The Black Keys Invade Iconic Dive Bar on ‘Little Black Submarines’

Having already released a sexploitation parody as the music video for Brothers cut “Howlin’ For You,” an intra-band brawl for “Tighten Up” and, most recently, a hilarious Harmony Korine-directed alternative visual for the El Camino rocker “Gold on the Ceiling,” for which they dressed up in furry baby costumes, the Black Keys opted for a more straightforward approach when it came time to film the music video for “Little Black Submarines.” 

Essentially a live performance, the video finds the Keys unleashing Zeppelin-style guitar-and-drums mayhem at iconic Nashville dive bar, Springwater Supper Club. Though, as Dan Auerbach tells ROLLING STONE, this wasn’t the band’s original plan. “There was a storyline but it didn’t work,” the guitarist says of the vision that he and drummer Patrick Carney originally had for the Danny Clinch-shot video.

Because they already had performance footage in the can ”“ the Keys, Auerbach says, let a select group of fans into the minuscule bar for the filming of the one song and ended up playing an entire show ”“ a live video became the best option. “We all just sort of kind of mutually agreed that it should probably just be the performance and not any of the other extra stuff,” he says. “Luckily we had live footage so we turned it into a live video. We just sort of said ‘You know, it was fun kind of performing here at a small club with the fans. Why don’t we just have it be that?'”

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