Natives of Akron, Ohio, The Black Keys released their debut, The Big Come Up, in 2002, receiving strong reviews and sales and leading to a contract with Fat Possum by the end of the year. That label released Thickfreakness, recorded in a 14-hour session, in the spring of 2003. The Keys supported the album with an opening tour for Sleater-Kinney. The Black Keys’ momentum escalated considerably with their 2004 album, Rubber Factory, which not only received strong reviews but some high-profile play, including a video for “10 A.M. Automatic,” featuring comedian David Cross. The band’s highly-touted live act was documented on a 2005 DVD, released the same year as Chulahoma — an EP of blues covers — appeared. The Black Keys made the leap to the major labels with 2006’s Magic Potion, a moodier record that continued to build the group’s base. The band capitalized on that moodiness on 2008’s Attack and Release, whose production by Danger Mouse signaled that the band were hardly just blues-rock purists. Salvaged from sessions intended as a duet album with Ike Turner, who died before the record could be finished, the album was the Black Keys’ biggest to date, debuting in the Billboard Top 15 and earning strong reviews. In 2011, they released their seventh album, El Camino, which was again produced by Danger Mouse who contributed as a co-writer on each of the 11 songs. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200. They released Turn Blue in 2014 and continue to tour the world.
