Patrick Carney to Produce New Sheepdogs Album, Sounds Off on Nickelback

The Black Keys drummer, Patrick Carney, has a couple of Canadian connections of late. The first is that he is producing the new Sheepdogs record (via Rolling Stone). The Sheepdogs were the winners of the Rolling Stone Choose a Cover contest, and shot a music video last year in Trinity Bellwoods in Toronto. Sheepdogs lead singer Ewan Currietells Rolling Stone, “We’re recording live in the same room with no headphones. Pat’s got great ideas and we all seem to be on the same level.”

So that is Patrick helping a Canadian band. The second piece of news is Patrick slamming a Canadian band – Nickelback (but who DOESN’T like to slam Nickelback?!). Patrick tells Rolling Stone:

“Rock & roll is dying because people became OK with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world. So they became OK with the idea that the biggest rock band in the world is always going to be shit – therefore you should never try to be the biggest rock band in the world. Fuck that! Rock & roll is the music I feel the most passionately about, and I don’t like to see it fucking ruined and spoon-fed down our throats in this watered-down, post-grunge crap, horrendous shit. When people start lumping us into that kind of shit, it’s like, ‘Fuck you,’ honestly.”

Comparing The Black Keys to Nickelback is like comparing Scarlett Johansson to Rosie O’Donnell – both in a League of Their Own. Although The Black Keys have found arena rock sellout crowds of late, this was after years of authentic, non-mainstream yet amazing blues and garage rock, endless tours, and never selling out. Nickelback studied how to make popular music and have done that – for every album, and almost every song. I’m interested in hearing Nickelback’s reply to this, if anything. After all, you can’t reply to every band that hates you or else they’d never have time to churn out more generic, mainstream rock.