Wonderwall

Black Keys Hint at New Album, Plot Tour with Flaming Lips

The Associated Press, Monday, January 7, 2013, 10:00am (PST)

Billboard -- The Black Keys are gearing up for their eighth studio album as their seventh LP, 2011's "El Camino," has a shot at an Album of the Year Grammy next month. The duo plans to hit the studio this month, and have offered a quartet of tour dates alongside psych-rock maestros the Flaming Lips in the meantime. "We're going to start making the new album in the second week of January and we're hoping to have it done by some time in March," frontman Dan Auerbach tells Mojo (via NME ). "Then we have a couple of weeks of touring, then we're going to take the summer off, which we haven't done for a while. The record isn't written yet, we'll do it when we get into the studio. This is when we both work best, when we're dying to make an album. All of our records take place in the studio, in that we make stuff up while we're there."

"El Camino," which has sold 1.1 million copies according to Nielsen SoundScan, came in at No. 2 on Billboard's Top Rock Albums year-end chart for 2012, behind Mumford & Sons ' "Babel." The group is nominated for five Grammy awards, including Record of the Year for "Lonely Boy," as well as Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Album and Best Rock Song. After joining the Rolling Stones onstage for that group's final "50 and Counting" concert on Dec. 15, the Black Keys will briefly hit the road with the Flaming Lips beginning April 28 in Kansas City. Check out all four dates below: April 28: Kansas City, MO (Sprint Center) April 30: Pittsburgh, PA (CONSOL Energy Center) May 2: Atlanta, GA (Aaron's Amphitheatre at Lakewood) May 3: Nashville, TN (Bridgestone Arena)