FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 02: Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys attend day 1 of Audacy's Riptide Music Festival 2023 at Fort Lauderdale Beach Park on December 02, 2023 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and DETROIT, MICHIGAN - DECEMBER 05: Jelly Roll attends iHeartRadio Channel 95.5's Jingle Ball 2023 at Little Caesars Arena on December 05, 2023 in Detroit, Michigan.
John Parra/Getty Images for Audacy's Riptide Music Festival/ Scott Legato/Getty Images for iHeartRadio

Rock Duo The Black Keys Say They Nearly Got in a Fight With Jelly Roll

The Black Keys' first encounter with Jelly Roll almost went sideways.

While in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. for the Riptide Music Festival, rock duo The Black Keys' Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach chatted with Audacy's Ashley O about several topics, including a run-in with another artist on the Riptide bill, Jelly Roll.

"What had happened was, I met Jelly Roll 13 years ago, before he was famous and he's just like right out of prison probably, it was 2010," Carney recalled. "I was with this friend of ours, Harmony Korine, we were in Nashville at this hip hop show. Yelawolf was just coming out starting to perform and I went and Jelly Roll was there. I didn't know who he was."

The filmmaker behind "Kids" (1995), "Gummo" (1997) and "Spring Breakers" (2012), Korine spent part of his childhood living in Nashville. He's directed numerous music videos, including the one for The Black Keys' 2012 song "Gold in the Ceiling."

 "Harmony was joking around about something," Carney continued. "Jelly Roll thought we were making fun of him, and he just rolled up to me and just scared the living crap out of me. Like, 'Do you wanna go...?' And I was like, 'Nope, I'm good dude. Nice to meet you though.'

To Jelly Roll's defense, he readily admits —in song and elsewhere— to having changed dramatically as a person prior to his rise to country stardom.

"He seems a lot different. He was very angry then. He was a rapper then," Carney said. "We had just made a hip hop record that came out like a year earlier. So, I guess we were kind of on his radar and he might have, I don't know. He just, he kind of flexed on me and I was like, 'Oh, you don't realize I'm a wimp.' I mean, I can talk some smack, but I, I'm not backing it up."

Both members of the Akron, Ohio-formed Black Keys now reside in Nashville.

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