Over the next decade, the Black Keys built an underground fanbase through extensive touring of small clubs, frequent album releases and music festival appearances, and broad licensing of their songs.

They have since released three additional studio albums: Delta Kream (2021), consisting of hill country blues covers;[1] Dropout Boogie (2022); and Ohio Players (2024).

Guitarist and vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney first met when they were eight or nine years old while living in the same neighborhood of Akron, Ohio a couple houses down from each other.

[4] Encouraged by their brothers, the duo began jamming together in 1996, as Auerbach was learning guitar at the time and Carney owned a four-track recorder and a drum set.

[6] It was recorded in Carney's basement in a single 14-hour session in December 2002, an approach necessitated because the group spent its small advance payment from Fat Possum on rent.

[8][10][16] The group had recorded sessions with producer Jeff Saltzman in San Francisco but ultimately aborted them, as they were unhappy that the results sounded too much like "modern-rock radio".

[22] In August, the group made its national television debut on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and performed at the Reading and Leeds Festivals.

[23][24] As fellow garage band the White Stripes grew in popularity, the Black Keys drew comparisons to them—sometimes as a derivative act—since both groups had two-piece lineups, Midwest origins, bluesy sounds, and names with colors.

The Black Keys released an EP titled The Moan on January 19, 2004, featuring "Have Love Will Travel", an alternate version of "Heavy Soul", and two covers.

The group found itself struggling to sell records or gain airplay of their songs on the radio, and they were not making much money either; they had to absorb a $3,000 loss from a European tour.

[27] For their third album, Rubber Factory, the band was forced to find a new recording location, as the building that housed their basement studio was sold by its landlord.

In 2007, producer Danger Mouse began working on a record for Ike Turner and asked the Black Keys to write a few songs for the project.

The duo decided to turn the material they had written into their fifth studio album, Attack & Release, and they asked Danger Mouse to produce the record.

[42] On October 17, 2008, the Black Keys was an opening act for fellow Akron-area band Devo at a special benefit concert at the Akron Civic Theatre for presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The album features rappers Mos Def, Ludacris, RZA, Raekwon, Pharoahe Monch, Q-Tip, NOE, Jim Jones, Nicole Wray, M.O.P., and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard.

[51] Recorded primarily at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, the album was produced by the Black Keys and Mark Neill,[52] and was mixed by Tchad Blake.

[55] The music video, directed by Chris Marrs Piliero,[70] parodied action movie trailers and starred Tricia Helfer, Diora Baird, Sean Patrick Flanery, Christian Serratos, Corbin Bernsen, Todd Bridges, and Shaun White.

[60] Splitting time between touring and recording, the band spent 41 days at Easy Eye Sound Studio, which was opened in 2010 by Auerbach in the duo's new hometown of Nashville, Tennessee.

[60] After struggling to translate the slower songs from Brothers to a live setting, the band decided to write more uptempo tracks for El Camino.

[79] The band cited several retro acts as musical influences on the album, including the Clash, the Cramps, T. Rex, Ramones, the Beatles, the Sweet, the Cars, and Johnny Burnette.

[3][59][60] "Lonely Boy" was released in October as the album's lead single, accompanied by a popular one-shot music video of a man dancing and lip-syncing.

[83] In the US, it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and sold 206,000 copies in its first week, the highest single-week sales and (to that point) charting position the group had achieved in the country.

The album was announced in March 2014 via Mike Tyson's Twitter account, with a link to a cryptic teaser video on YouTube featuring a hypnotist,[99] and was released on May 13, 2014.

The record exhibits psychedelic rock and soul influences and features a more melancholy tone, largely in part due to Auerbach dealing with the divorce from his wife during the album sessions.

[105] In May 2014, the Black Keys embarked on a world tour to support the album, with Cage the Elephant, Jake Bugg, and St. Vincent all separately opening for them.

On April 13, 2021, the Black Keys announced an album comprising 11 covers of hill country blues songs titled Delta Kream, which was released on May 14, 2021.

The announcement was made through the band's Lonely Boys and Girls fan club, through which they also premiered the album's opening track, a cover of John Lee Hooker's version of "Crawling Kingsnake".

The album was well received with one review saying the Black Keys have 'found that creative musical joy again'[119] In March 2024, the band appeared at SXSW 2024, participating in an onstage interview during a keynote event.

The booking was criticized by lifestyle magazine GQ due to the tour's relationship to political action committees financing cryptocurrency friendly politicians in the 2024 US elections.

[132] According to Paste, "they've bounced from the blues to psychedelia to classic, good ol' fashioned rock 'n' roll, and so many of their most interesting tunes bring all those elements together".