Hear the Black Keys’ ‘Wild Child’ From New ‘Dropout Boogie’ LP

The Black Keys have released a new song, "Wild Child." The track serves as the first single from the band's upcoming 11th album, Dropout Boogie, which is slated for release on May 13.

You can listen to the song below.

Guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney wrote all of the material for the new album in the studio, and several of the tracks featured on the album are the first takes.

“That’s always been the beauty of the thing Pat and I do - it’s instant,” Auerbach said in a press release. “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.”

Once the "initial ideas" came together, the duo invited various collaborators - including Billy Gibbons, Greg Cartwright and Angelo Petraglia -  to perform on the LP. The latter two can be heard on "Wild Child."

“Living in Nashville and making records here has opened both of our minds to that experience a little bit more,” said Auerbach. “I knew Pat would love working with both of these guys, so we decided we’d give it a shot. It was the first time we’d ever really done that. It was fun as hell. We just sat around a table with acoustic guitars and worked out a song ahead of time."

"The cool thing with Greg," Carney added, "is that he wants to approach stuff with a story in mind — there’s a plot, almost."

Dropout Boogie arrives less than a year after the Black Keys' 2021 album, Delta Kream, a collection of blues covers that reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200. Dropout Boogie arrives exactly one day before the 20th anniversary of the band's debut album, The Big Come Up. The band is also scheduled to embark on an extensive tour this summer that stretches through October.

"Every musical decision that we made kind of ended up working out in our favor," Auerbach told Rolling Stone in 2021. "We saw a lot of bands just jump from zero to 100 and start headlining festivals and then they’re gone. We’re still here. I think that in our own stupid way we did the right thing."

Dropout Boogie is available to pre-order now.