surprisingly controversial remarks about Nickelback, making bandmate Dan Auerbach laugh and dealing with his stage-fright anxiety.

How's the tour been? Exhausting, exhilarating, surreal?

It's been surreal playing arenas, but at the same time, the rooms are starting to not feel as huge as they were in the beginning. We have a rule that we try and stick to, three weeks on, two weeks off. Once you hit that three-week mark you just get exhausted. I don't think I'm nearly as tired as I would be if we were touring around in a van. Considering we get to hang out on the bus all day, the tour is relatively easy.

So you're not at the "no brown M&M's" stage yet.

The weird thing is -- Dan and I would never be like that anyway -- but we don't touch anything on our rider. The only thing on our rider besides water and soda and booze is one veggie tray and chips. Our crew, techs, lighting and sound guys have a full rider. But we don't need it. It just goes to waste. Then you start to feel like an asshole wasting that shit every day.

I saw you posted Twitter pictures of a Black Keys ice sculpture and cake.

The way it work is when you're playing a club like the 9:30, usually part of the deal is the promoter will give every band member $20 for dinner. In this situation, with techs, crew, local crew, there's 200 people who need to eat, so it's much cheaper to just hire a catering service to do it. I guess some of the budget goes to making ridiculous ice sculptures.

You said once that you had a panic attack while performing at Lollapalooza. Has that anxiety come back while playing in front of arena crowds?

Never really went away. I'll always have and always have had incredible emotion on stage. But that one show I really spun out. It was a like a feedback loop where I couldn't channel my nerves the right way and I just got really panicky. I always have nerves, it's just a matter if I can use them to my advantage or if they start fucking with my head. I got a prescription for Ativan, but I can't play music with it, so I don't take it. I have to play drums stone-cold sober. I can't even have a beer. I don't know how [Cream's] Ginger Baker or whoever was shooting up heroin. No fucking idea how they were able to do that.

Same with Keith Moon and John Bonham.

They were probably nervous as fuck themselves.

Has the press been hounding you about that one Nickelback comment?

Just that one interview in Canada. I didn't mean to single out that band. I tried to apologize. I don't want to seem like I don't stand by my comments from earlier. Whatever. It's like someone acting surprised that I don't like a band like that. It's like them being surprised that I don't watch "The 700 Club" every Sunday. What the fuck?

Yeah, like another site said "Patrick Carney put his foot in his mouth again." Like you're really saying something messed up.

It was the VH1 blog. I was talking about the new fad in indie music of lo-fi, computer-generated drum-machine indie rock, and there's something a little too perfect about it. The [author] said something like, "You need to listen to Lady Gaga." I was like "What the fuck?!" I don't know what goes through people's minds. I really don't.

With your new level of fame, do you find that more people misunderstand you in those ways?

VH1 never played any of our videos until a year and a half ago. They never cared about anything that came out of my mouth. But now apparently they do. At the same time, it's not going to last a very long time. But as long as someone's paying attention, at least be honest.

During interviews, it seems like Dan just sits there and laughs at the stuff that comes out of your mouth.

That's usually why I end up saying retarded shit sometimes, is just to get a rise out of him.

Does he ever comment about it after?

No, he usually doesn't.

You played two sold-out shows at MSG. Were there any specific moments that stood out to you?

Right before the first show, before doors opened, I called my dad and was walking around talking to him on the floor. I was like, yeah, I'm at MSG. Right then I looked up and saw the scoreboard and that's when I was like, "What the fuck!" Taking about nerves, my nerves were awful that night. I couldn't calm down at all on stage. Totally nervous. Second time we played there I was completely fine. First time was just really fucking terrifying. It's one of those venues that everyone asks us about: Our family members, our friends, everybody asks about it. You don't get asked, "What was it like playing the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit?" Someone asks you about the most famous arena. Because of that, the show got so built up in our minds that we were both on edge that night. The funny thing is, the night before we actually played to 1,000 more people because the arenas in Philly and DC are actually bigger. It wasn't small, but it wasn't the biggest show we've played this tour.

You guys recorded El Camino right after Brothers. Do you have any plans past this tour? A live album, maybe?

We recorded every show, just waiting for the right venue to do something like that. Tonight we're playing the Bojangles arena. You can't put a live record out and say, Live from the KFC Arena. Everything has these name rights. We have to wait 'til we get to a place that's called something like Madison Square Garden. If you released a record that's recorded at a place [with a corporate name], you have to give your royalties away to union people. I don't really know the details.

We recorded every song, and we booked some studio time for two weeks in July. So I know we're going to start working on the next album in a couple of months. We haven't really talked about it. We just want to get in the studio and start. That's the only time we have to get into the studio until January, becuase we're working all the way through the second half of summer, fall, and early winter.

Well, for a live album, you could always do it like the Stones and call it something like Get Yer Ya Ya's Out. That was at MSG?

Oh, really? I didn't know that was there. I'm starting to come around to the idea of the Bojangles arena. I like the idea of all the processed chicken. That would be a really cool record cover. The worst naming-right venue is in Tampa, Fla. It's called the 1-800-ASK-GARY Amphitheatre. It was the moistest look of a rock poster. You make a poster for your show, they have to put on 1-800-ASK-GARY Amphitheatre, Tampa. It's really fucked up. It's a lawyer referral service. I had to look it up. "What the fuck is that shit?"

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