Black Keys mainman Dan Auerbach has been signed up to write the soundtrack to accompany a comic book series.
And he says the music he’s writing for Murder Ballads is strongly rooted in the blues.
Publishers Z2 Comics say the mini-series is “a rock’n’roll noir story about the music industry – and redemption.” It follows desperate label owner Nate Theodore who discovers a “doom-laden blues” duo he hopes will turn his fortunes around.
Auerbach tells Vulture.com of his collaboration with comic writer Gabe Soria: “Where we kind of met up was on the music front. The music that he was talking about, I could wrap my mind around it. He knew I was really big into northern Mississippi music, so I understood the reference points when he was talking to me about it.”
He doesn’t advocate trying to read the comic while trying to follow the lyrics in his songs, though. “That’s like doing two yo-yos at once,” he says. “I know how I’m going to enjoy it – I’ll do them separately, but they’ll be connected in my mind.”
The Black Keys can wait. Dan Auerbach has all this other shit to do.
