Turn Blue Fever The Black Keys

Turn Blue
Fever Album: Turn Blue (2014)
by The Black Keys

It was reported in February 2013 that Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach and his wife Stephanie Gonis were in the midst of divorce proceedings. Many of the lyrics on the Turn Blue address the breakdown of his marriage and the moody title track finds the vocalist battling depression as he struggles to "stay on track just like Pops told me to."

The arrival of Turn Blue on May 13, 2014 was announced using Mike Tyson's Twitter. The idea to have the boxer unveil the album originated after he called the band to thank them for licensing a song for use in a documentary he was making and he offered to do them a favor in return.

The title is based on a catch phrase used by Ghoulardi, a Cleveland TV host of a late night horror movie presentation between 1963-66. The Black Keys were asked by the BBC what made this appropriate as the title track? Auerbach replied: "We just liked the phrase, first off. We liked the association with Ghoulardi, this kind of weird freak from Ohio from the early 60s - that was phrase he used to use. And then so much of the album was lyrically melancholy and introspective and personal, so it was very blue. I guess it just made sense."

He added: "We also liked how we could translate Turn Blue into artwork for the cover."

After the Black Keys had finished touring El Camino in January 2013, the pair headed to the Key Club studio in Benton Harbor to record an album's worth of songs on Sly Stone's old console. "We left the building once in two weeks," guitarist Dan Auerbach recalled to NME. "It felt like we were on a ship in the ocean."

The band felt that they'd unnecessarily rushed the process and only retained two cuts from the sessions for their Turn Blue album "Fever" and "Gotta Get Away."

This was released as the first single from Turn Blue. The Black Keys gave the song's first UK airing on XFM's Evening Show with Georgie Rogers. "Ultimately I think it's something different than anything we've done before," drummer Patrick Carney told Georgie. "It's a pretty diverse album and a little bit more psychedelic than the last record."

"It always feels strange releasing a single because you have to separate the song from the whole album and you kind of listen to a song out of context for a few weeks," he added. "That's the part I have always had trouble wrapping my head around because for Dan and I, our albums are meant to be listened to as albums. I'm excited for people to hear the song. I'm more excited for people to hear the whole album."

The song's music video features Dan Auerbach as a televangelist, whilst Patrick Carney nods along approvingly on the side. The clip was directed by photographer Theo Wenner, who is the son of Rolling Stone co-founder and publisher Jann Wenner.

Auerbach urges his followers to call his donation hotline number - 1 (646) 397-6172 , which flashes at the bottom of the screen. Try dialing it for a largely indecipherable pre-recorded message, which turns out to be Patrick Carney, posing as New Age act Quartzazium, prank-calling the Black Keys' own label, Nonesuch.

The Black Keys felt freed of the need to write hit singles for Turn Blue, but this still became radio hit. Auerbach told the BBC: "We made five albums without once ever thinking about a single and then we wrote 'Tighten Up' and it got played on radio and changed our career. So from then we started looking at it as a challenge."

"So when we were writing 'Fever,' we wanted it to be catchy," he continued. "We weren't thinking 'this is a radio hit' but it was like 'the melody is catchy, let's do things that would make it even catchier.'"