The Black Keys on the Fast Track

After finding out that his band’s sixth album, Brothers, was nominated for six Grammys, Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney partied all night in Nashville with his buddy Ke$ha. “She came over to my house and we stayed up really fucking late.” says Carney. He and bandmate Dan Auerbach have a lot more than Grammy noms to celebrate: Brothers placed second on Rolling Stone‘s Albums of the Year list, and the Keys’ songs have been all over TV this year, in ads for Cadillac, Zales and House. “We had this underdog mentality.” Carney says, “But not anymore.”

This story is from the December 23rd, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone.