The Black Keys announce new record Dropout Boogie, see them reconnect with their blue-collar roots in video for Wild Child

The Black Keys have announced their 11th Studio record Dropout Boogie, and dropped a video for lead single Wild Child. Dropout Boogie will arrive on 13 May via Nonesuch Records.

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The album arrive just one day after the 20th anniversary of the duo’s debut, The Big Come Up. Guitarist Dan Auerbach spoke in a press release about how the record keeps a number of first takes from their studio sessions, returning to the stripped-down garage blues that defined their early days.

“That’s always been the beauty of the thing Pat and I do. It’s instant,” said Auerbach. “We’ve never really had to work at it. Whenever we’d get together, we’d just make music, you know? We didn’t know what we were going to do, but we’d just do it and it would sound cool. It’s the natural chemistry Pat and I have. Being in a band this long is a testament to that. It was a real gift that we were given. I mean, the odds of being plopped down a block-and-a-half from each other in Akron, Ohio – it just seems crazy.”

Dropout Boogie sees collaborators such as Billy Gibbons, Greg Cartwright, and Angelo Petraglia join the pair across the record. Both Cartwright and Petraglia appear on the album’s first single Wild Child.

Check out the characteristically tongue-in-cheek video for Wild Child below, which sees the pair “reconnecting to their blue-collar roots – for the album.”

Drummer Pat Carney also touched on the experience of collaborating with ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, stating: “We never even really wrote one song–we just had some ideas we put down. We really just wanted to hang out with him. We stayed in touch, and Dan invited him to the studio once we started working on this album.”

Dropout Boogie will be released on 13 May. You can head here to preorder the record.