Patrick Carney

Patrick James Carney (born April 15, 1980) is an American musician and producer best known as the drummer of the Black Keys, a blues rock band from Akron, Ohio. Early life Carney's father, Jim, is a retired reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal and a music lover whom Carney credits with introducing him to various genres. His mother, Mary Stormer, is a retired traffic and parking supervisor for the Akron Municipal Clerk of Courts and is a former member of the Akron Board of Education. Carney has three brothers, William, an Amtrak supervisor; Michael, a graphic artist who created the art for each of the Black Keys' albums until he handed over the reigns for Dropout Boogie; and Barry Stormer Jr., an investment banker. Carney's uncle, Ralph Carney, was a professional saxophone player, and played with Tom Waits, Marc Ribot and the B-52's among others. After Carney's parents divorced when he was 7, he lived part of the time with his mother, Mary Stormer, and his stepfather, Barry Stormer, the owner of a design-build construction company, and part of the time with his father, Jim Carney. Jim had moved to a nearby West Akron (Ohio neighborhood, with Patrick’s stepmother, Katie Carney, a now retired Akron Beacon Journal reporter. Dan Auerbach lived around the block in this new neighborhood, and Patrick and Dan met and played tag football with Auerbach's friends, although Patrick and Auerbach did not become friends until high school. Carney stated in an interview with Modern Drummer that he never took drum lessons as a kid, but learned by mimicking friends that were also drummers, using a $150 drumset that he bought with money earned from a job as a teenager.