Credit: Alysse GafkjenEarlier this week, The Black Keys launched their first tour in four years. Speaking to Billboard, frontman Dan Auerbach says the duo isn’t planning on taking another four-year break from the road.

“I think that what we’re gonna try to do is pace ourselves,” Auerbach explains. “Try and do it in a normal way, instead of like a couple of maniacs just tearing around the globe. We need to slow it down a bit.”

A major reason for the touring hiatus was that Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney had been on the road pretty much constantly from the release of their commercial breakthrough, 2010’s Brothers, through 2014’s Turn Blue.

“Brothers was our first record that was a hit, and it’s our sixth album,” Carney says. “It took us eight and a half years of pretty much constant work until that happened, and so when it did happen — we’d been a band for almost a decade. We just said yes to everything.”

“We were just burned out,” Auerbach adds. “Been on the road a little too long, hit it a little too hard. Never said no.”

The Black Keys’ return to the road follows the release of their new album “Let’s Rock”, the duo’s first record in five years. That delay was very much a consequence of the burnout from touring.

“When we came back to make our record, I think the only thing that was preventing [recording] from happening sooner was that we had to figure out how we could go make a record that wouldn’t result in us having to go on tour for the entire year,” Carney says. “That’s not something we ever want to do again.”

The Black Keys’ tour continues Wednesday in St. Louis, Missouri. It’ll wrap up in November.

Copyright © 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

Credit: Alysse GafkjenEarlier this week, The Black Keys launched their first tour in four years. Speaking to Billboard, frontman Dan Auerbach says the duo isn’t planning on taking another four-year break from the road.

“I think that what we’re gonna try to do is pace ourselves,” Auerbach explains. “Try and do it in a normal way, instead of like a couple of maniacs just tearing around the globe. We need to slow it down a bit.”

A major reason for the touring hiatus was that Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney had been on the road pretty much constantly from the release of their commercial breakthrough, 2010’s Brothers, through 2014’s Turn Blue.

“Brothers was our first record that was a hit, and it’s our sixth album,” Carney says. “It took us eight and a half years of pretty much constant work until that happened, and so when it did happen — we’d been a band for almost a decade. We just said yes to everything.”

“We were just burned out,” Auerbach adds. “Been on the road a little too long, hit it a little too hard. Never said no.”

The Black Keys’ return to the road follows the release of their new album “Let’s Rock”, the duo’s first record in five years. That delay was very much a consequence of the burnout from touring.

“When we came back to make our record, I think the only thing that was preventing [recording] from happening sooner was that we had to figure out how we could go make a record that wouldn’t result in us having to go on tour for the entire year,” Carney says. “That’s not something we ever want to do again.”

The Black Keys’ tour continues Wednesday in St. Louis, Missouri. It’ll wrap up in November.

Copyright © 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.