In today’s music culture, very few bands venture from the genre box that they are encased in for fear of audience retaliation in the form of lost interest. Two men equipped with mountain men beards, long shaggy hair and flannel crossed over that boundary back in July of 2002 when they found themselves fired by a slumlord and dubbed “black keys” by a schizophrenic Akron artist, who called the boys this, his phrase for people who weren’t quite right.

The two began a musical duo although Patrick’s tastes tended towards Devo and rap, while Dan, gravitated towards folk and the electric blues. Dan says, “The general idea was for people to be able to sit on a porch in Akron with a can of beer and blast the record through a boom box.”

Dan stands on stage and howls sweetly, growls soulfully into the microphone while flicking his guitar strings. He harmonizes plantation rock and delta blues in a style that revels in the days of Dylan and Hendrix. Meanwhile, Patrick’s niche is to thump on the drums enough to restrain Dan from falling too far into the realm of Folk rock and add a touch of his love for ragged, stripped down hip hop and gritty beats.

With their third album out, these guys do not plan on quitting anytime soon. “People can depend on Pat and me to play music and be around for life,” Dan says. “We have to: It’s the only the job skill we have.”