The Black Keys "We've put in more hours than anyone"

THE BLACK KEYS' singer/guitarist, Dan Auerbach, surveys his surroundings — a five-star hotel in one of the more salubrious parts of London — and seems satisfied with the trappings of success. "We stayed at the Columbia hotel a bunch," he says, referring to the once-legendary hotel where all rock bands would stay when visiting London, from which Oasis and the Fall were banned for bad behaviour, the latter for flooding the hotel.